Community Transit, heading into this weekend with a minor service change to add late night and midday service, is proposing the addition of 21,000 bus hours of service (a 6 percent increase) in September 2017 and March 2018. The service proposal includes new service from Lynnwood to the Boeing Everett plant, as well as extensions and modifications to existing routes to improve connections at transit centers. Both service changes are funded by the 0.3 percent sales tax increase passed by voters in November 2015, which will also fund the next Swift line (between Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mill Creek).
In September, 13 routes would see routing changes, schedule adjustments, and frequency improvements.
- Route 105 would be extended north from Mariner Park & Ride to the Boeing Everett plant via Airport Road during peak hours only (in both directions), also serving most of the Paine Field industrial area and Community Transit headquarters. The route would cover all of the Swift Green Line corridor (scheduled to open in 2019) and would be retained for local service, similar to Route 101 and the Swift Blue Line today.
- Peak-only local Route 106 would be realigned onto the Bothell-Everett Highway through Mill Creek, eliminating part of its routing in Mays Pond (to be replaced by Route 115).
- New Route 107 would be added, bringing peak service between the Boeing Everett plant and Lynnwood Transit Center via the Mukilteo Speedway, serving a “growing demand” for direct service from the south.
- Route 115 would no longer serve Mariner Park & Ride, instead continuing east through Mill Creek and Mays Pond to Silver Firs, serving areas currently on Route 106. The route would retain its all-day 30-minute service from Edmonds to Mill Creek, but frequency to Mays Pond and Silver Firs would be cut to 60 minutes outside of peak hours.
- Route 196 would be extended from Alderwood Mall to Ash Way Park & Ride, better connecting the route to the regional transit system. The current route skips Lynnwood’s other transit centers at Edmonds Community College and Lynnwood Transit Center in favor of staying on 196th Street SW, making transfers unnecessarily difficult.
- Routes 270, 271 and 280 would be re-routed in Downtown Everett, using Hewitt Avenue and Broadway instead of Cedar Street and Pacific Avenue.
- Route 277 would be eliminated in favor of extended trips of Routes 270 and 271 to the Boeing Everett plant.
- Route 280 would be re-routed in Granite Falls to serve the city’s high school, and turnback trips to Lake Stevens would add a short loop to serve the city’s current library (which was nearly moved closer to the transit center in last month’s elections).
- Routes 240, 271 and 280 would receive 37 midday trips on Sundays to create 60-minute frequencies all day.
In March 2018, 1 route would be modified and new trips would be added to 7 others.
- Route 209 would be extended from Quil Ceda Village near Marysville to the Smokey Point Transit Center via Interstate 5, creating a single-transfer to the mall from other North County routes.
- 11 evening trips would be added to the Swift Blue Line and Routes 105, 109, 113, 130, 196 and 202, creating extended service.
During both service changes, approximately 16 trips would be added to commuter routes serving Downtown Seattle and the University of Washington, split between morning and evening service and determined based on ridership demand.
Community Transit will take public comment on the service change proposal through April 7, through its website, (communitytransit.org), e-mail (ProposedService@commtrans.org), phone number (425-353-7433), social media accounts (Facebook.com/communitytransit, @MyCommTrans on Twitter, or the Twitter hashtag #CTProposal), and written comments mailed to Community Transit, 7100 Hardeson Rd., Everett, WA 98203.
The agency will also hold talks about the proposal at various transit centers, libraries and senior centers in March, as well as an online webinar at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 14, and a public meeting at Everett Station on Tuesday, March 23 at 3 p.m. The proposal will also have a public hearing during the Board of Directors meeting at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, April 6 (accessible via Everett Transit Route 8).
What’s the holdup preventing them from simply adding an out-and-back spur on the 196 to Lynnwood TC? It seems like the market they are trying to preserve is people who need to go from Edmonds to the mall ASAP. Is that worth sacrificing the regional Lynnwood TC connections?
Because the amount of time a deviation to Lynnwood TC would add to every thru-rider would be non-trivial. The bus would have to wait for several additional stoplights, plus the loop through the bus bays itself. I’m not sure exactly what the penalty would be, but my gut feeling is about 10 minutes, which is enough to justify keeping the route straight. If someone wants to go from Lynnwood TC to Edmonds, there are other routes available, which do that.
In general, transit agencies as a whole tend to error too much on the decide of delaying thru-riders to serve park-and-ride lots and transit centers, often adding several minutes of travel time to 20+ people to serve a stop where only 2-3 get off or on. Sometimes, they even do this in cases where there are no other bus routes in the transit center to connect to (route 245’s deviation to Houghton P&R), when the only routes you could possibly connect to, the same connection would have existed elsewhere without the deviation (route 248’s deviation to Bear Creek P&R – totally unnecessary because it also connects to the 545 at Redmond Transit Center), or cases where the route in question makes the deviation all day, even though the bus routes to actually connect to are peak-only (Community Transit Route 271’s deviation into and out of Monroe P&R).
In the specific case of the 196, you would need to count the number of thru-riders vs. the number of riders that would get on or off at Lynnwood TC, if the connection existed. Only if the number of transferring riders would significantly outnumber the number of thru-riders would the additional time penalty make sense.
Does this…
Lynnwood TC -> Edmonds
Lynnwood TC – > somewhere along 196th St
Lynnwood TC -> Alderwood Mall
…heavily outweigh this?
