Breaking down East Link Starter Line ridership

335 Replies to “Breaking down East Link Starter Line ridership”

1. Thanks for your ongoing reporting, Sherwin!

   I’m going to guess Wilberton Station may be one of the successes of the New Line, with some popular destinations close by: Uwajimaya, Whole Foods, and Kaiser, I can’t say that I enjoyed riding the B Line or the pedestrian environment the last time I went to then-Group Health there.

   15-minute headway will be a downer, and, I suppose, possible justification for not truncating STX 566 yet. I’d love to know where the operators will come from in a still-shrinking pool of Metro drivers. Or are those operators already on the full live testing Picks?

   Also, won’t it be necessary to move up to 10-minute headway for full live testing of crossing Lake Washington?

   1. Unless something has changed in the past week, the service plan is all-day 10 minute headways.

      Regarding ridership, although Microsoft is mostly WFH still, I think there there may be some “induced demand” by opening this fast, easy connection between Bellevue where a lot of Microsoft employees live and main campus where they work. Probably not enough to get to the full ridership projections but more than current ridership on the very slow RapidRide B.

      1. Thanks! Maybe I’m getting confused with the current 1 Line headway.

      2. The committee presentation said ST was testing two-car trains on 10-minute headway. I hope they implement one-car trains on five-minute headway. Yes, it would use more operators and power, but it would have shorter waits and attract more riders. Let the billions in capital sing with some service.

      3. In service they have to run, at a minimum, two-car consists due to ADA requirements.

         Also, per ST’s website, “Service on the 2 Line is proposed to run with two-car trains every 10 minutes, 16 hours a day.”

      4. @Mike,

         “ In service they have to run, at a minimum, two-car consists due to ADA requirements.”

         Huh? Please explain.

         Each individual Link LRV is ADA compliant. So why is one ADA compliant Link LRV not ADA compliant, whereas if you couple two ADA compliant Link LRV’s together suddenly the pair becomes ADA compliant? Makes no sense.

         And ST has run single car LRV trains in the past. Why can’t they do the same thing now? What has changed?

      5. @Lazarus

         I can’t speak to exactly when or why operating procedures changed. I do know that they used to run single cars in service, but they won’t anymore, and I believe it has something to do with wanting to provide “adequate” ADA space per train.

      6. @Mike,

         Can you point to this anywhere in the literature? Because I’m still surprised by this.

         The ADA space per LRV doesn’t change just by adding more LRV’s. If what they are really saying is that they are setting a max on crowding levels to protect ADA riders, then fine. But you can meet that by adjusting frequency too.

         Very odd. And I’ve bounced this off a few people who *should* know and they are surprised too.

      7. “In service they have to run, at a minimum, two-car consists due to ADA requirements.”

         They didn’t in the first several years of Link? There were short trains evenings; I don’t remember whether they were one car or two. Doesn’t the T line have one car?

      8. T Link is a single car with 2 articulations.

         From the annual report.

         “Sound Transit owns three electric-powered light rail vehicles manufactured by Inekon and Skoda Dopravni Technica of the Czech Republic. All vehicles are equipped with APCs.”

      9. They are considered a streetcar or tram, rather than light rail, is my understanding.

      10. if ST has an ADA two-car minimum rule, perhaps it is for the 1 Line; should it note be factored for the ridership? It the headway was five minutes, the wait for the next ADA space would be short. How would ADA user go between LRV?

      11. The strongest argument I can think of for why the ADA would care about a two car minimum is to avoid a situation where a person with mobility issues needs to quickly run across the platform to catch a train that stops in a different place from where they expected. However, this problem seems solvable with signage and doesn’t actually require multicar trains.

   2. when I visited the KP hospital, I used Route 250; it was more pleasant.

      1. The 226 and 250 both go to the hospitals from Bellevue TC, with 15-minute combined frequency weekdays, from two adjacent bays at the TC. I used those when I was visiting a relative at Overlake last summer. The routes split at 116th & 12th, north of Whole Foods.

      2. Mike: Route 250 is 15/15; it replaced routes 234 and 235 in 2020; Route 226 is 30/30.

2. I think of the ESSL as a mere pre-opening phase. I don’t see much demand evolving that isn’t already on transit. It’s simply to save face about the delay.

   Sadly, ST only talks about ridership when it’s only good news. They were thrilled to announce success almost immediately after the Taylor Swift bump but will not dare to talk about how many riders their current reduction costs them riders. So I expect the results will be merely buried in ridership reports until the full line opens.

   1. “It’s simply to save face about the delay.”

      I agree. This is a huge self-made f-up by ST and this ELSL (I can’t believe we all had to learn yet another acronym for this exercise) is mostly being used as cover. If it ends up delaying the RSD for Lynnwood Link, still listed as July 2024 on the master schedule as of the latest published progress report, I’m going to be quite annoyed.

   2. I don’t see much demand evolving that isn’t already on transit.

      That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. I’m sure you could do a detailed analysis of UW Link, for example, and find almost all the riders were taking transit before. There was a minimal increase in overall transit ridership — people mostly just switched from taking the bus to taking the train. So what? The point is, those riders had a much faster trip.

      In this case, the increase in overall ridership may be even smaller. That doesn’t mean this isn’t a good idea, or a way to “save face”. The cost here is minimal — the ridership doesn’t have to be huge. We aren’t talking about justifying the capital costs, only the operational costs. That is a very low bar to clear. Basically all this line needs to do is get ridership a bit higher than a typical bus (on the East Side) since the alternative to running the train is to run more buses (which is a little bit cheaper).

      1. I think both things can be true at the same time, i.e., ST is “saving face” with this (hopefully) temporary exercise, and, utilizing the section of EL that is ready to go and spending those operational dollars for service being a sensible decision. AS LONG AS DOING SO DOESN’T IMPACT LLE’S REVENUE SERVICE DATE, then sure, let’s get some use out of these assets and see where the ridership is at and coming from. With the disturbing news about the pace of progress on the plinth replacements, the case for running this abbreviated line seems to have gotten stronger.

3. Outside of Downtown Bellevue workers parking at South Bellevue to save money, I don’t see any identifiable larger market of riders for this service. I only see very small ones — like Downtown Bellevue to Whole Foods or Belred car service/ repair.

4. “The more cynical take is that ridership growth will continue to be stymied by two main factors: the abundance of free parking on the Eastside and slow progress in TOD development. ”

   More TOD development is unlikely, especially with lenders backing away from spec projects and construction loans 7-8%. Read the room: Amazon stopped constructing five office towers in downtown Bellevue, and MSFT abandoned its downtown B’vue offices.

   Add a third factor to why ridership will be paltry: remote and hybrid work arrangements. ST didn’t count on those . . .

   1. ESSL will only operate for a year or at most two (unless there is some awful 2 Line problem that hasn’t been revealed — watching ST it’s possible that there more problems that have yet been disclosed).

      TOD is pretty irrelevant to such a short time period unless it’s already well into construction or actually open.

   2. > More TOD development is unlikely, especially with lenders backing away from spec projects and construction loans 7-8%. Read the room: Amazon stopped constructing five office towers in downtown Bellevue, and MSFT abandoned its downtown B’vue offices.

      While the office plans definitely are in danger, the apartments on Eastside garner pretty high rent. I doubt they will cancel the plans completely. There’s still plenty of existing tech/other jobs on the eastside that demand for housing isn’t dropping that quickly.

      Of course as Al noted, this doesn’t matter too much for the short term and TOD construction will take some time.

      1. Bellevue developers have placed 69,000 apartments in North Bellevue on pause. Bellevue developers have never felt East Link or transit or TOD was necessary or critical to their development plans. After all, they shunted East Link from Bellevue Way to 405, and these proposed units have lots of underground parking and are not targeting the transit crowd. Kyle is a little low on the construction interest costs for this kind of development, if it is available: the cost is closer to 10%, certainly until the building is completed and leased/sold. The difference between 10% and 1-2%/year pre-pandemic is just huge.

         Although most are starting to suspect this is the new normal these are such huge projects and decisions most are taking a pause to better see the future (especially investors, banks and REIT’s). From 2010 to 2021 conditions for building were probably as good as ever and the country went on a building boom in every area, from SFH to multi-family to commercial offices because money was free.

         The future developers and banks want to better understand has to do with tech hiring, jobs allocation between downtown Seattle and the eastside (especially moving Amazon workers from SLU to Bellevue), interest rates, population growth, aging Millennials wanted a SFH and not a condo or apartment, WFH, everything except East Link or transit or TOD.

         Transit follows. If Microsoft remains WFH there is almost zero point to run Link from Bellevue to Redmond, which despite being a city of 84,000 ST estimated would have only 1300 daily boardings pre-pandemic. If another 1 million high AMI folks move to this region that will spur housing development in North Bellevue, but none of it will be transit oriented.

         It looks pretty sure WFH is here to stay and the peak commuter is dying. So commercial office towers and urban cores will suffer unless they have great retail and downtown population. Transit ridership will stay depressed compared to pre-pandemic levels. I don’t think there will be free money for another decade so development will have to pencil out under the new interest rates. I don’t know if downtown Seattle will ever recover but right now it looks unlikely, and Northgate Mall opening won’t help. Future population growth projections look highly inflated, certainly in King Co.

         So everyone right now is just holding their cards. Life is good. The job market except tech is strong. Workers love WFH. Metro is cutting peak routes. Downtown Seattle is disappointing but there are so many other areas to spend your money in this area that are clean and safe and vibrant. Hopefully Covid does not reemerge.

         The next big card will be defaults or walking away from major office towers in downtown Seattle and across the U.S. The loans come due in 2024. Basically that will be like calling in a card game. The other big card is how does Seattle close a $250 million operations budget deficit in 2024 while hiring another 500 police officers. Compared to these transit problems are pretty mild. Metro needs to cut around another 10% of service, mostly peak, and ST at some point will admit it can’t complete ST 3, but not today.

      2. Projected City of Seattle Budget Deficits:

         2023 Adopted GF is balanced
         2024 Endorsed GF is balanced
         2025 Projected $221M gap in GF
         2026 Projected $207M further gap in GF

         General Fund expenses are projected to increase by a cumulative total of $544 million from 2022 to 2026, with the majority going to employee salary and benefit costs.
         • 85% of projected expense growth is due to anticipated labor agreements.
         • 4% of growth is related to Human Service Provider contract inflation which is set by ordinance.
         • The remainder of the projected growth includes items such as the Seattle Police Department’s recruitment and retention plan, replenishing the Emergency Reserve Fund which was used during the pandemic, and internal service costs for areas such as employee healthcare, facilities and fleet maintenance, and information technology.

         https://harrell.seattle.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/FINAL_Workgroup_Report.pdf

      3. Careful Alonso, this isn’t an open thread as Eastside Blues found out, although good post.

   3. I find it a little karmic that ST will suffer lower ridership due to WfH. They won’t even stock the mask dispensers any more, much less designate a safer car on each train, so we can get the case numbers going in the right direction again and maybe some day be rid of this blasted virus.

      1. “maybe some day be rid of this blasted virus”

         Good luck with that. Covid is not going away, and it’s approximately as safe to ride transit without a mask today as it was in 2019. Anyone should feel free to wear an N95 wherever and whenever they want, but it’s just not a rational idea that there should be a mask-only car on Link trains in 2023.

      2. When my father spent several days in intensive care this summer, the hospital did not require his visitors to wear masks in his room. If a medical institution says it’s OK for intensive-care visitors to go maskless, case closed. There’s no reason for a new mask mandate unless there’s another disease outbreak or an air quality issue, or if you have a common cold and don’t want to pass it on.

      3. I’d love to see Dave’s data.

         Try walking into Kaiser without a mask. I bet one of the staffers will politely point you to one of their mask dispensers.

         I still don’t see how anyone can take affront to the idea of having a car on each light rail train with signs politely asking riders on that car to wear a mask or pick another car. For ST, it would mean more ridership, and possibly saving money on stocking up the mask dispensers on the other cars. Heck, it might even save lives.

         In the case of the starter line, it’s not as if the other car will be crowded. And Kaiser is one of the major destinations, relatively, of the starter line.

         The signage could be as simple as floor mats saying “Riders are requested to wear a mask on this car” with a pictogram of how to properly wear a mask.

         Enforcement could be as mild as passengers pointing someone to the dispenser, kinda like how my family was once shushed on the quiet train my family did not realize was a quiet train.

         But what happens if asdf gets on that car and refuses to wear a mask? I will take that over having 75% of the riders around me being maskless every time I have to ride the train. And yes, I will ride a lot more. If asdf then wants to boycott ST altogether, go for it.

         Y’all seem quite fearful that that car would be the most popular. It may be the case, but it seems to me to be a very irrational thing to fear.

      4. Brent, I appreciate that you’re willing to battle for mask requirements, and I’ve generally avoided participating in debates regarding masks. However, I don’t think anyone’s “afraid” that a mask-only car would be “the most popular” – as you note, it seems that less than 25% of riders are choosing to wear masks today.

         There there are few general mask requirements still standing, including in medical facilities. I know Swedish and Kaiser dropped their total masking in May, when the federal Emergency Order ended. A quick google finds that Polyclinic says masking is optional there, as well. Frankly, I don’t know of any place which still strictly mandates masks.

         As you mention, restricted-use cars exist in other systems for other situations, like quiet cars or women-only cars. However, these cars exist because there is enough demand for these restrictions. Maybe a good campaign would be to pass out business cards suggesting riders email ST to implement Masks-Only cars.

      5. Brent: My father was in Swedish Issaquah, and they didn’t ask us to put on masks. I also have sisters-in-law who work in and with Swedish, and they said masking was optional. The Swedish staff didn’t blink when we all entered the hospital without masks, and the doctors and nurses attending to my father didn’t tell us to put on masks when we were in his room.

         If Swedish and my sisters-in-law, one of whom is a nurse practitioner specializing in cancer, say that masking is no longer a requirement, that’s the end of the story. I believe my dentist is no longer requiring them for patients, too.

         I dutifully wore my mask throughout the pandemic, and seethed at those imbeciles breaking COVID regulations. Now that the CDC and major hospitals have removed the mask mandates, I’m so thankful to see the smiles of other people after two years.

         You can feel free to wear one if you’re worried about your health risks, and I’ll put definitely put one back on if we suffer another pandemic and the CDC/authorities order us to, but for now, I’m putting them in storage.

      6. The number of people that would be more likely to ride Link if there were a mask-only car is vanishingly small. Almost nobody wears a mask anymore, and if you can’t handle unmasked people around you on the train, what do you do in whatever building you are going to after you get off the train.

         As to why not, there are plenty of reasons. Sometimes, the train is full and “just ride another car” isn’t an option. If ST security can’t even enforce fares and no-drug rules, they for sure would not be able to enforce any kind of mask rule. It would also create the impression that transit is inherently more risky than everything else in life in terms of disease spread, which, in and of itself, would deter riders.

