Reconnect West Seattle’s bus brainstorm proposed replacing some car trips traveling between West Seattle and Southeast Seattle with an alternative that would take up less road space. This market certainly isn’t well served by transit today. Witness Route 50:
The eastern half of this route used to head downtown as the 39, but this was redundant with Link. The 50 is now a milk run that provides East-West connectivity between the major corridors in both the Rainier Valley (Rainier, MLK, Beacon) and West Seattle (Delridge, 35th, California).
In theory, it also provides a coveted East-West Connection in one of the few southern corridors that can do this in a roughly straight line. Indeed, zipping along the West Seattle Bridge would have been time-competitive with driving. But instead, it takes a costly detour through Sodo for a couple of reasons:
On September 21st, the Council approved 9-0 an agreement for street improvements funded by ArenaCo.
There are three transit improvements:
“Converting a travel lane on 1stAve N to a bus-only lane between Denny Way and Republican St”
“Installing a transit queue jump at 1stAve N and Republican St”
“Converting a travel lane on Queen Anne Ave N to a bus-only lane from Mercer St to John St”
The total project cost is $990,000. $594,000 comes directly from ArenaCo. The remaining $396,000 will also come from ArenaCo, but will count towards the $3.5m in street use fees that ArenaCo previously owed.
The legislation also authorizes another $445,000 in credits for various bike and pedestrian improvements, including a raised protected bike lane.
The Reconnect West Seattle “Implementation Plan” is out, but it doesn’t contain any big decisions about transit. They have, however, issued an RFP for another water taxi, though there’s no funding for one.
Today is the last day you can take the survey on Sound Transit’s proposed 2021 service levels. You can read Brent’s summary of the very complicated ST Express changes. It’s worth highlighting that the expectation that Link will run at 15-minute intervals through all of 2021 undermines the entire rationale of light rail.
Given plummeting ridership, sharp cuts at the start of the pandemic and a gradual restoration make a lot of sense. But if “reduced rush hour demand” is the reason to still keep service levels low, it’s perplexing that the worst hit times are everywhere but rush hour, where riders might wait 2 minutes more than they did in 2019:
A RapidRide at Bellevue Transit Center (Image: Oran Viriyincy)
Yesterday, King County Executive Dow Constantine transmitted the proposed Metro budget for 2021-2022. The budget eliminates several planned RapidRide expansions. Metro will dig into reserves to fund service, and will defer a planned increase in fares. The budget also funds a significant expansion of the electric battery bus fleet. The depletion of reserves sets Metro up for future service cuts unless new revenues can be found by 2024.
The K line in Bellevue/Kirkland is cancelled, apparently having come up short against Renton on an equity analysis. Another line in East or South King County that had been scheduled for 2027 is also dropped.
Metro is cutting funding for the J line (to Roosevelt via Eastlake). But SDOT suggested Tuesday that they would attempt a scaled-back version of the project where the line would terminate to U District station instead.
Also unfunded is the R line on Rainier Ave, previously scheduled for 2024. The Executive indicated there would be a future effort to secure federal funds for this line, but didn’t say when that might happen.
Bellevue Transit Center, with routes to be replaced by more service on Stride in blue, and routes to be modified (and likely reduced) for Stride in green
As part of ST3, Sound Transit is planning to run three BRT lines (branded as Stride), two of which will run predominantly on I-405. These are going to be line S1, running from Burien to Bellevue, and line S2, running Lynnwood to Bellevue. Both lines are going to meet at Bellevue Transit Center, where transfers can be made from one Stride line to the other, or to Link or other bus service. Details are vague; Sound Transit has only said that the Stride S1 and S2 lines will serve the existing transit center, but has not said which bus bays Stride will serve. Sound Transit has also not said where buses will layover after arriving in Bellevue, and whether there will be additional BRT stops at the layover points.
Currently, ST Express routes 560 and 535 (which will be replaced by Stride when it opens) stop at Bellevue Transit Center immediately after exiting the freeway. But both routes continue beyond the transit center to their respective layover locations, and in both cases, there is a bus stop there (the 535 also serves multiple bus stops near Bellevue Square on the way to its layover stop). When Stride opens, both routes (which run every 30 minutes at best) will be replaced with much more service, with headways at 10 minutes during peak and 15 minutes off-peak. This fact is significant because it will further squeeze the peak capacity of Bellevue Transit center.
Three of the many King County Metro bus routes suspended as of this morning / Photo by Zack Heistand
Those of you who commute to work via a King County Metro express bus may find your route gone this morning. Today is the first weekday of Metro’s biannual service change. It is probably the most painful service change Metro has ever undergone.
David Lawson covered the details of how many routes have been savaged due to Metro’s budget hole. The number if routes shut down entirely is unprecedented. A few were due to a restructure of routes in South King County, but most are simply peak commuter routes that were both expensive per trip, and not well-used. Indeed, about half of Metro’s commuter express routes have been mothballed.
New route 162 will provide some limited replacement service for routes 158, 159, and 192.
Other routes being suspended for reasons unrelated to the South King County restructure include 22, 29, 47, 71, 78, 200, 204, 208, 232, 237, 246, 249, 342, 628, and 931.
There are bright spots amidst this carnage, most notably that Link Light Rail (operated by King County Metro operators) is bringing usable frequency back today, and will be following the schedule posted at the stations for the first time since January 3. If you are used to driving to a park&ride in South King County for your commute, Link, with it’s 8-minute peak headway, could be your new ride, and Angle Lake Station or Tukwila International Boulevard Station your new P&R.
Metro’s budget, and therefore its service, is unlikely to improve much until the economy recovers. The economy will not recover until the virus is defeated. If you want a return normality, wear your mask when around other people, and urge everyone else emphatically to do so as well.