Edmonds -> Alderwood Mall
196th street -> Alderwood Mall
With the local and Seattle connections at Lynnwood TC, wouldn’t that be a foregone conclusion? And the Seattle connection they are creating by extending the 196 to Ash Way P&R is OK, but it still doesn’t have as good local connections, and it delays Seattle-bound riders more than the Lynnwood TC deviation would delay Alderwood Mall-bound riders (due to the backtrack on the 512).
And when what about when Lynnwood Link opens in 2023? Are they going to tell people to transfer to 512 at Ash Way, just to transfer to Link at Lynnwood TC? I thought that the whole point of a transit center is that it would be as close to as many intersecting routes as possible, but routes would deviate from a natural grid as a trade-off to make it posible to transfer between them.
It’s 5 blocks! It’s like the 181 deviation in Federal Way, but about 1 minute longer. I never heard a proposal to move the 181 away from FWTC and keep it on 320th street. The deviation won’t take 10 minutes. If it even comes close to 10 minutes, that would only be because enough people are using it to justify the deviation anyway.
You are aware of the 116, and 130 routes.
116 – Edmonds downtown, Edmonds CC, and Lynwood TC.
130 – Edmonds downtown, Aurora Village TC, Mountlake Terrace TC, and Lynnwood TC.
It is true that some routes deviate to unnecessarily deviate to park & rides for the mere sake that they’re a park & ride. The F-line to Tukwila Station is another good example: aside from the Sounder, there are no connections to be made.
However, in the case of the 196, I would have to question the demand for ridership between Edmonds and the mall. It is a very isolated and almost micro-focused route to bring Edmonds riders to Alderwood. Most of the western-half of the route (a primarily residential area) needs to be served. But if riders aren’t going to the mall or businesses along 196th St, then transfers require a 5 block walk to the LTC for Bellevue, UW and downtown service.
I have suggested to CT that the 196 deviate to the LTC and I hope they’ll eventually make the change.
Speaking of 2023 we may also have the orange line by then as an option to get from Edmonds to LTC though it runs further to the south in Edmonds.
The 196 would not have to wait for too many extra stoplights. There’s exactly one more going and one more coming at 148th and 200th and it’s a short light. Currently all 115/116s have to go through it. The deviation through the transit center is no worse that ALL of the other bus’s deviation. You’re probably looking at 5 minutes max to make a nearly worthless route worth something. Adding in Ash Way P&R and Lynwood transit center would make this a very useful route. Currently it let’s people from Edmonds go to the mall with a one seat ride…
There would be significant delays on the 196 by sending it to Lynnwood TC and there are alternative routes to Edmonds from the TC. Five minutes extra per trip would result in trip deletions to allow for that. Not sure CT taxpayers and riders would be happy with that.
Route 107 may finally give me a good tranist route to work. I live in Seattle and work at Paine Field. The best route I can find right now is to ride the 512 all the way to Everett Station, then transfer to the 3 (Everett Transfer) and ride that route along its full length. The 107 will allow me to transfer from the 512 and have a direct link up to work. I’m excited.
Depending on when you need to be at Paine Field, King County Metro’s 952 serves Ash Way on the last round trip, connecting with a 512 for service between Seattle and Paine Field. It seems to be about 10 minutes faster than the 512/ET 3.
Depending on a connection to a bus that has come from I-405, all the way from Renton to Lynnwood, feels a total crapshoot, since I-405 traffic is so unpredictable, and if there’s any kind of congestion on I-405, you’re going to be stuck waiting at the bus stop for who-know-how-long. In the middle of rush hour, depending on a connection feels like utter folly.
In this specific case, however, the 952 only runs very early in the morning, with the last trip leaving Ash Way P&R around 7 AM. Maybe this early enough to beat the rush hour and have some semblance of reliability (not sure, as I’m usually still in bed at this time).
The 952 connection is actually a little too late for me. I have to be in by 6:00 am at the latest, but the one 952 trip that stops in Ash Way does so at 6:49 am according to the schedule.
Just realized the first 512 is also a little to late for me right now. So until my schedule changes, I guess I’m stuck driving.
Bummer. 6 must be a common start time, since the first 952 seems to be designed to meet that.
That’s an interesting hole in the system, isn’t it? You can make the 6am shift if you’re coming from Auburn, Kent, Renton, Bellevue, but not from Seattle. Even the 107 won’t fix it unless they add early morning runs from Seattle to Lynnwood, which I guess they could do as a 512 run, if they put an early morning Everett deadhead into revenue service? Might be worth suggesting to Sound Transit.
I’ve got some questions of my own about two of these routes, but this looks like a good step in the right direction for CT.
The 115 will be every 30 minutes to/from Silver Firs its during the non peak hours that the Mays Pond loop will be skipped. If ridership warrants all trips go through Mays Pond then it will likely happen March 2018.
Friends who work there tell me that the 196 is direct because the 115 and 116 cover the Ash Way to LTC routing and that 196th is a “transit emphasis corridor.” Within the next 2 years, construction is to begin on a “BAT” lane between roughly the Lynnwood Convention Center and just west of Fred Meyer.
“AvgeekJoe”: FYI, I’m told that they’re at least looking into whether stops are possible near the Museum of Flight for the new 107. I’ve heard that a stop may be possible, but only in one direction. If they ever put a stop along SR-526 by the Museum of Flight, you can take Swift Blue south to Lincoln Way, walk over to the 107 northbound stop. I’ve lobbied Everett Transit to make the #70 (Mukilteo-Boeing) bi-directional (as they have existing stops on 84th), which would cost them next to nothing, but so far they’ve ignored this suggestion. Right now, I suppose one could take the Sounder from Everett, deboard at Mukilteo, then take the #70 up the hill…