      7. Nathan,

         I appreciate the breath of fresh, honest air you bring to this discussion.

         Unfortunately, face-to-face campaigning is the last thing I’d expect the roughly 15 million immunocompromised Americans to do. Nor would I ask it of them.

         I’d rather the rest of the population have empathy, and support reasonable accommodations. Or that at least the elected officials would. Sadly, it has been left up to governors to show courage, while my pleas to local electeds and grocery stores have met with dead air or feigned helplessness. The co-ops have been particular disappointing for the past couple years.

      8. > I’d love to see Dave’s data.
         > Try walking into Kaiser without a mask. I bet one of the staffers will politely point you to
         > one of their mask dispensers.

         Brent, it seems you are behind the times by several months:

         “Kaiser Permanente is no longer requiring people entering our health facilities to wear a mask that covers their nose, mouth, and chin unless it is mandated by city or county laws”

         https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/news/covid19-public-health-emergency-ending-what-will-change

         There is no public health emergency anymore for covid-19, so it’s appropriate for masks to be very optional on all public transit. Most of us, including myself, went to great lengths to carefully follow public health guidelines during the covid-19 emergency to protect ourselves and others. However, that era has been over for a while now.

         By making the argument on here that masks should be required on public transit, it sounds like you are claiming to know more about public health than our public health agencies and hospitals, which now recommend a masks optional policy, even in hospitals. By thinking your own ideas are better than public health policies, you’re making a similar error as the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers made 1-2 years ago, just in the opposite direction.

5. I was kind of curious what the ridership in comparison would be if the link did connect (page 25) https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/projects/eastlink/eis_2011/04_chapter3_transportation.pdf#page=25

   * Judkins Park 3000
   * Mercer Island 1500
   * South Bellevue 4000
   * South Main 1500
   * Bellevue TC 5000
   * Wilburton 500
   * 120th 500
   * 130th 1000
   * Overlake Village 1000
   * Redmond Tech 2500
   * Marymoor Village 1500
   * Downtown Redmond 1000

   I’m kind of surprised South Bellevue was analyzed to have this high ridership? Also that Marymoor village supposedly gets higher ridership than downtown redmond.

   Anyways back on topic for the shortened segment, the route unfortunately misses Bellevue way. the highest new trips over the busses I see is going to bellevue mall from the overlake village area apartments. For Bellevue Crossroads the B line still makes more sense.

   1. These estimates are obviously pre-2020 as 2020 boarding estimates are given when East Link was originally scheduled to open to Bellevue in 2020, and appear to be part of the study for the different alternatives when Bellevue balked at Bellevue Way. For some reason ridership estimates are also given for 2020 past Bellevue, including Redmond Link, which was part of ST 3 and never supposed to open until 2024-25. So I’m not really sure what kind of thought was put into these estimates, which are very round numbers.

      It is also interesting that The Spring Dist. is referred to as 130th and Wilburton as the Hospital Dist. I am assuming “SE 8th” is now East Main with 500 boardings, in 2020 and 2050, so I guess upzoning Surrey Downs or massive TOD along this part of 405 was not included in the estimates.

      Do I think 40,000 riders would ride East Link in 2020 had it opened and there been no pandemic? No. Do I think 50,000 will ride in 2050? No. Today probably 25,000 boardings max. less boardings in Seattle. Maybe 20,000. 50,000 is not much less than ridership on the central line today (80,000 daily boardings).

      Not surprisingly pre-pandemic the stations with the highest ridership have the largest park and rides.

      What would be interesting is to overlay ridership on buses along this same route today to compare ridership on buses today (at least those buses Metro hasn’t eliminated) and ST’s ridership estimates on Link.

      1. Ah, this link is the 2011 EIS which was pretty fantastical itself, but not as fantastical as later ST’s estimates. ST continued to increase ridership estimates after this, and IIRC decided to terminate all buses across the lake. MI did not become an intercept until later in late 2017. Ridership estimates in the 2011 EIS for MI in 2020 were 1500 and in 2050 2000. Those ridership estimates increased to almost 14,000/day with the proposed optimal bus intercept configuration that would bring 20 articulated buses to MI per peak hour, but ST argued such a massive change did not need a supplement to the EIS. Today I think the 1500 figure is ironically probably correct for MI despite the intercept, although ST raised that to 3000 for Islanders only later but still pre-pandemic.

      2. “I am assuming “SE 8th” is now East Main”

         Yes, the earlier plans had a station at SE 8th Street instead of Main Street. It was moved, probably to serve south downtown and the upzoned corner lots on Main better. I don’t remember the arguments for/against. The SE 8th & 112th location now has an exit from Surrey Downs for emergency vehicles only.

         “It is also interesting that The Spring Dist. is referred to as 130th and Wilburton as the Hospital Dist.”

         120th is Spring District. Wilburton/Hospital is at 116th & NE 8th Street. Bel-Red/130th is a kind of expansion area for the Spring District for when the center is built out.

         All these station names were preliminary planning names. ST goes through a public process during line design for the final names.

         How many boardings to SODO and Stadium Stations get for comparison?

      3. @Mike: “Hospital” always more sense to me than “Wilburton”, given the presence of Overlake Hospital and Group Health/Kaiser/whatever it is now across the street. I’m not even sure where the Wilburton area is. Given the constant Wilburton Tunnel references on traffic reports, I always thought “Wilburton” was closer to Factoria than 8th. Street.

   2. Marymoor and South Bellevue ridership is partly driven by people who park at the stations.

      I expect a huge shift from Eastgate to South Bellevue garage when Link fully opens. I expect some Sammamish riders will park at Marymoor rather than Issaquah.

      The big unknown is of course how many will drive to the stations rather than get dropped off by someone in their household or by a ride hailing app service. Other transit agencies saw a surge in drop offs in the past decades, and several BART stations with garages are now seeing as many drop offs as those coming from those garages.

   3. The most recent forecasts I’ve seen were put in this STB post from 2020:

      https://seattletransitblog.com/2020/01/27/sound-transits-station-ridership-in-2040/#:~:text=Ballard%20just%20tops%2010%2C000%20and,expected%20to%20see%2016%2C700%20boardings.&text=On%20the%20Eastside%2C%20just%20two,Bellevue%20is%20one%20of%20them.

      It’s 2040 with a full ST3 system and it’s unclear how many are rail-rail transfers but I think they are counted with each new train boarding. It’s also pre-Covid.

6. I think the ridership overall is going to be abysmal, but if I had to rank the stations from highest to lowest ridership, I think it would go like this: 1, Bellevue Downtown, 2 Redmond Technology, 3, Overlake Village, 4, Wilburton, 5, South Bellevue, 6, Spring District/120th, 7, East Main, and 8, Bel-Red/130th.

   1. I think I would put E Main at the bottom based on where that station ultimately was situated. Unless the hotel parcels are redeveloped I just don’t see this station ever attracting that many riders.

      1. It’s not intuitive to an outsider, but some new stores like Whole Foods and Target on 116th are easier to reach from East Main than from Bellevue Downtown or Wilburton.

   2. I’d put Overlake Village lower, especially if we’re talking about the Starter Line. The station is in the far northwest corner next to the freeway. From Safeway it’s probably a ten-minute walk, and that’s the closest of the existing retail. The major TOD expansions are still under construction or haven’t stared yet. The 226 and B get closer to the existing retail, and don’t get very close to the station for transfers. A bigger transfer point will probably be Redmond Tech, where the 245 and B will probably (hopefully?) be closer to the station.

      1. I put Overlake Village Station higher because there’s a large apt village nearby called Esterra. There’s also the Village at Overlake Station, a large, low-income apartment bldg that sits above the Overlake P&R. Then, if the Overlake Village Pedestrian Bridge opens in time, I could see the station attracting riders from the apartments over by 148th ave, although that’s a bit of a walk.

7. Another nice Sherwin piece.
   ST and Metro could improve the ridership attracted on the ELSL by revising a few bus routes.

   ST could truncate Route 566 at BTC; the segment between BTC and RTS duplicates Link. Route 566 might be run more frequently south of BTC.
   ST could consolidate Route 545 into a much more frequent Route 542 extended to Bear Creek. Link only takes seven minutes between UW and Westlake stations. The downtown Seattle pathway is slower as SDOT took lanes from 4th and 5th avenues. The I-5 general-purpose lanes are jammed.

   Route 250 could serve the Spring District station if shifted to 120th Avenue NE from 116th Avenue NE north of NE 12th Street.
   Route 226 could serve the three Bel-Red stations if shifted north of Bel-Red road.
   Route 249 could serve the three Bel-Red stations as well.

   Several stations are served by routes at existing transit centers: RTS, BTC, and South Bellevue P&R.

   1. Are you suggesting that 249 should duck in and out of running along Northup Way to connect to Link? Or just that it should abandon Northup altogether? IMHO there is little value in having 249 shadow the light rail route. That section of 249 seems to be the most heavily used, and it seemed like a lot of people were riding specifically to go to and from places along Northup, so that will hurt the riders (maybe not ridership, but the riders themselves). If anything, the 249 should be made more frequent to build ridership along that segment, or have the 226 double up with it along Northup or something.

      When people talk about truncating 545 or merging with the 542, the relevant comparison is not the time 545 takes from Montlake to downtown vs. UW to Westlake; it’s that vs. UW to Westlake PLUS the time to reach the platform PLUS the average wait time for the train. So we’re talking about a 15 minute transfer penalty with the current 15 minute headways, plus a few minutes to get to the platform, so… call it 18 minutes altogether. That’s at best a wash vs. the 545 even with the jammed lanes – we’re talking about a 2 mile trip down I-5 GP (exit 168B to 166, I believe). Plus you have to add the time to get back up to the surface once you’re downtown, too. So 20 minutes. This is why people hate transfers. And ST has not proven that they are capable of making transfers seamless or even manageable.

      1. To be clear, my “15 minute transfer penalty” is 7 minute travel time + 7.5 minute average wait time, and then a couple of minutes to get to the surface and to the platform, respectively – 2 minutes for downtown stations, 3 minutes for UW because it’s deeper. Thus 20 altogether.

      2. with waits and walks included, Route 542 and Link is faster in both directions in both peak periods than Route 545. Route 545 is faster in the off peak periods when I-5 is less congested.

      3. I rode routes 256 and 249 quite a few times; yes, there were riders; most were at the east end on NE 20th Street. Northup was used to connect South Kirkland with the light industrial area where the workers wanted to reach. The ELC P3 has Route 249 terminate at the Spring District. No route would serve the light industrial area served by Route 249 and the former Route 256.

      4. Right, yeah, I was assuming we were talking about the 249 as it currently stands, as it will not be restructured for the starter line.

         Do you have the numbers to show what 545 looks like at peak time? I don’t doubt your assessment, if you have the numbers that prove it I am certainly willing to buy it, but I’m curious to see them. My intuition from riding the CT commuter buses over the years suggested otherwise but it’s just intuition so I very well may be wrong.

      5. I personally think the 249 should just go away entirely and its service hours redirected into making more important routes such as the 250 run more often. If there exist any special-use cases where the 249 is unusually well-used (e.g. kids riding the bus to Interlake High School because their parents are too busy to drive them), Metro can jigger something out so that those particular trips remain, perhaps as an extension to some other route.

      6. The 226 also serves Interlake High School.

      7. It does. But the 249 and 226 are not substitutes for one another because they serve different neighborhoods on the way to the school.

         I don’t have any data in front of me, but I do know that many suburban residential neighborhoods actually do generate decent ridership for that one bus trip that is aligned with the local high school’s start/end times. It just looks like bad ridership overall because the one trip that is well-ridden is balanced out by a bunch of empty trips running the rest of the day.

8. “The more cynical take is that ridership growth will continue to be stymied by two main factors: the abundance of free parking on the Eastside and slow progress in TOD development. Neither of these can be changed overnight, but the mere start of Link service might be enough of a catalyst to help move things along.”

   I don’t know why that is “cynical”. The eastside has an abundance of free parking especially for discretionary car trips, and there is very little TOD today although East Link was supposed to open in 2020. In fact, if you look at the development plans for Wilburton and The Spring Dist. the planned development was never “transit oriented”. Yes, East Link stopped nearby, but the demographic the developers were targeting were not transit riders. Surely ST knew this in 2004, let alone today. Non-transit users don’t see Link as some kind of upper-class transit over buses that beats their car or Uber.

   I would add WFH and transfers. In the past eastsiders rode transit because parking in Seattle is expensive but rarely used transit for intra-eastside trips. Metro is cutting peak routes on the eastside for a reason. Why would any eastsider drive to a park and ride to catch the ELSL when the line doesn’t go anywhere where there isn’t free parking? If the target market is eastsiders who don’t own cars I am not sure there are 6000 of those, and how do those poor saps get to the starter line?

   We will see if “mode” “induces” demand, at least among eastsiders who don’t usually ride transit for the fun of it.

   I think transfers will be a big deal even when East Link across the lake opens, let alone a short starter line. For example, how many Issaquah residents travelling to Bellevue Way for work on the 554 will transfer at S. Bellevue? How many on the 550 today will transfer at S. Bellevue for the last part of the trip to Bellevue? There is just no gain for an eastsider on a bus taking an intra-eastside trip to transfer to the ELSL even if it is going toward their destination. That is the fundamental issue for both the starter and full East Link line: what will make an eastsider in their car decide to pull into a park and ride and transfer to Link? If the trip is intra-eastside — especially non-peak — I can’t think of any reason to transfer to Link.

   If I were Metro or ST I would be very hesitant to start rearranging bus routes to feed a starter line to nowhere. Ok, Balducci needs the starter line for her career, but it is stupid, but eastsiders won’t care as long as it does not impact their lives. Metro does not need the grief, and ST is a much different animal than it was pre-pandemic and can’t go around making riders lives worse because it built Link probably where they shouldn’t have, or four years after East Link was supposed to open is opening a starter line. That alone is pretty humiliating.

   Let’s see how many riders on the 550 transfer to the ELSL before we start rearranging bus routes to feed this stupid starter line.

   1. No Route 550 riders may transfer to/from the ELSL; that is not a valid test. A better test is whether using the already budgeted East Link operating funds a year earlier attracts enough riders. Overlake, Spring District, Wilberton, downtown Bellevue, and East Main are not “nowheres”.

9. addendum: Route 550 riders will use the ELSL to/from the east of BTC.

10. Given st’s track record the elsl will be in use plenty longer than a year…

11. “ early ridership estimates were pegged at a modest 6,000 average weekday boardings”

    Ah, 6000 might appear “modest” to some, but it is actually quite good for an Eastside route that doesn’t cross the lake into Seattle. For example, 6000 is 50% greater than the approx 4000 daily riders that the RR B line gets, despite all the service hours Metro has squandered on that route.

    It will be interesting to see what happens with RR B after the ELSL opens. The starter 2-Link will be twice as fast (often even faster) as RR B between common destinations, but the number of common destinations on the two services is relatively small. And, even though both services will be operating at 10-min frequencies, it is unclear if riders will decide to pay the transfer penalty and transfer to ELSL given the short travel distances on the starter 2-Link. This is particularly true of transfers in the middle areas of the ELSL.

    That said, Link in general is a quality service, and it will be perceived as “new” and “modern” by many image conscience Eastsiders who wouldn’t normally be caught dead on a bus. I suspect rail bias will be stronger on the Eastside than it has been even in Seattle, and that alone will generate a new ridership bump.

    But these things are hard to predict, and only time will tell for sure.

    1. “For example, 6000 is 50% greater than the approx 4000 daily riders that the RR B line gets, despite all the service hours Metro has squandered on that route.”

       There need to be at least one full-time frequent route on the Eastside. The B is it. It’s not squandering. It’s letting people who can’t/don’t want to drive have at least one place in the Eastside where they can live and have reasonably good transit.

       1. @Mike Orr,

          “ There need to be at least one full-time frequent route on the Eastside. ”

          Why? If the route is absorbing too many resources for the ridership it generates, then why does it “need” to be there?

          And keep in mind, there isn’t much “Rapid” in “Rapid”Ride B. It’s just marketing.

          The ELSL will be the first truly “Rapid” line that the Eastside gets. The focus of all parties involved should be on leveraging it’s success for the benefit of the ridership base.

       2. Didn’t the RR B open in 2022 and has only 4 stops along 520? Although the frequency is squirely it looks like 15/30 M-F, with what looks like better frequency on Saturday than M-F. Is that correct? https://metrotransit.net/depts/transportation/metro/schedules-maps/hastop/b-line.aspx

          If this is supposedly the eastside’s one “frequent route” for Metro I think it is time for Metro subarea frequency because based on ST subarea equity my guess is the eastside pays the same amount of Metro taxes as Seattle (not including the extra levy).

          First/mile access from Redmond looks like a park and ride. No parking in Bellevue but that is a destination. Not sure about the two other stops. My question is how does someone on the eastside get to and from their doorstep to the B? And what does someone who lives on the eastside do if they don’t own a car and want to go somewhere other than the four stops on the B?

          If Redmond ever got some retail vibrancy of its own I would think ridership on the B would go down. I am surprised somewhat by the lack of retail vibrancy in Redmond which has 84,000 residents, but some eastside cities like Sammamish just don’t want retail, at all.

       3. @Lazarus

          The larger difference is that rapidride b on ne 8th is much closer to Bellevue crossroads both all of the apartments and the mall

       4. Daniel,

          If you click on the route map from the link you shared, you can see the (more or less complete) set of stops on the route, the 4 you indicate are simply the “timed stops” i.e. those with assigned arrival/departure times.

          I do not personally remember when RR B opened but Wikipedia tells us it was around 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RapidRide_B_Line

          Anecdotally, I have always found the route to be well attended for the East Side. It is no RR E or 7 but it gets decent, steady ridership, as expected for a flagship line for the region. I have never ridden the old 253 so I do not know how it compares.

       5. “Why? If the route is absorbing too many resources for the ridership it generates, then why does it “need” to be there?”

          What are you basing the claim on that the B is squandering resources or that it has too few riders for the resources? You don’t seem to want transit at all if you want to relegate the entire Eastside to 30-minute evening and weekend service except the blocks that Link happens to serve.

       6. “If the route is absorbing too many resources for the ridership it generates, then why does it “need” to be there?” Lazarus, the same could be asked about the starter line.

       7. EastLink really doesn’t duplicate RapidRide B much. It’s kinda similar to the in SE Seattle Link down Mlk and the 7 on Rainier. And the east link for most of it’s length is even farther away.

       8. The point is, what’s wrong with 4000 riders? What’s wrong with the B’s number of runs for it? Saying the B has too many resources for its riders means it’s failing a threshold, so what is that threshold? Why is that threshold valid? If only other Eastside routes were so lucky as to have as much ridership as the B.

       9. Daniel: the B Line opened in fall 2011; it had and has the policy RR headway of 10/15/15/15. It replaced most of routes 230 E and 253. The frequency of routes 255 and 271 were improved in 2010 and again in fall 2011. Route 245 is 15/15. In 2020, Route 250 was implemented at 15/15 east to Redmond; the Avondale has two tails; Route 255 was truncated at UW Link and made more frequent; the north tail was deleted; all trips begin/end at Totem Lake. ST routes 545 and 550 are also frequent.

       10. So Eddie, is the published schedule for the B wrong?

       11. @WL,

           Of course East Link doesn’t go to Crossroads. East Link goes to the major destinations on the Eastside, and the mall simply isn’t one of them. Nor are the apartments in that area all that dense.

           Now if your point is that RR B exists, and is routed the way it is, because of social equity considerations, well then OK. That would explain a lot.

           Additionally, RR B just isn’t that rapid. Well more than half its stops aren’t full RR Stations with offboard payment. They are just traditional bus stops with normal onboard payment. So at best call it RapidRide Lite. Because that is what it pretty much is.

           So why the extra investment? Social equity? County politics?

       12. @Lazarus

           > Of course East Link doesn’t go to Crossroads. East Link goes to the major destinations on the Eastside, and the mall simply isn’t one of them. Nor are the apartments in that area all that dense.

           > Additionally, RR B just isn’t that rapid. Well more than half its stops aren’t full RR Stations with offboard payment. They are just traditional bus stops with normal onboard payment. So at best call it RapidRide Lite. Because that is what it pretty much is.

           I’m not really sure what are you trying to get at? RapidRide’s have always been BRT lite. And only the most popular stations receive the full rapidride treatment with the other ones remaining as “stops” this is same for the other rapidride’s.

           > So why the extra investment? Social equity? County politics?

           Of course king county metro would love if it could get bus lanes if that’s what you’re asking, but that’s usually up to the city to approve. So it usually has to settle for transit priority signals.

           Regarding why it was chosen, this is getting a bit more into County politics as you described but the rapidrides chosen to be built are distributed semi per king county boundaries aka this article explains it better https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/03/22/rapidride-route-selection/ .

           I mean that’s why the K rapidride is being built, even though there’s plenty of other seattle routes that would have higher ridership (which I’m not against, I guess it’s a soft form of ‘subarea equity’ as Daniel Thompson likes to describe. It’s also why the K rapidride goes to totem lake and not redmond as it’s kirkland’s “reward” so they get to choose.

       13. Lazarus, crossroads is a popular destination on the eastside, public transit is very popular with its residents, and at least by eastside standards, the the neighborhood is dense. It’s the second most densely populated neighborhood in Bellevue, after downtown. If Link had gone to crossroads, the station would have had high ridership, again, by eastside Link standards.

       14. “Of course East Link doesn’t go to Crossroads. East Link goes to the major destinations on the Eastside, and the mall simply isn’t one of them. Nor are the apartments in that area all that dense.”

           Don’t be ridiculous; the B is not a coverage route. There are apartments all along NE 8th Street and 156th. The B is an appropriate level of service for them.

       15. When Lazarus says the B is a coverage route, is that like when Daniel says Seattle isn’t urban because it’s not like Manhattan or London?

       16. @Lazarus

           > Of course East Link doesn’t go to Crossroads. East Link goes to the major destinations on the Eastside, and the mall simply isn’t one of them. Nor are the apartments in that area all that dense

           In an ideal world, East Link should have gone east on NE 8th street either at-grade or elevated and then veered north on 148th Ave NE or 156th Ave NE to reach both the apartments there and redmond technology center. Of course that was never politically palatable.

       17. @WL,

           “ In an ideal world, East Link should have gone east on NE 8th street either at-grade or elevated and then veered north on 148th Ave NE or 156th Ave NE”

           Ah, no! What you describe is a bus routing, and Link is not a bus.

           With a bus the route typically does make sharp turns, and often goes out of its way to pick up a few riders at various smaller destinations like retirement centers and libraries. The resulting route serves many destinations, but is often very circuitous and indirect, with lots of stops. The result being that travel times are long and reliability often suffers.

           Link is different. Speed and reliability matter, and direct routes help in providing both.

           Bellevue, Tech Center, and Redmond were always the 3 main destinations for Link on the Eastside. Connecting them in the most direct way was the goal of Link, and would also generate the most new ridership. This is what the current direct routing does, and is fundamentally why Link will have travel times that are 50 to 70% quicker than RR B between the same destinations.

           Does that mean that social justice and equity based routings for Metro buses are a waste? No, not necessarily. There is a role for such routings, but we shouldn’t confuse such routings with fast reliable transit. And such routings certainly don’t need, nor benefit much, from a RR level of investment.

       18. > Ah, no! What you describe is a bus routing, and Link is not a bus…

           First off, many light rail and metro lines alignments for the highest ridership follow previous bus alignments. It isn’t quite a surprise that high bus ridership alignments also are good candidates for rail ridership. The link path was chosen because it has a freeway right of way / goes through industrial land. Also the route through crossroads would have been pretty direct as well.

           > Bellevue, Tech Center, and Redmond were always the 3 main destinations for Link on the Eastside. Connecting them in the most direct way was the goal of Link, and would also generate the most new ridership.

           No, what you are focusing is express service, is not purely the goal of Link, and doesn’t garner the highest ridership. One needs to connect the most offices and retail together with residential, while Bellevue and Redmond stations definitely have plenty; it would have been better to connect with Bellevue Crossroad’s residents too. Plus otherwise we would have built commuter rail instead of light rail

           > This is what the current direct routing does, and is fundamentally why Link will have travel times that are 50 to 70% quicker than RR B between the same destinations.

           The route would have been barely longer and also would be traveling straight down NE 8th and only has one turn to head north. then can just rejoin 520 after going through microsoft.

           > Does that mean that social justice and equity based routings for Metro buses are a waste? No, not necessarily.

           I’m not sure why you keep bringing this up for RapidRide B. It has nothing to do with social justice but that is where people live so that is where ridership is. If king county metro wanted to they could easily run an 5 minute frequency express bus from redmond to bellevue only but it wouldn’t have high ridership. Realize that those apartments are a good chunk of where people live in bellevue.

           While it is definitely nice that they are implementing TOD in the industrial lands, the current routing of east link manages to go through the least dense portion of bellevue besides downtown. https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#10/47.6066/-122.1790

       19. Anonymouse, Mike, Mercer Island’s resident Transit Guru doesn’t need to bother with trivial “inside baseball” concepts like “schedule time points” and “indicates”.

           Knowledge of such ephemera is for the three or four people living on The Eastside who are forced by their bad life choices to ride transit.

       20. Tom,

           I do not see any reason to judge anyone who uses transit (or does not, for that matter), and certainly would not imply that their life choices are bad for that reason, even in jest. For that matter, I believe that at least one of the two people you named used transit while living on the East Side, and they appear to be a highly competent human being.

           I appreciate the attempt at humor, but the ad hominem seems misplaced, especially as it literally backfires onto the people you are replying to. I urge you to reconsider.

       21. “In an ideal world, East Link should have gone east on NE 8th street either at-grade or elevated and then veered north on 148th Ave NE or 156th Ave NE to reach both the apartments there and redmond technology center. Of course that was never politically palatable.” – hard no! The new alignment through Spring District & Bel-Red is excellent & is one of the best things about East Link. The TOD opportunity is the triangle bounded by 405, 522, and Bel-Red road. The B-line routing misses completely misses all that future TOD.

           B-line is a good route and does indeed serve a fair amount of multi-family in Wilburton & Cross-roads, but that’s all low-rise development. Once built out, the walksheds of Spring District & Bel-Red station will be much denser and generate far more ridership than if Link had run on 8th. Overlake Village station would be better if it was pulled away from the freeway (say, 24th & 152nd), but WL is wrong on criticizing the station placements at 120th & 130th, even if the initial ridership at those two stations are low as the TOD is mostly still under development.

       22. @AJ

           > The new alignment through Spring District & Bel-Red is excellent & is one of the best things about East Link. The TOD opportunity is the triangle bounded by 405, 522, and Bel-Red road. The B-line routing misses completely misses all that future TOD.

           The TOD opportunities there are definitely exciting, however one doesn’t need TOD if you run the train through areas with existing density/apartments.

       23. > > B-line is a good route and does indeed serve a fair amount of multi-family in Wilburton & Cross-roads, but that’s all low-rise development.

           I’m a bit confused does no one here know that there are apartments around bellevue crossroads? https://www.google.com/maps/search/apartments/@47.6209495,-122.1537011,15.53z/data=!4m2!2m1!6e1!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu

           It’s honesty has some areas that have comparable residential density to some parts bellevue downtown. Lots of bellevue downtown are really just offices and it’s only for like a small area.

           https://mtgis-portal.geo.census.gov/arcgis/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=2566121a73de463995ed2b2fd7ff6eb7

           Or for a more detailed one, this one shows the pockets since many are offices. https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=f9cb5e481ecc48bfbdd6486c42e19a24&find=bellevue

       24. @WL,

           “ the route through crossroads would have been pretty direct as well.”

           Ah, the last time I checked the Pythagorean theorem was still a thing.

           Pythagorus was a reasonably intelligent sentient being. His work has held up for over two and a half millenniums. I see no reason to start questioning him now.

           And just because some bus routes have direct routings doesn’t mean that RR B is one of them. The RR B route is definitely NOT a candidate for direct conversion to LR.

       25. @Lazarus

           The train needs to stop and start for the stations and the route through bel red has two curves as well. I doubt the time saved would be more than a minute compared to ne 8th

       26. Anyways it’s fine, this reminds me of the proposals to route link up i5 ignoring rainier valley and losing out a quarter of the ridership

       27. Is there a single building in Crossroads above 3 stories? Yes, there has long been good density there, which is why it merited a Rapid Ride last decade, but there’s no growth there.

           Everything in Bel-Red will be 6-10 stories tall. It won’t be Cap Hill densities (because parking), but it will be closer to Cap Hill than Crossroads once it is built out. I don’t believe Bellevue has considered up-zoning Crossroads, which is why Crossroads is never considered for transit improvements – the B is sufficient.

       28. @WL,

           “I doubt the time saved would be more than a minute compared to ne 8th”

           I think I’ll stick with Pythagoras over your “doubts”. He has been right pretty much every time over the last 2500 years.

           I have no “doubts”.

       29. @Lazurus

           …. Have you actually looked at the east link route. It runs straight west and straight north and makes turns for most of it. Whether it does that through belred or on ne 8th St makes zero difference. It is only for the last segment east of 140th Ave Ne is it actually traveling diagonally.

       30. > Is there a single building in Crossroads above 3 stories? Yes, there has long been good density there, which is why it merited a Rapid Ride last decade, but there’s no growth there.

           Bellevue downtown with square boundaries has a density around 5,000 per km 2 some sections around 4,000. Bellevue crossroads is around 3.5k and 4k. People really overstimate height for density and forget a lot of bellevue downtown are office buildings not residential

           https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?layers=38b7672a1977426caa6cf4c62e37b777&find=bellevue

           It’s true there isn’t as much growth in the future, but I doubt spring district will actually catch up to bellevue crossroad in the near or even mid term.

       31. “In an ideal world, East Link should have gone east on NE 8th street”

           I originally thought that because 8th was the traditional bus street and the center of eastern Bellevue. Officials chose a Bel-Red alignment instead, to support multistory office/apartment growth in the Spring District. That seems like a good choice now, and it’s a more direct and shorter route to Redmond. Also, I later learned Forward Thrust would have been in Bel-Red too, not on 8th like I thought.

           The Spring District upzone extends to 124th & 8th; my relative’s apartment complex until last year is in it right on 8th. They’re planning to replace a dozen garden-apartment buildings one by one. It hasn’t happened yet so I don’t know how tall they’ll be; I assume they’ll be going from 2 stories to 7 stories.

           There are lowrise 2-4 story apartment buildings all along 8th and 156th. I assume that area won’t be upzoned because the concentration is going into the Spring District and Overlake Village; but as I said the Spring District upzone area extends to 8th. So what 8th and 156th needs is a full-time frequent bus — which is what the B is.

           The main controversy about the B is the detour to 152nd between NE 24th and NE 36th instead of remaining on 156th. That’s for a senior center and a similar building — so there’s the equity/coverage part of the route right there. I’d tend to keep the bus on 156th, but my elderly relative who has a walker and can’t walk more than a couple blocks says the detour is important.

           Looking on Google Maps, it appears that the 152nd detour will serve the Overlake Village Link station. I thought the station was further away. So maybe I’ll be able to take a bus south from there rather than from Redmond Tech. But that may be a dilemma if the B doesn’t get close enough to my destination, the 245 serves only Redmond Tech, and the 226 serves neither station. Which will I choose?

       32. @Mike Orr,

           You are correct. The Bel-Red corridor, in one form or another, has been the preferred route for high speed, high capacity, transit in that part of the Eastside since at least the late 60’s. And for obvious reasons.

           RR B isn’t really “high” speed transit, so its purpose and routing ends up being set by other considerations. Despite its name, it functions more as a coverage route, with social equity considerations in play. It is not the sort of route you would mimic with LR.

           Incidentally, I just saw a #79 going down the street in RR livery. Please don’t tell me that Metro is upgrading the #79 to RR.

       33. Anonymouse, it was all hyperbolic snark. I do not know anyone on The Eastside who is forced to you use transit because of poor life choices and was not implying that there actually are any.

           If one reads Daniel’s orations carefully there is a repeated odor of class prejudice against transit users coupled with predictions of ever-collapsing ridership and a call for defunding transit. What other motive might one impute to his constant calls for “Metro Sub-AreaEquity”?

           People have spent billions of electrons trying to educate him, and he has learned some important principles. But he’s like the CCP leadership, using a warped form of “learning from the enemy” in order to destroy them.

           Further “reasonableness” is wasted; the only thing left is to jeer.

       34. Lazarus, what do you think is the best corridor in the Eastside for a RapidRide line? Where should the B have been instead? Pretend East Link doesn’t exist, so you can say Bel-Red Road or 20th/Northup Way if you want. Or do you think no corridor is suitable, that the entire Eastside is coverage?

       35. https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/schedules-and-maps/b-line

           Daniel: The B Line seems to have the RR policy headway.

       36. The B line’s detour originated from route 253, which precedes it. The 253 took 148th Ave. from Redmond to NE 24th St., then cut over to 156th St., following the route of the present-day B-line to Crossroads and downtown Bellevue. However, at 24th/152nd, the 253 didn’t just go straight through; it took a detour 1/4 mile north, then wound it’s way through the Village at Overlake parking lot, served one bus stop, then repeated everything in reverse to go back to 24th. This was a perfect example of transit at its worst -singling out one building more or less arbitrarily and saying to its residents “you’re special; so we will detour the bus to come to you so you don’t have to walk, even if it means wasting everyone else’s time”. Except, of course, the bus only ran every 30-60 minutes, so even the people that were so special to get a bus detouring just for them, the bus service still sucked. My anecdotal experience is that almost nobody ever got on or off at the detour stop, which served little purpose other than to waste the other riders’ time.

           So, that’s the 253. Then, the B-line came along to replace it. They were looking to streamline the route, but Metro didn’t want to abandon the people in that one building by making them walk to 156th. So, they compromised and had the B-line detour to 152nd, but at least stop on the street rather than going into the parking lot. They then took the full detour into the parking lot that the 253 used to do and added it to the 249, figuring that nobody rides the 249 anyway, so an extra detour would delay almost no one.

           The irony is that the B line’s 152nd detour actually does have some use, but it’s not really about that one “special” apartment building like Metro originally intended. Instead, the real use case of the B-line detour, is to improve access to the Fred Meyer and other retail along 148th Ave, a use case that I myself have done multiple times.

           One other point I’ll say about that “special” building Metro originally detoured the bus for…as the crow flies, the building is actually about equidistant between 152nd and 156th, but the pedestrian network only opens onto 152nd. What the people in that building really needed was not a detour of the bus, but a simple pedestrian path to 156th.

       37. Before the pandemic, the B was the best performing Metro route serving the East Side. Only a handful of Metro routes that venture outside of Seattle performed better: the A Line, the 164 (which has been replaced by other buses) and the 372 (which gets a lot of riders within Seattle). From what I can tell, the 550 performs better, but the two agencies may report their data differently. The 550, of course, also serves Seattle. To call the B Line a coverage route means that every bus serving the East Side (other than the 550) is a coverage route, which seems like a big stretch.

           The B would appear to complement the full versions of East Link quite well. For example, the B runs along 8th, which will connect up with the Wilburton Station. As a route, I think it is fine. I would maybe do two things:

           1) Skip the detour to Overlake Village Station. The bus connects up to Link further north (at Redmond Tech Station) anyway. I assume it does this now to connect with express ST service. I’m sure it picks up some riders as it detours, but my guess is not enough to justify it (there are other ways to serve those riders).

           2) Turn on Redmond Way instead of looping around. The drawback is that this would cause the 250 to loop around. This seems worse, in my opinion. The 250 is the main way to get from Redmond to Kirkland. Unlike the B, there is no Link alternative for any of the trips. Like various aspects of the B, the loop complements Link quite well. Right now it must be irritating if you want to go from Downtown Redmond to Downtown Bellevue. Pretty soon though, you just take Link. The bus would funnel more people to Link. You could have some other route cover that northern part of Downtown Redmond, but there is very little to the north of there, which means you are either creating a tiny route, or giving that area inadequate service. Meanwhile, doing that would cost the agency more money (as you double up service on Redmond Way).

           Thus the only change I would make is that first one. As it turns out, that is exactly what Metro is going to do: https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/depts/metro/programs-projects/link-connections/east-link/route-maps/b-line.pdf. I’ve been really hard on Metro planners these last few months (I think the Lynnwood Link restructure is flawed, and the restructure for the Rapid Ride G is a disaster) but I think the future plans for the B are just fine.

    2. Rapid Ride B could benefit from actually being upgraded to Rapid Ride standards. Bus lanes or BAT lanes where the access to businesses is needed. Signal priority, especially at the turns, especially at the signals and with the freeway traffic near the transit center. It could be a much better bus route, and it would be able to stand on its own as a premium, high quality transit corridor. Bellevue – Redmond is big enough and dense enough to have more than one such corridor. Crossroads is it’s own place and not on the way to Redmond, and it is big/dense enough for an upgrade closer to BRT level of service.

       1. “Bus lanes or BAT lanes where the access to businesses is needed.”

          All RapidRide corridors need that

    3. It will be interesting to see what happens with RR B after the ELSL opens. The starter 2-Link will be twice as fast (often even faster) as RR B between common destinations, but the number of common destinations on the two services is relatively small.

       Exactly. And that is one of the big issues with doing an analysis like this without all the data. I credit Sherwin for taking a stab at it. This is a good article, and I have no issue with any of the points made. But if Sherwin had stop data for the Metro bus routes, estimating future ridership would be much easier. I know these exist, it just isn’t easy to get it from Metro. The ideal, of course, would be trip data (showing exactly what trips take on various buses). Thus we could determine how many trips are taken between Link stations on other transit. That would be the starting point.

       From there, you look at frequency and speed to get a rough idea of the increase. In the case of the B, frequency is the same, so you would only look at the expected increase due to the change in speed.

       By the way, I’ve looked, but I can’t find much data on the influence of speed on transit ridership. I’ve found various articles on frequency, and as expected, it is a curve. You never actually double ridership when you cut headways in half, but you come close. Go from running a bus every hour to every half hour, you will come close to doubling the ridership. As you keep increasing frequency, the increase gets smaller. Go from running a train every four minutes to every two minutes and you only get a few more riders. There are other factors (e. g. frequency on longer trips like commuter rail matter less than on urban mass transit).

       I would guess the increase in ridership due to increase in speed is similar. Go twice as fast, and you get almost twice the number of riders. Double the speed again, and the increase is smaller. There are obviously a bunch of other factors (like the speed of taking the same trip via a car, the frequency of service, etc.). In this case though, I doubt we would get double the ridership of the existing service (for the trip pairs), even though this is significantly faster. You will get most of your ridership from people who switch from taking the bus along that route, and a smaller number from those who currently drive.

       Further complicating matters is what Lazarus mentioned, which is riders who transfer. As he wrote, you have two conflicting factors — the faster speed of Link, and the opposition to transferring. Again, we would have a good idea of at least a starting point for those numbers by looking at the number of people who actually make the trip via one method or another.

       I’ve looked at some of the modeling tools that are designed for making estimates like this when I looked at the streetcar estimates (which were way off). The software is complicated, and it is easy to see why estimates vary so much. Basically, the more data you give it, the more likely you are to get an accurate number. This takes quite a bit of effort, and I’m not convinced folks did that here (nor is Sherwin, obviously). The general consensus from a lot of people is that the ST numbers are quite optimistic — I haven’t read anyone that says we will exceed them.

12. https://metrotransit.net/depts/transportation/metro/travel-options/bus/rapidride/b-line.aspx

    From this Metro post I thought the B opened later than 2011 and didn’t know about the other stops not on the schedule.

    1. It was definitely much older than 2011. I’ve ridden it a number of times between 2015 and now, but can’t remember when it started.

       1. Oops, much older than 2022. Getting myself confused with dates now too :)

13. 30 minutes from Redmond TC to Bellevue TC is pretty good. Especially along NE 8th with all those stops.

    1. Weekday afternoons it’s 20 minutes from Bellevue TC just to Crossroads, or 48 minutes from end to end.

    2. Anecdotally I would say that it takes longer than 30 minutes in practice. I’ve never ridden it all the way to Redmond TC but I for sure have taken about that just to get to Overlake before.

    3. It runs relatively quickly throughout most of the day except during peak hours when it’s stuck in traffic. It’s got relatively wide stop spacing of 0.4~0.5 mile

       > Anecdotally I would say that it takes longer than 30 minutes in practice. I’ve never ridden it all the way to Redmond TC but I for sure have taken about that just to get to Overlake before.

       Also anecdotally but yeah generally the NE 8th portion is pretty quick, it gets stuck around making the left/right turns north of the crossroads. mall

       1. Correct, the straight path is fast, the turny path is really not. Something to be said for a grid route setup, I guess :) The B is a quintessential example of… not that.

       2. “It runs relatively quickly throughout most of the day except during peak hours when it’s stuck in traffic.”

          And midafternoon. I take it to Crossroads in the early afternoon sometimes and it bogs down.

14. Fyi https://seattletransitmap.com/eastside/

    Has an easier map to browse the Link 2 line route and comparing it to the existing 5xx busses and the rapidride B

15. A starter East Link line would be very useful as a shuttle service for big Eastside events. This weekend, for example, is a Ukrainian Heritage Festival in Downtown Bellevue Park, across the street from Bellevue Square. Had the East Link starter line been operational, I could easily see attendees from outside the area accessing the train at the Marymoor or South Bellevue Park-and-Rides, or other East Link stations with bus connections, and then disembarking at South Main or Bellevue Downtown.

    As it stands, the festival is organizing shuttle services for non-transit attendees; Bellevue Square won’t allow parking at its garages for the event, and some adjacent residential neighborhoods aren’t allowing street parking either. South Bellevue is one of those shuttle locations, as is Wilburton P&R, Bellevue High and a church.

    Side note: I would not be surprised to see the Eastside bus routes and festival shuttles packed for this event, given global events. (I mean, I’m only part-Ukrainian, and yet I’ve been in a very bad mood since February 2022.) Even my SE-Asian relatives are going to carpool with me to this event, they’re also fired up about supporting the local Ukrainian community.

    1. And Marymoor Park has Cirque du Soleil and concerts and rugby matches.

       1. Plus, they’re building a cricket oval in Marymoor, which would host both international matches and Major League Cricket’s Seattle Orcas. Older article, but showing the renderings for the New Zealand-style “berm” stadium: https://www.redmond-reporter.com/news/king-county-passes-motion-of-support-for-marymoor-cricket-community-park/

          If the capacity does reach that intended 4-10K, East Link would be a huge relief on car traffic, given out growing South Asian community. Don’t take my word for it, take the word for the Orcas’ owner, some local businessman named Satya Nadella: https://twitter.com/MLCricket/status/1685829108557590530?s=20

    2. Unfortunately, SE Redmond Station is not included in the East Link Starter Line, so it won’t make any difference for events at Marymoor Park.

       However, when it does eventually open, it will indeed make a big difference. I took transit to a Marymoor Park event once and had to walk a mile and a half from the nearest stop on the 545. The Link stop would be much closer than that.

       1. Forgot that. (forehead slap)

       2. Aye, but if the Redmond segment opens before the cross lake segment, that’s still useful!

          Hot take – a rail line is more useful as it gets longer and connects to more things.

16. 6,000 boardings per day? 600 are more likely. And remember…that’s likely just 300 people taking round trips.

    A train every 10 minutes is 6 per hour each direction, or 120 trips per typical 10-hour day (to cover popular commuting, shopping, and dining hours).

    If my ridership estimate is correct, that’s less than 3 riders per trip. If ST’s forecast is correct, that’s 30 riders per trip. When has any ST ridership ever been close to accurate?

    I forecast a lot of empty trains, unless they allow junkies to ride for free and smoke fentanyl or meth on board like on the other ST lines.

    1. 3150. Prices right rules. I miss Bob Barker.

       1. Learned appearantly that he is from Darrington, WA of all places. (Tho he spent most of his youth in Mission, SD on the Rosebud Indian Reservation as his family is part Sioux)

    2. We won’t know until it opens and we can count the riders. The riders themselves may not know yet, or they may predict wrongly.

       1. Of course not. Shouldn’t stop us from wagering. What’s your number?

    3. I’ll do 3K to start, but >5K by next Spring.

       1. I think there are a few factors outside ST’s control that will in part determine ridership on the ELSL:

          1. Whether Microsoft returns to in office work; whether Microsoft starts back up its own shuttles if it does go back to office work; and whether Microsoft allows free parking on campus in in its new huge parking garage.

          2. Whether Amazon begins to move SLU workers to Bellevue. East Link and the ELSL serve a tiny portion of Bellevue, and not even Bellevue Way.
          The Amazon Bellevue offices could handle 25,000 full time workers before the remodel. And whether Amazon provides private shuttles.

          3. Whether Bellevue implements a short, frequent, easy, fast free shuttle from the 110th exit from the Main station straight up to Bellevue Way and back. The Bel-Hop is too convoluted, too slow, too infrequent, and serves too large an area. I mean 2-3 minute frequency max.

          4. Whether the plinths will really take until 2027 to fix based on WL’s excellent post. The Board knew about the plinths in 2019 but did not disclose it — even to eastside mayors — until 2022. If WL is correct that makes the ELSL make more sense. If that is the case, then ST should begin to think about not a bus restructure (the current bus routes will still be necessary) but adding buses to serve the ELSL. One directly from Issaquah rather than diverting the 554 to stop at S. Bellevue (especially if Microsoft returns to in office work and does not provide free shuttles), and maybe some kind of direct bus from Seattle to S. Bellevue if Microsoft or Amazon returns workers to Bellevue/Redmond offices.

          The TOD in the Spring Dist. and Wilburton is at least a decade off from completion, if at all. Those areas today all have free parking, including the hospital.

          My guess is no to number 1 (return to in office work), yes to number 2, yes to number 3, and no to TOD during the life expectancy of the ELSL. I doubt anyone would get off the 550 and transfer to the ELSL at S. Bellevue unless they were going to Microsoft.

          So, taking out the first month which will be include novelty riders but also ELSL will need time to ramp up I am guessing 2500 riders/day if there are no bus restructures or additional feeder buses added, maybe going to 3500, assuming I am correct on 1-4 above. The main factor I am looking at is how empty the park and rides are along the ELSL today. Eastsiders ride transit because they HAVE to.

          East Link was all about things:

          1. The eastside work commuter to Seattle being forced onto East Link.

          2. Microsoft workers on campus.

          3. Very large population growth estimates.

          4. Massive TOD, even though the pre-pandemic plans for development in Wilburton and The Spring Dist. were not about folks who ride transit.

          Right now I don’t see any of those, and the economy is booming although some kind of downturn is likely in the next few years.

       2. There is also Microsoft interns to consider. Granted, they’re seasonal. But, a lot of them don’t have cars and live not far from the Microsoft campus. I would also imagine that summer interns would have a stronger work-from-office requirement than general employees. Depending on how many of them Microsoft hires, that could be a potential source of ridership. The fact that Microsoft gives all of its employees and interns a free Orca card with a pass on it also helps.

    4. @ Bob… Barely over 2000 until it’s connected with Seattle. After that, it’ll skyrocket but not to pre-COVID estimates.

17. Anyways I think most of the stuff about the starter line has been talked about so talking about when the plinth’s will be finished. I decided to take a peak at the documents. It’s a lot worse than I remember the documents saying, the projected completion of the plinth’s would be August 6, 2026, not including testing time for link which would be another 6 months so actual opening optimistically wouldn’t be until Winter 2026.

    There are total of 5,707 plinths and by July 13, 2023 they had planned to finish fixing 2,446, but instead had only fixed 1,381 basically half the speed. So there was still 4,326 plinths to fix back then. They are going at a pace of 27 plinths per week.

    Given 4,326 plinths / (27 plinths per week) would be 160 weeks plus July 23, 2023 or August 6, 2026 would be the plinth completion date. And then they’d still need another 6 months for testing.

    I’m not sure why the projected opening is Spring 2025 when it is basically impossible. Unless if I’m reading the document/doing math wrong, they’d need to triple the rate of plinth repairs to around 90 per week to get it done by Fall 2024 (buffer of 6 months for testing).

    The “Update on Link Projects in Construction Q3 7-13-23” had the most details https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2023/Presentation%20-%20Update%20on%20Link%20Projects%20in%20Construction%20Q3%207-13-23.pdf#page=8

    1. Thank you for the update. That is unfortunate, but it does explain the starter line’s existence. Perhaps the projected opening is simply out of date, then? Or they decided to not dwell on it and just focus on the positives (i.e. the starter line itself) and hope that people forget about the previous projections. A slightly less callous take might be that there is little confidence in even the current rate continuing, so why provide an updated projection when it, too, would likely be wrong.

       I just hope that they will find no further issues. Though a part of me wonders if it would lead to a better network to go South towards Renton instead, and connect with Line 1 in Tukwila.

       1. For what to go south?

    2. Plinths or no plinths, they still have the issue of the never-done-before-anywhere-in-the-world trains traveling over floating bridge, bobbing and weaving in the water from wind and wave action, and water displacement as the heavy trains roll by. Our esteemed WSDOT engineers think their 1st-time-ever-designed-anywhere solution should work.
       I just hope Sound Transit places live preservers under each seat like the airlines do.

18. So, the Eastside Starter Line is estimated to have what? Double the ridership of West Seattle, which actually does connect to the rest of the system?

19. Something was not clear to me on the recent light rail fare presentation.

    Is ST staff suggesting just raising the minimum regular fare to $2.50 or $2.75? Or are they suggesting raising every regular fare 25 cents or 50 cents? I’m thinking they meant to say the latter.

    There is also the matter of what the King County Council is planning regarding Metro fares. If the council is not on the same page with the Board, and Metro’s fare remains $2.75, none of the Link flat fare proposals (i.e. $3 or $3.25 or $3.50) seem tenable.

    ST staff’s timeline seems to be aiming for a decision before the starter line opens.

    1. If you are talking about Fares Strategy Update 8/24/2023

       https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2023/Presentation%20-%20Fares%20Strategy%20Status%20Report%2008-24-23.pdf

       They are considering two options A) increase base fare by 0.25 or 0.50. B) convert to using a flat fare of 3.00, 3.25 or 3.50.

       They aren’t sure which they are going to move forward with. Or ‘compromise’ and have some convoluted method.

       1. Thanks for the link. My question about whether they are proposing to raise the lowest regular fares or all the regular fares remains unanswered. Their language was imprecise,

          Hopefully the actual proposed fares will be published with the survey, so we know whether the maximum fare once ST2 is complete is $4.50 or $5.00.

       2. One way to make the rider-experience user friendly is to simplify the fare structure and create a single flat fare. After working in transit for several years, one of the most common complaints from customers was figuring out how and what to pay was too confusing. And it is. All of the transit websites do a poor job in explaining fares partly because each agency has its own fare. And it doesn’t help that everyone overlaps in service areas. There are so many people out there who can’t tell the difference between Metro and CT or ST and PT. I even ran into one girl on the #44 who couldn’t figure out why her app didn’t work for payment. She downloaded the wrong agency app. I helped a European couple who couldn’t understand why their Regional Day pass didn’t work on any of the CT 400’s. The pass has a cap of $3.50 value.

          Sorry to go on a mini rant but Sound Transit is most in need in establishing a single, flat fare for both Link and buses. LA, NYC, Miami, Chicago, Portland – if they can apply a single flat fare for their lightrail and metro’s, we can too.

       3. The first rule about transit fares is enforce them. Like 100% enforcement. Then fares can be lower for everyone who pays.

          The second rule is make fares uniform.

          The third rule is making paying a fare simple.

          The fourth rule is to make sure the fare covers the estimated share of O&M.

          With split fares between Metro and ST I would secure the stations to enforce fares (which was the promise to eastsiders to prevent Seattle from coming to the eastside and the recent rash of violence and drugs on buses and trains only makes us more nervous), raise fares to $4 for every trip, and figure out a way for someone to pay without an ORCA card or the ridiculous requirement that someone taps off after their trip. If $4 is too much a person can apply for a discounted card. It is pointless to see transit costs go through the roof for the same amount of — or less — service and complain that fares can’t go up. Everything else has gone up in price.

       4. Don’t you know we’ll never achieve 100% fare compliance? So, why bother charging anyone? If it makes you feel good, go ahead and donate to Transit. You do you! Most of the riders are done with fare mandates now that the Recession has been proclaimed over.

       5. If fare increases go far enough, maybe eventually the $8.00 all-day pass will be a reasonable price point! Transit advocates should keep an eye on this to make sure they don’t raise the day pass fee, and keep pushing for automatic ORCA fare capping at $8.00

       6. If the ELSL fare starts at $2.25 to $3, will ridership be noticeably higher than if the fare is a flat $3?

          Assume Metro will raise its fare to $3 by 2 Line opening day.

          Also, should the first weekend be free?

20. Without the line connecting to Seattle, East Link is useless. I bet the average ridership for the entire ELSL will barely break 2,000.

    Yes, the line serves some important destinations. But there’s hardly any housing around these places, thus people would need to drive from their homes elsewhere and park at a station to take a train semi-close to their destination. That entire process will take as much or even more time than simply driving. The only major housing cluster that’s close to any of the stations is downtown Bellevue. And downtown residents are high-income and will most opt to drive to their destination rather than spend the extra time riding a train and walking.

    Look at L.A.’s newly opened Crenshaw line: it too is barely breaking 2,000 riders because the line opened before it could be connected to the most important station: LAX airport. Until it does, there’s very little purpose for riding it.

    As transit nerds, I think we’re focusing too much on the novelty of ELSL rather than the practicality of commuting by car by the average, higher-income Eastsider.

    1. ELSL may not be connected to to Link, but at the Bellevue TC (& to a lesser extend, Overlake TC) it is well connected to the regional bus network.

       There are already thousands of people riding transit into Bellevue & Overlake from elsewhere in the region. Those people will find ELSL occasionally useful for a midday trip. I don’t think Crenshaw has a comparable population of inbound transit riders nor midday trip generators.

       1. Agreed, Link is connected to a bunch of eastside routes. However, those riders are not going to go out of their way to transfer to Link while a bus will take them to the same destination as Link -or even closer. The only pool of riders the ELSL will benefit are those who live downtown Bellevue and work near any of the stations on the route. Additionally,, people who live near the high-end Lake Samammish area can easily transfer at Redmond Tech. But even for those residents, the B-line is closer.

       2. What about routes bringing in riders from outside the Eastside? For anyone coming in on a 405 bus, Link will be the fastest way to get to Wilburton, Bel-Red, and Overlake. For a worker trying to get to Msft campus (remember – only direct Msft employees use the shuttles), Link will be a big improvement over a current 2-seat rider that uses the B line.

       3. @AJ..true, Link will be the quickest to Wilburton (east Main). But what’s around that? A few half-empty office spaces, a ritzy private club and a hotel. That’s a few dozen riders a day at most who are working at the hotel or club. As for other routes from outside the Eastside (as you mentioned), the 566 already serves downtown Bellevue and Redmond Tech. 532/535 riders will benefit from ELSL but I highly doubt the majority of those riders are venturing beyond downtown.

          Thus making the ELSL virtually useless and benefiting a very minute pool of riders. As a transit nerd, I understand the potential connections. But we’re overestimating the number of people on the Eastside who will abandon the luxury of their car commutes and switch to transit.

       4. Wilburton and East Main are different stations. If I’m at the bus TC and I’m heading to either of the two hospitals on 116th, I’m taking Link one stop to avoid the unpleasant walk across the freeway.

       5. My apologies, AJ. I was under the impression you were referring to East Main as Wilburton but I did not realize ST (idiotically) named NE 8th & 116th as “Wilburton”. Riders who are at the Bellevue TC: the bus drops off much closer to the hospitals and will prove a better option than Link.

          However, Link is a better option than the B-Line for destination east of 116th. But again, the B-line connects with other Eastside routes and riders are unlikely to go out of their way just to save a few minutes from their current trip.

       6. “Wilburton” and “Overlake” have long been fuzzy; I grew up in Bellevue and I doubt more than a few people had precise concepts of them; they were just historic names that weren’t used much anymore. Now the single-family area south of NE 8th & 124th has a “Wilburton” sign. And “Overlake” has been used extremely widely for Overlake Hospital on 116th, Overlake (Village) on NE 24th between 48th & 156th, Overlake Transit Center at 51st & 156th (now Redmond Tech Station), and the Overlake golf course in Redmond wherever that was. I’ve even heard that the entire Eastside is “Overlake”, because “over the lake” used to be a phrase for east of Lake Washington.

       7. Station naming is tricky. With five stations in “central” Bellevue and decades of history already around, choosing the right names can be debated.

          However that decision already passed. Nothing is going to change for at least 10 years.

          I do have some personal name preferences to clarify the station locations — like East Main Gulch or Wilburton Village or Bellevue City Hall — but the current names aren’t that confusing. I expect there to be a time when names are refined. I am much more irritated by redundant station names like having two 130th or two Overlake or three University names are.

       8. The station names are arbitrary and decided. I was talking more about where the namesake neighborhoods are, and how big they are.

    2. > Look at L.A.’s newly opened Crenshaw line: it too is barely breaking 2,000 riders because the line opened before it could be connected to the most important station: LAX airport. Until it does, there’s very little purpose for riding it.

       Also because LA refuses to actually upzone appropriately next to their rail stations. To be fair there have been some TOD, but really not enough with many rail stations just single family housing.

       1. The Crenshaw corridor station areas are much less dense than much of the ELSL station areas except for South Bellevue. I most sure that parking is free around all those stations as well. It kind of reminds me of Aurora in North Seattle or Grady Way in Renton. At least the ELSL has several stations with mid rise and other with tall buildings nearby, as well as paid parking.

          It’s notable the RapidRide B had 3300 average weekday riders in 2022. I would expect ELSL to come in similarly at about 3-4K on an average weekday (not the 6K that ST touts but not an awful 2K either). I expect RapidRide B ridership to drop by at least 1K.

          Curiously, LA Metro chose to do on Crenshaw what ST is doing: Opening only part of a line to save face. However, the current LA Metro delay is because of additional construction decisions and design changes made once the ground was broken while the ST delay as well as the Crenshaw prior delay were simply because of construction screw-ups that went ignored for a few years.

       2. “I expect RapidRide B ridership to drop by at least 1K.”

          People may take the B a short distance to transfer to Link. You can’t not take a bus if you’re not within a few blocks of the Link stations. Unless you drive to a P&R. But if they’re already on the B they’re unlikely to do that, or Link may not serve their trip at all. For instance, if I were at 8th & 124th and wanted to go to Crossroads for an errand, it would make much more sense to take the B than to walk to 120th Station, take Link to Overlake Village, and take another bus south to Crossroads. Likewise, if somebody is in Crossroads and going to the Microsoft area, Link wouldn’t be an option, except maybe for some idiotic 1-mile B trip transferring to a 1-mile Link trip, where the walking/waiting overhead would be half the trip or more.

       3. Oh I could see that RapidRide B could keep or even gain ridership when East Link fully opens as it becomes a last mile frequent feeder service. It’s just this ELSL period where I could see that its ridership could drop as some trip pairs on RapidRide B will be faster on Link.

       4. Oh, for the Starter Line maybe. I doubt it though, because I think few people will use the Starter Line, and few current B riders will use it.

          I’ll be one of those who uses it, because if I take a bus from Bellevue TC to somewhere in Lake Hills, the bus ride can take 35 minutes (226), or bus+walking 60 minutes (B). The overhead of transferring to the Starter Line and taking it past downtown Bellevue to Overlake and transferring to a north-south bus is less than that.

       5. “It’s just this ELSL period where I could see that its ridership could drop as some trip pairs on RapidRide B will be faster on Link.”

          Network effects do happen. Eg: when MAX green line opened, ridership increased on the somewhat parallel #72 due to transfers at 82nd Ave and Clackamas Town Center. It wasn’t a huge increase, but I think it was ≈1k per weekday.

          I would expect the Eastside Dinky* and the D to have somewhat that effect, as even though they are somewhat parallel they different enough to gain some network impacts.

          * Name inspired by New Jersey Transit Princeton Dinky service.
          https://www.njtransit.com/dinky

21. I don’t think East Link is ever going to connect to Seattle. Eastsiders don’t want the riff raff anyway. This allows Bellevue to develop as its own city. Mercer Island can rejoice too.

    Seattle wins too because it doesn’t have to fund DSTT2 and the I-5 suburbs remain dependent on Seattle.

    1. > I don’t think East Link is ever going to connect to Seattle. Eastsiders don’t want the riff raff anyway. This allows Bellevue to develop as its own city. Mercer Island can rejoice too.

       Lol it will connect eventually. Even if the cities/ king county suddenly changed their mind for some unknown reason, the federal government is going to be quite livid if the seattle/bellevue area cities decided to just not connect them after accepting billions in funding.

       1. It might take an absurd amount of money like rebuilding the I-90 bridge and a federal bailout to do so. I wouldn’t be surprised that by 2030 it’s still not connected and DSTT2 is tabled.

          But I think currently Seattle is in no hurry either. Without East Link connecting, Seattle remains the main tourist draw and also gives second thought to companies wanting to relocate to the Eastside.

       2. > It might take an absurd amount of money like rebuilding the I-90 bridge and a federal bailout to do so. I wouldn’t be surprised that by 2030 it’s still not connected and DSTT2 is tabled.

          The i90 bridge rail portion is fine and has no problems. the plinth issue is actually on mercer island (not the bridge) and around rainier ave/judkins park.

       3. Whether East Link runs across the I-90 bridge has little to do with whether a city wants it or not, although most of what Eastside Blues writes is accurate.

          East Link will run full or part time across I-90 based on the engineering, and whether in the end ST has figured out a way to run four car trains every 8 minutes at 50 mph across a floating concrete bridge whose concrete was never tensioned for it (although based on current cross lake ridership about 1/3 of that capacity, either number of car trains, speed, or frequency, will be necessary, except maybe for LLE, but eastsiders don’t give a shit about LLE frequency).

          It really doesn’t matter what the Feds think if the bridge can’t support the train. The bridge is existential to the area. East Link is irrelevant on the eastside, is now delayed around five years, and no one cares, and the delay has not changed one iota of people’s lives. The buses do a great job, are more flexible, require fewer transfers, and go to more places than East Link ever will. Plus there is so little traffic congestion today. (And Seattle does not have to pay anything for the express buses).

          Eastsiders definitely don’t want Seattle coming to the eastside and that is a huge issue, and probably why eastsiders are so sanguine about the delays for East Link. I get a laugh when I read folks on this blog post that the “TOD” at Wilburton or The Spring Dist. has anything to do with “transit”. None of that development is geared towards people who ride transit. Otherwise East Link would run along Bellevue Way.

          Things have changed dramatically since 2004. In 2004 Bellevue saw connecting to Seattle — one of the rising stars in the world — as critical to its “partnering” with Seattle. Now Bellevue wants to supplant Seattle, Seattle is making that very easy, and eastsiders want a moat between them and Seattle. The entire eastside transit restructure was about Bellevue making it easier for eastside workers to get to Bellevue and difficult to get to Seattle.

          MI would rejoice, but the reality is the bus intercept is a ghost of itself. Metro is cutting peak express buses to MI (and why else would any eastsider take a bus to MI) and the 554 will go to Bellevue Way. MI’s problem today is too LITTLE bus frequency when East Link opens, except so few Islanders use transit. I haven’t heard one Islander complain about the ELSL omitting MI.

          Almost every cross-lake bus stops on MI so frequency is very good. In the end, life on MI will change very little whether East Link opens or whether it never does. We got some nice landscaping by the station entrances, a nice park where two old houses once stood, a nice roundabout, $5 million for town center street and intersection mitigation which has been nice, $4.5 million toward more parking except we don’t need more parking because the park and ride is empty, and the two station platforms that are 35′ below grade between 8 lanes of I-90 so if they are never used no one will ever notice.

          Transit follows. East Link was predicated upon Seattle’s office towers bursting with eastside workers, plus shoppers and diners not wanting to pay a fortune to dine and shop in Seattle. Now they all go to U Village. It is also predicated on thousands of Amazon workers working in Bellevue, and Microsoft having tens of thousands of workers commute to its remote campus every day. That world is gone. Seattle and transit fans continue to hope it returns, but it isn’t. The new world is better.

          You return those things and East Link — if it can run across the lake — will be packed.

       4. Believe it or not, a lot of we Eastsiders WANT East Link. Many of them may not use it for daily commuting or errands, but they eagerly anticipate taking it for the airport, events, and even a night in the big city without getting stuck in the Renton S Curves or paying a hefty Lyft fare.

          My niece in Bellevue, for example, can’t wait to take East Link to her nursing job near the University District, but in the meantime puts up with the horrendous car commute because she doesn’t feel safe on the bus. Many Seahawks fans on the Eastside would gladly pay the $8 or so round-trip rail ticket to get to the games instead of shelling out $90 for a parking space nine blocks away from Lumen Field. And my sister and her family in Maui, who just swooned over Link in previous visits here (not much public transportation in Maui), are thrilled that they could get a two-stop, Link and 405-BRT ride between Sea-Tac and our place in Kirkland

          My optimistic view is that East Link’s public perception will mirror that of Japan’s bullet trains in the 1960s: a lot of anger about cavernous cost overruns and delays, but once it got going, people fell in love with it.

       5. “But I think currently Seattle is in no hurry either. Without East Link connecting, Seattle remains the main tourist draw”

          More unfounded speculation. Line 2 comes with double frequency north of International District. That’s important for downtown, Capitol Hill, the U-District, Roosevelt, Northgate, Lynnwood, and bus feeders.

       6. “The buses do a great job,”

          Says somebody who doesn’t use them off-peak, and denies that they get stuck in freeway congestion.

          “and go to more places than East Link ever will.”

          Not at all. The 550 doesn’t go east of Bellevue TC. There’s no all-day express-level bus route between downtown Bellevue and Redmond. Line 2 will create many one-seat rides even if it breaks others.

       7. “Almost every cross-lake bus stops on MI so frequency is very good.”

          Never mind that the 554 is half-hourly all day, even reverse peak, and the 550 is half-hourly evenings and Sundays. Sure, at Mercer Island you may be able to get a bus four times an hour, but if you’re going to Bellevue or Issaquah it’s half that. And you’ve told us Mercer Islanders don’t want to go to Seattle; they want to go to Bellevue and Issaquah.

       8. “East Link was predicated upon Seattle’s office towers bursting with eastside workers”

          East Link was predicated on the Eastside having 300+K people and growing, twelve miles from a city with 750K and growing, in a county of over 2 million. If even a fraction of the people travel along the East Link corridor for any reason (work, shopping, recreation, medical, family, other), that’s a lot of people, because it’s coming from a 300K/750K/2M starting point, and that will only grow, and it’s more efficient to have a high-capacity transit trunk for that than to not have it.

       9. Mike, why do you keep posting the eastside has 300,000 residents. It has 700,000+. https://censusreporter.org/profiles/06000US5303392931-seattle-east-ccd-king-county-wa/

          The future population growth estimates are a tired canard. This is the new normal. King Co. grew by around 300,000 residents from 2010 to 2020 but recently lost population. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/kingcountywashington/PST045222 At the same time, despite this population growth, transit ridership is down 50% because of the pandemic and WFH.

          The other big issue with cross lake transit is the demise of downtown Seattle, the one place with restrictive and expensive parking (for example U Village has tons of free parking, and so will Northgate Mall). It is the same in NY and SF: if work commuters don’t need to commute to the urban core transit ridership plummets.

          Like I said, if you want eastsiders to take transit to Seattle in this post pandemic discretionary trip world Seattle must offer something that is so compelling they will endure the inconvenience of transit to avoid parking costs. Those are few and far between today. The good news is there are so many excellent alternatives. But any time a region loses its urban core transit will suffer.

          This isn’t rocket science. Tally up the number of bus riders on the buses that mimic the route East Link, and then Redmond Link, will take and those are your riders on East Link if the buses are eliminated or truncated. Eastsiders will not add a discretionary transit trip because it is a train and not a bus, and like I said eastside buses were very good, until Metro and ST started cutting them because eastsiders stopped riding them

       10. “Mike, why do you keep posting the eastside has 300,000 residents. It has 700,000+.”

           Because I couldn’t find an aggregate number so I had to add up the largest cities. Also, Bothell, Woodinville, and Renton aren’t in East Link’s cachement area, and it’s debatable whether Kirkland is. (What trip from Kirkland would use East Link?)

       11. Ok, but the number of N KC, SnoCo, S KC and Pierce Co. residents in Link’s “catchment” area is quite small too outside the downtown core if by catchment you mean within walking distance. E KC will have Stride from Renton to Bothell, and someday Issaquah Link. Link relies on park and rides or feeder buses.

           East Link is particularly problematic because the “catchment” area is so undense, and the route so undense. From MI to basically Main (not E Main which is Surrey Downs) the density and walkability is zilch. It is all park and rides.

           From Wilburton to The Spring Dist. you have inchoate TOD, with the “transit oriented” being the real problem if the development ever materializes.

           Overlake is just too far to walk to retail that is typical big box stores. So you are talking low income multi-family housing.

           East from there is pure suburbia. Many like me complain about Redmond’s (84,000 affluent residents) retail vibrancy but the reality is Redmond like Sammamish doesn’t want retail vibrancy. These are not “suburban” cities; they are anti urban cities. Schools, public safety, trails, parks, large wooded lots, three car garages. You don’t move to either for the urbanism.

           So it is what it is. 95% of eastsiders today don’t ride transit and that won’t change. It would be a lovely dream (as someone who can walk to an East Link station) to have light rail along Bellevue Way or to a vibrant, safe downtown Seattle, which is what we have with the 550, but that isn’t East Link or Seattle today.

       12. Daniel,

           Interesting you call Redmond an anti-urban city. You just have to go to the city’s own website to see how they envision growth. I’ve spent my fair share of time (some years back) at city hall in the planning and building departments getting projects green lit for clients and was honestly surprised to see some of the big picture visioning that was taking place from a city planning standpoint.

           “REDMOND IS CHANGING FROM A SUBURB TO A CITY

           Once every 10 years cities in Washington State review their vision for their community and how to plan and build for the next few decades.

           Planning for growth helps us build a city that meets the needs of the community and reflects the vision for how the community will look and function.”

           https://www.redmond.gov/1427/Redmond-2050

       13. “if by catchment you mean within walking distance”

           I mean people who live within several miles of an East Link station who might conceivably use it for part of a trip. So Bellevue, Redmond, Issquah, Sammamish, Newport Hills, maybe Kirkland. The successors to the 114, 208, 554, and 556 assume people will transfer to Link to get to Seattle or Redmond.

           From Kirkland you’d take the 245 to Redmond or Overlake, the 255 to Seattle, or the 250 to Bellevue, so you’d take East Link to… the Spring District? Yet Kirkland is still rather close so there might be some use cases.

           Renton, Bothell, and Woodinville are far south and north, so you wouldn’t go to Link to take it to Seattle, you’d take the 101 or 522/Stride 3. You might take it to the Spring District or Redmond, but I’d guess those are such a small part of Rentonites/Bothellites/Woodinvilleites’ trips that I wouldn’t include them. After all, somebody in West Seattle or Tacoma might take Link to Redmond, but that’s no East Link’s typical trip.

       14. “Many like me complain about Redmond’s (84,000 affluent residents) retail vibrancy but the reality is Redmond like Sammamish doesn’t want retail vibrancy.”

           Redmond does! It wants its shops to be full, people paying lots of sales tax, Redmond residents employed, more shops opening, and people from all over the region going to Redmond because it’s so beautiful and has so many attractive shops and activities. That’s a successful city. Redmond claims to be the densest city per land area in the state. (Which is only possible with creative statistics, of course.) Redmond rolled out the red carpet for Link, streamlining permitting, while half of Bellevue’s council hemmed and hawed and Seattle’s council has gotten BLE tied up in non-transit issues.

           I don’t know about Sammamish since I’ve never been there because of the limited transit. I’ve been through it in a car before incorporation, but I assume that’s not a fair impression. I’ve heard Sammamish is heavily single-family and has little retail or jobs and is adamant against growth, so it may not want any retail beyond the essential supermarkets and drug stores. But Redmond isn’t like that.

       15. Well, look at that. The Redmond page says: “We’re focusing on what we can do to create complete neighborhoods – complete neighborhoods are easy to move around without a car.”

       16. Mike, it’s not necessary for Line 2 to cross Lake Washington for trains so identified to offer opposite service to Line 1 north of the International District.

           Sure, long term operation of four-car trains every three minutes to Lynnwood from downtown Seattle would require apgreater MF capacity somewhere on the West Side in order to accommodate the Everett Extension without Bellevue’s storage. There is room for one, down by Boeing Field if necessary, or the ones planned for Snohomish County nd South Federal Way to be built in ST3 could be made larger.

           However, I believe that operation of “Line 1” from Lynnwood to Federal Way with an overlay version of “Line 2” between Northgate and SoDo, Judkins Park or the Forrest Street loop is sustainable for the time until South FW could be connected. It would require storing trains on the tail tracks at Lynnwood and first Angle Lake then Federal Way overnight and shuttling their operators to and from Forrest Street. A couple of trains would probably have to be stored on the East Link stub tracks just south of IDS, too.

           ST would be forced to accelerate the portion of the Tacoma Dome Extension to South Federal Way MF to take pressure off of Forrest Street for heavy maintenance activities. But it could be done.

           None of this would reduce the extreme embarrassment that ST — and the State — would suffer from such a catastrophe as cracks in the pontoons that permanently embargo trains from the bridge would entail, should it occur. Let us all hope that such an error in engineering does not befall us and that Bellevue’s MF is connected to the rest of the system by 2025.

       17. > However, I believe that operation of “Line 1” from Lynnwood to Federal Way with an overlay version of “Line 2” between Northgate and SoDo, Judkins Park or the Forrest Street loop is sustainable for the time until South FW could be connected.

           I forget which document/meeting but I remember them talking a service pattern about running Lynnwood to Sodo (which could be Judkins Park) and Northgate to Federal Way

       18. “would suffer from such a catastrophe as cracks in the pontoons that permanently embargo trains from the bridge would entail, should it occur”

           Why single out one of thousands of things that might happen? If we worried so much about all of them we’d never go out of the house.

       19. https://www.redmond-reporter.com/news/top-concerns-of-redmond-residents-include-homelessness-cost-of-living-growth/

           Here is a summary of the recent survey of Redmond citizens “which will inform the upcoming 2023-2024 budget process as well as performance measures in the current strategic plan. EMC Research, which is a data analytics firm, conducted the study as an independent third-party.” https://www.redmond-reporter.com/news/top-concerns-of-redmond-residents-include-homelessness-cost-of-living-growth/

           Pretty typical suburban eastside responses. The new Redmond council has embraced more growth — no doubt at the request of their developer buddies — and the city did need a more comprehensive plan for growth, and just development in general, especially retail density and vibrancy which has actually declined over the years. It’s not particularly large at “16.94 square miles” according to Wiki, and it is quite remote, even for E KC.

           The issue for Redmond is eastsiders have to pass by better retail and restaurants to get to Redmond, a long way down 520, which is partly why retail is so anemic for a city of 84,000. If Redmond did not have Microsoft it would be North Bend, and who knows with WFH. If development in The Spring Dist. and Wilburton, and 69,000 units in North Bellevue, are on pause, I will be interested to see how many of these grand mixed-use developments that were designed pre-pandemic (which are pretty light on retail) get the financing. I think it would be very foolish for Redmond or the developers to think a light rail station will make much of a difference as far as customers, and even ST predicts only 1300 daily boardings (650 riders) at the Redmond Link station when East Link fully opens mostly Redmondites going out and coming back in, and that was pre-pandemic when Microsoft was in office work.

           I just hope Redmond does it right. Developers are amoral greedy opportunists, and any city that relies on the goodness of developers and their phony architectural renderings is a fool.

       20. “retail density and vibrancy which has actually declined over the years”

           Maybe I need to ask, what do you mean by retail vibrancy? I assumed it meant high sales volume, and lots of pedestrians in stores and going into stores and engaging with ther neighbors. So if vibrancy has declined, does that mean Redmond’s shops have lost sales and customers? If retail density has declined, does that mean shops are closing and buildings are being replaced by less-dense ones? Does that mean Redmond is decaying? That sounds like it will hinder the Eastside overtaking Seattle as the business and jobs capital.

       21. https://www.redmondtowncenterproject.com/home

           This the 2018 plan to revitalize Redmond’s town center. I don’t know how it is going. The plan was mostly to add more housing, not retail. Over the years the retail in the town center declined, and there is no “there” there. I don’t know if this plan will change that. Like I noted, the plan is really about more housing where the money is.

           Redmond Mall is especially disappointing from a retail point of view and I posted about that before. It needs a complete redo like Northgate Mall. Today it is surrounded by very cheap looking multi-family housing with almost no retail and a huge surface parking lot in the middle of the mall.

           Building housing or zoning for more housing is not difficult. Creating dense retail vibrancy is very, very difficult because a certain population can support only so much retail, and there are competing areas. It is like MI competing against Bellevue or Issaquah. Some think simply increasing housing density will create dense retail vibrancy, but that is not how it works. So you end up with this. https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=soviet+union+housing+blocks&form=HDRSC4&first=1

       22. The mall is dated and needs to be rehabbed or redeveloped. The shopping center is also owned by a single entity and is not representative of the type of development that Redmond is advocating for into the future. It really is a legacy project. Malls, which i’m sure you’ve heard, are on the decline across the country. The exception are high end lifestyle centers and regional shopping centers that have been able to maintain relevancy. Bellevue Square is a prime example.

           Redmond has spent a considerable amount of money on the development of Downtown Park and Cleveland St, which has helped to incentivize a large share of multi-story private development and hosts a handful of popular restaurants such as Tavolata, Matador and Molly Moon’s. There’s also a major concentration of development with ground floor retail in the Bel-Red corridor such as the following:

           https://www.redmond.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1482/Meeting-Slides-03-08-2018-PDF?bidId=

           These follow more urban development frameworks.

       23. Daniel, do you have a source for that 69,000 paused housing units? That’s more units than Bellevue currently has in total, and the city has been producing fewer units every decade since the 70s. I’d be shocked if they had that many permits in the pipeline.

           https://bellevuewa.gov/city-government/departments/community-development/data/demographic-data/households-and-housing

       24. JustinH,

           https://seattleagentmagazine.com/2023/08/17/seattles-construction-pipeline-q2-2023/?utm_source=emailoctopus&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=08.21%20SEA%20-%20AU

           “Furthermore, 26,028 units are in the planning stages, meaning their respective projects have received approval from planning and zoning authorities. Builders and developers have also expressed intent to construct another 67,269 units, although no formal plans have been submitted for these projects. Most of these prospective units are located in north Bellevue.”

       25. “Over the years the retail in the town center declined.

           There’s more to Redmond than just the Town Center. The shops around Redmond Way seem successful and more are coming. A surprising number of the restaurants are local and independent; I’d say half at least. The trails are popular and bring people to Redmond.

       26. Thanks Daniel. It certainly indicates that there’s a lot of interest/demand for building more housing in Bellevue.

       27. It depends on the cost of financing JustinH. Lots of public and private projects with questionable merit were built when money was free. It costs little for a developer to buy an ad in the PSBJ and claim they will build some skyscraper so they look like a player when often it is big hat no cattle.
           It also depends on future population growth, and flight from Seattle to the eastside, including SLU Amazon workers. That is what Bellevue is banking on, and so far Seattle is helping out.

           CNBC had a piece today noting multi-family prices are declining in many markets, the market may be reaching a glut, and future multi-family construction is slowing dramatically except for a very large number of multi-family units near completion, except for high mortgage rates which are keeping folks who want to buy in rental units and further inflating the number of renters.

           Definitely Bellevue and the eastside are attractive places to live, including condos or apartments, especially for safety and retail vibrancy compared to Seattle. But building 67,000+ multi-family units in “north” Bellevue where there is probably little retail at 9% interest vs. 1% is a big difference.

           I have a good friend who made a lot of money packaging money from China into very large Bellevue developments. He plans to sell his house on MI and move to Montana because the development game is dead. Construction has a habit of under shooting and then over shooting, even before WFH. The office game is dead. I think builders and developers will take a few years off to see how things shake out. Basically that is what ST is doing with all its delays. This is probably the new normal, except folks are wondering if it will get worse when it comes to construction, interest rates, WFH, and transit ridership.

       28. What’s missing in downtown Redmond is the number of people walking around on the sidewalks like you get in Capitol Hill or the U-District, on both the shopping blocks and the multifamily residential blocks. That’s what makes it “less urban”. Or as a roommate used to say, “Room for improvement.” There are pedestrians at the parks but not so much when you get a few blocks away. It’s easy to see why: Redmond Way is a high-traffic stroad, and the shopping plazas like Safeway are awful strip malls, and some of the intersections are quite wide, and it’s clearly too car-oriented in spite of the city’s stated goals. (Or at best, because the goals are just starting to be implemented.)

           It may be impossible to substantially reduce car volumes on Redmond Way since it’s the main highway to Sammamish and the Snoqualmie Valley. Ideally you’d then move it to the edge of downtown rather than in the middle. I’d almost suggest extending 520 to Sammamish to get those cars off Redmond Way. Bellevue Way is also a historic highway, but I’ve never found it as suffocating as most others that go through downtowns. It’s just not as “big” or as “fast”.

       29. “in “north” Bellevue where there is probably little retail”

           There could be more retail. It just takes a zoning change. Where exactly do you mean by north Bellevue? There’s north Bellevue Way between 12th and Northup, which is almost all apartments. East of there the area narrows considerably, so there’s only a dozen blocks north of 12th. A large part of that is the Spring District and Overlake Village, which we already know is an emerging midrise area and is not “remote” or “sparse” in any sense. If there’s not enough retail in the plans, well, it’s the city’s responsibility to do something to ensure neighborhood retail for the residents and workers.

       30. “What’s missing in downtown Redmond is the number of people walking around on the sidewalks like you get in Capitol Hill or the U-District, on both the shopping blocks and the multifamily residential blocks. That’s what makes it “less urban”. Or as a roommate used to say, “Room for improvement.”

           Mike, what you want and what Redmond wants are two different things. It would be like someone from Redmond telling Capitol Hill it needs to de-densify and add more SFH. Redmond is about schools, parks, kids, SFH, and public safety. You just never get a lot of people walking around the streets in a city like Redmond.

           Redmond like any city, and any eastside city, would like a usable and walkable restaurant and retail area so they don’t have to drive to another city, when from Redmond to just about anywhere is a long distance. Their comprehensive plan locates most multi-family housing in the “town center” because that is what the PSRC has recommended for the last 20 years so it is near walkable retail and transit.

           About 98% of folks will drive to the town center if it has any retail/restaurant vibrancy. Like MI there will always be better restaurants and bars in another city, but sometimes you don’t want to drive to Bellevue or Kirkland or Issaquah, and Redmond is hemmed in by Sammamish that wants no retail or multi-family.

           The housing part on the eastside is easy. Everyone wants to live there. SFH zones, multi-family in the town center per the PSRC, some multi-family zones. The tough part is the retail vibrancy, because these eastside residents don’t go out nearly as much since they often have very nice homes to dine and entertain in, and most of their lives are focused around their kids. Redmond has very few raves. The number of Redmond residents who will get on Link to go to Capitol Hill will be tiny.

           Developers show up with drawings of grand designs for multi-family and commercial mixed-use projects with lots of people walking around smiling and lots of shops and restaurants. The drawings look like U Village. But retail is tough, and not profitable, and the developers only include retail because they have to because they want the housing (and in the past wanted the offices). They don’t want to. They don’t want to put in the class A HVAC systems for restaurants, and they don’t want to set aside parking for retail, (or God forbid affordable house set asides — at 80% AMI of course). So they promise retail but often never deliver, and then you just get a bunch of condos or apartments, and the citizens like on MI in 2016 get really pissed off because the council got ripped off and elect a new council.

           I would take living in Redmond over living on Capitol Hill any day. You can’t raise a dog on Capitol Hill let alone a kid, and every week there is a shooting or knifing. All Redmond wants –other than the obligatory big box stores — is a small dense retail/restaurant area that ideally has some charm and density with a few cute restaurants and maybe a nice sports bar, with of course easy and obvious surface parking. It is harder than it sounds.

       31. Wow, that Seattle Agent Magazine article is terribly written – or deliberately misleading. At least they had a direct link to the source data: https://base.berkadia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Berkadia-Q2-2023-Seattle-Construction-Pipeline-Report.pdf

           Page 13 shows a map of Bellevue. 345 units under construction, 2,781 units “planned”, and 7,185 “prospective”.

           A far cry from “most” of the prospective units in the region.

           In this age of misinformation, always check the source.

       32. “Their comprehensive plan locates most multi-family housing in the “town center” because that is what the PSRC has recommended for the last 20 years so it is near walkable retail and transit. About 98% of folks will drive to the town center if it has any retail/restaurant vibrancy.”

           You’re conflating downtown Redmond (the real town center) with the mall that has the misleading name. Redmond’s comprehensive plan and the PSRC are focused on downtown Redmond as a whole. I wasn’t thinking about the Redmond single-family areas so I’ll be clear: I’m only talking about donwtown Redmond.

           “About 98% of folks will drive to the town center if it has any retail/restaurant vibrancy.”

           With Link it will be easier to take transit to downtown Redmond for all that vibrancy, so more people will do so. It may not be a majority but it will be more than now. Right now it’s pretty unreasonable to get to downtown Redmond from downtown Bellevue or most of Seattle or elsewhere. But as people hear about the attractions, more events take place, more Redmond restaurants get favorable reviews in the times, etc, more people will go there, some of them on Link.

       33. “There could be more retail. It just takes a zoning change”.

           No Mike, you fundamentally misunderstand retail. Zoning for retail does not create retail. You think you wave a magic zoning wand and what you want appears. Look at downtown Seattle to see how wrong that is.

           In fact, the key to retail is retail density, which really means pure facade density like Paris or a mall or U Village. If you want to go to a restaurant you want to go to Old Main St. or Lincoln Sq. in Bellevue with dozens of choices and lots and lots of people, because you are going out. You don’t want a single restaurant in the middle of the woods. If you want to shop you go to Bellevue Square or U Village because there are dozens of shops you can walk to and pure facade density. Three is literally no distance between stores.

           I don’t know how many times I have posted this, but there isn’t enough retail based on the region’s and eastside’s population to zone for retail everywhere. If you want to densify it you need to condense it. Think U Village. On the eastside despite its enormous size and many different cities we got lucky: SFH zones prohibited retail and so condensed what little retail we have. The development plans for The Spring Dist. and Wilburton recognized this which is why the retail in those massive developments was so anemic. They knew no one would come. Sure Bellevue zoned for retail, but the retail would never compete against Bellevue Way.

           The eastside really shouldn’t have much retail vibrancy except downtown Seattle went in the toilet. If downtown Seattle were vibrant and had retail density and was safe and clean that is where all the folks and shoppers and diners would naturally be, the urban core along Puget Sound with a waterfront park. Instead Seattle’s demise has meant the eastside got a break and more retail and shoppers one would have ever thought possible 10 years ago, but still the amount of retail the eastside can support is limited.

           If you want retail density and vibrancy, you have to zone LESS retail so you condense it. On the eastside 98% of shoppers and diners are going to drive or take Uber to shop or dine anyway, and all they want is free and obvious parking on the perimeter when they get there and retail density and vibrancy on the interior, like Bellevue Way. We didn’t move to the eastside to have a corner grocery store in our neighborhood when we shop at Costco.

       34. “But retail is tough, and not profitable, and the developers only include retail because they have to because they want the housing (and in the past wanted the offices).”

           I thought sales tax funded city government, and housing was a tax-subsidy drain. Tukwila and Renton are certainly big on retail.

       35. “With Link it will be easier to take transit to downtown Redmond for all that vibrancy, so more people will do so”.

           That isn’t correct Mike. Redmond residents are not going to take Link to their own town center. They are not going to drive to a park and ride at night to take Link to their own town center. I don’t know even know how they would do that. It would be like someone on MI driving to S. Bellevue to catch Link to MI.

           Redmond does not and likely never will have the retail and restaurants to compete with areas upstream on Link. Few go there to shop or dine today.
           Redmond despite 3X the population has no more retail vibrancy than MI. So why go to Redmond to dine or shop.

           At night there is little traffic congestion and parking is free everywhere. We have wives who would never set foot on transit. It is like those who used to claim (ST) that East Link would make downtown MI a dense, vibrant retail center, when now we just don’t want it to bring Seattle to the eastside. With Redmond someone on Link — not retailers’ favorite customers — will literally have to pass by Bellevue to get to Redmond, just like ST claiming someone would get off East Link to shop or dine on MI three stops before Bellevue and one stop before Seattle.

           Link makes zero difference on retail/restaurant vibrancy, and if you ask folks like Kemper Freeman and Simon Properties they don’t even like transit. The amount of retail vibrancy Redmond can hope for is what Redmond residents can and will support based on a demographic that is not big partiers or folks who go out, and are used to driving to Bellevue or U Village at the end of 520. Just like my wife and I do from MI.

       36. Cities get a tiny cut of the sales tax pie. For example, a Costco or car dealership generates around $400,000 in annual sales tax revenue for the city. Online shopping has dispersed a lot of the sales tax revenue because it is now allocated the where the order was placed, not where the store is located. Very beneficial for wealthy smaller cities, like MI.

           The bedrock is the property tax levy. If a city has a vibrant commercial zone that generates huge property tax revenue that lowers everyone else’s property tax. So does B&O tax. Utility taxes although capped by state law generate a lot of money (the tax goes to the general fund, the utility bills must go toward utility infrastructure). REIT can generate large taxes, especially for office towers. Vehicle tabs up to $40/vehicle go directly to cities and in Seattle raises I think $7 million/year. Some cities like Seattle even have a head tax.

           Retail and restaurants are about quality of life. Imagine living on Capitol Hill if there were no retail or restaurants. Or Paris. Or downtown Seattle. Retail is so desirable it is one of the few things we willingly drive to or take transit to it, or even travel to.

           We all want retail (facade) density and vibrancy which takes a lot of shoppers and diners so you have to limit the places where you can have retail through zoning and condense, condense, condense retail until like carbon you get a diamond. EVERYONE wants retail walkability no matter how they get there.

       37. Just wait till that H Mart in Redmond Town Center opens. That will double Redmond’s sales tax revenue overnight. And I’m only half-joking.

       38. The Tandy Center Subway connected a shopping mall with its parking lot complex. I don’t see why the same wouldn’t be true of East Link and downtown Redmond.

       39. “What’s missing in downtown Redmond is the number of people walking around on the sidewalks like you get in Capitol Hill or the U-District,”

           “It would be like someone from Redmond telling Capitol Hill it needs to de-densify and add more SFH.”

           The pedestrians are vibrancy. Or what does vibrancy mean to you?

           When everybody is in a car, it gives an eerie feeling like the town is abandoned.

       40. “I don’t know how many times I have posted this, but there isn’t enough retail based on the region’s and eastside’s population to zone for retail everywhere. If you want to densify it you need to condense it.”

           What makes you think we’re near the ceiling of retail? And north Bellevue Way or between 12th and 520 is at most a mile from existing retail, so it’s not putting it miles away from anywhere. If you put a couple small businesses right in the middle of that area, it’s a half mile or less from existing retail, or within walking distance. And there’s also the apartments around it that might go to it, and be glad they don’t have to go so far to reach anything other than housing.

       41. “Zoning for retail does not create retail. You think you wave a magic zoning wand and what you want appears. Look at downtown Seattle to see how wrong that is.”

           That’s not because there’s too much retail space in the region. It’s because of the things you complain about downtown. Businesses are eager to move back in if that’s cleaned up. But that’s a difficult and expensive problem to fix. In any case, that doesn’t explain why there can’t be more retail in north Bellevue, or northeast Seattle, or other areas that are too housing-only and have too little retail.

           You fail to explain why what works all over Europe and Asia can’t work here.

       42. Mike, retail vibrancy — that really depends on retail/facade density so it is walkable — doesn’t depend on how people get there. Think of Disneyland. Massive parking lots surrounding the park but no cars or buses inside (and very tight security and a very high fee to get in)

           No one wants stroads or heavy traffic in the retail zone, which is a huge problem for 3rd Ave. Whether U Village, Northgate Mall, or Bellevue Square they want a place to park if they drive along the perimeter and retail walkability only in the retail core. The problem with old style malls like Redmond Mall is they put the parking in the middle and the shops and restaurants along the perimeter so cars and pedestrians were constantly mixing. . New malls like U Village or Northgate don’t want to discourage folks from driving there. Just the opposite. But just like Link or buses they don’t want them in the retail core. How people get to the mall is irrelevant.

           I always supported a pedestrian only retail street from the Cinvention Center to The Pike Place Market. To be successful it would need large parking garages along the perimeter, but no cars or buses in the retail core, even crossing it which is the problem in Seattle since folks have to get from south to north. Maybe an underground tunnel although all buses would have to use it to get from south to north.

           I think Northgate Mall will be very popular, which won’t be good for downtown. Folks today like outdoor malls if they have facade density. It will have tons of parking and Link/bus access that are outside the retail area.

           All customers want is a safe, clean place where someone like U Village has collected a lot of good shops and restaurants in a dense walkable area with attractions like music with transit access and lots of parking outside the retail area. If you think retail vibrancy is incompatible with getting to it by car you have it backwards.

           Why someone like Simon Properties hasn’t bought Redmond Mall I don’t know. Today it is just a terrible waste of space. Probably very expensive to completely redo, too remote, too much competition, with a demographic in SFH that do a lot of entertaining and dining in their homes, especially if they have kids

           But if someone with retail expertise like U Village or Simon properties — and not a bunch of housing developer charlatans — does decide to redo the mall you know it will look just like U Village or Northgate (which are really based on the outdoor malls in CA and Phoenix) with tons of parking along the perimeter of an outdoor mall with maybe transit access although the Sammamish/Redmond demographic is not heavy transit users, although they have a lot of money, which is exactly what a mall wants and needs.

       43. Daniel,

           Your thoughts on retail are reminiscent of the thinking that drove retail and mall planning from the 1950s to around 20 or so years ago. Thought leaders in the industry have embraced mixed-use models to improve retail sales and to help buey brick and mortars in the face of competition from online retail sales. The world of malls surrounded by a sea of parking is one for the history books.

           “Like the stores they host, malls are moving to be more experiential. By blending diverse retail with recreation, malls can stay relevant. This redevelopment is a slow but necessary process. Mixed-use developments provide a more holistic and immersive experience, catering to the evolving demands of consumers who seek entertainment, convenience, and a sense of community in their shopping experiences.”

           https://retailnext.net/blog/considering-mixed-use-retail-spaces-as-the-future-of-malls

           https://www.gensler.com/df2021-mixed-use-retail

           https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinmueller/2023/07/20/malls-are-being-reborn-as-next-gen-mixed-use-properties/

           https://info.retailspacesevent.com/blog/the-future-that-malls-and-shopping-centers-need-to-embrace

       44. It depends Alonso on whether the project or mall is being designed and built by retail experts or by developers with little experience with retail.

           A lot of cities like MI got snookered by commercial/housing developers who never wanted retail but promised it to get extra height so built little or crummy retail spaces that were very expensive.

           Urban planning doesn’t attract the sharpest students. What urban planners who became fixated on mixed-use development didn’t understand is commercial is more profitable than housing is more profitable than retail, and without parking retail will die except in the densest areas.

           Look at the plans for Wilburton and The Spring Dist. Although the developers promised the kind of mixed-use retail you talk about the actual allocations were all office with a litttle housing because some housing was required with anemic retail because it is hard to make money off retail, there is only so much to go around, and the parking for retail is expensive.

           Even ST understands you don’t build stations let alone retail malls in suburbia (including Northgate) without a ton of free parking. At least if you want anyone to ride Link.

           I agree old malls like Redmond Mall are dinosaurs. I said that. U Village and Northgate are the new models, and prioritize retail. The 2300 new units near U Village followed U Village, not the other way around. Bellevue Square existed long before any housing on Bellevue Way.

           What is dying post pandemic is the urban retail scene that was the most popular before the pandemic, in large part because cities were safe and shops and restaurants were filled with all those commuter workers who had to commute by transit. Once they left crime soared and retail died despite the housing density in the urban core.

           Ideally downtown Seattle with its location and density and attractions and huge amount of parking and Link stations would be the dominant retail location. People don’t really care where, as long as it is condensed and there is real retail facade density and vibrancy. But it isn’t, and so all that retail vibrancy has migrated to sheltered areas like malls that can provide a clean and safe place for women that don’t have the surrounding housing or commercial density so must offer lots of parking. A huge amount of the area’s wealth is in the SFH zones and those people drive to shop and buy lots of stuff. Simon Properties and Freeman are not huge fans of transit riders.

           People want the retail vibrancy and density. An idiot developer can build an office building or multi-family housing building but they don’t know how to do retail so you get big out of scale buildings with little retail let alone facade density.

           If you look at U Village or Northgate Mall you see the design that works today. If Redmond Mall ever gets redeveloped that is what it would look like. Unfortunately there is already such ugly multi-family housing surround the mall any prospective purchaser is going to be stuck with that. Not a lot of vibrant retail malls surrounded by low income or schlocky housing.

       45. @ Nathan D, just overestimating the Bellevue development pipeline by an order of magnitude. No biggie! It actually blows me away that someone could think (as JustinH points out) that the current development pipeline for Bellevue would double their current housing stock. The 67k of prospective units appears to be for the entire region, not just Bellevue, and nothing in either the article Daniel linked to, or the source document you linked to says specifically that those projects are paused. More likely, many of them are working their way through 2+ years of design and review and don’t have permits yet. My guess is that it’s really the 26k units in the “Planned” table that are “paused” at the moment (i.e. permits issued or nearly issued, but trapped in interest rate hell).

           It wasn’t the cleanest data import, but from what I can tell, of the 67k prospective units in the region, 18k are on the East Side, 37k are in Seattle (i.e. double the entire East Side, not just Bellevue), 5k in South King, 5k in Snohomish, and 1k in North King.

       46. @Mike Orr: I have absolutely zero problem with strip malls.

           They often house retail and restaurants that are priced out of the new mixed-use developments. I love going to comic book and collectible stores, and pretty much the only places I can find them in the Eastside are in strip malls. I can spend an hour at a time there looking for new comics while talking and learning from the owners, the way I used to at the old video rental and music stores.

           Likewise, TV travel show host Samantha Brown says strip malls are often the places where you can find the most authentic ethnic cuisine int he country. The restaurateurs are often new immigrants who generally can’t afford the more upscale digs, and they produce direct-from-the-homeland recipes locals haven’t been able to find yet. By the time some of those restaurants move to the more affluent digs, some things in the recipes get lost in the translation, quite literally.

           And it’s not just the usual Thai and Vietnamese restaurants here. In a nondescript Federal Way strip mall along 99, I found a Salvadorian restaurant. Formica tables and spartan decor, but they served an unkown-to-me dish called “mocaljete”: simmered meet/poultry/seafood dish with thin tomato sauce, cheese and vegetables, served in the namesake mixing bowl and garnished with a cactus leaf. That meal ranked up with a grilled ostrich breast from El Gaucho as one of the best meals I’ve had in my life, at a small fraction of the cost. I’ve also seen a Honduran restaurant in Federal Way, and in a Totem Lake strip mall near their Auto Row, there’s a Brazilian deli, something I’ve never heard of north of Miami.

           Besides hosting these mom-and-pop shops and hole-in-the-walls, strip malls still serve a need. The Bear Creek Village in Redmond, where the Safeway is, also hosts an Apna Bazaar, one of the most popular South Asian grocery networks in the Seattle Area, and a car (not public transportation) is needed for the inevitable five-plus grocery bag hall from there. There’s also an Agave Cantina, which fits nicely between standard family-style Mexican restaurants and the upscale Cactus! Tex-Mex in Downtown Kirkland and Bellevue Square. And a lot of people still depend on the likes of Dollar Tree. Urbanists may not like strip malls, but as long as people need the merchants there, they aren’t going away.

       47. I don’t think anyone said filed projects were on “pause”. What the article stated was:

           “Builders and developers have also expressed intent to construct another 67,269 units, although no formal plans have been submitted for these projects. Most of these prospective units are located in north Bellevue.”

           A city is not going to begin the design and land use process without a formal permit application and very large fee to cover the entire process beginning to end including inspections, which precedes the building application which is less discretionary and based on the international building code Inslee adopted. Often there is a “pre-application” process that is not free but does not require a formal permit application in which either a SFH owner or multi-family developer can meet with city planners to hash out the issues for a proposed project.

           My guess is the 67,269 figure represents projects that underwent a pre-application process but no formal permit application has been filed. They may be “on pause” depending on market and interest rate conditions which just means no application has been filed, but not formally paused during the permitting process.

           When the article states, “Furthermore, 26,028 units are in the planning stages, meaning their respective projects have received approval from planning and zoning authorities” this would imply a permit was filed and approved, at least as to design and land use, and are not on pause. The permit applications for land use, design and construction are simply moving through the system, although I do know of several Bellevue projects moving through the permit system in which the applicants and owners are hoping for more favorable market conditions down the road when the final permits are approved.

           Andrew’s analysis of the underlying report is interesting and appreciated. What will be interesting is how many of these informal projects are filed in the next few years, because the permitting fees are not cheap for these kinds of projects, and include start to finish design, land use and construction permits and the estimated inspections. Most cities I know have a time limit on any permitted project to complete before the permit lapses, with at least one opportunity for an extension.

           The keys will be whether builders and developers can make a profit with these interest rates, and whether the multi-family market is becoming saturated.

       48. > I have absolutely zero problem with strip malls.

           > They often house retail and restaurants that are priced out of the new mixed-use developments. I love going to comic book and collectible stores, and pretty much the only places I can find them in the Eastside are in strip malls. I can spend an hour at a time there looking for new comics while talking and learning from the owners, the way I used to at the old video rental and music stores.

           It is not that strip malls are by default bad, it is the fact that one is forced to build strip malls in most of America due to parking minimums and other zoning regulations.

           > And it’s not just the usual Thai and Vietnamese restaurants here. In a nondescript Federal Way strip mall along 99, I found a Salvadorian restaurant. Formica tables and spartan decor, but they served an unkown-to-me dish called “mocaljete”: simmered meet/poultry/seafood dish with thin tomato sauce, cheese and vegetables, served in the namesake mixing bowl and garnished with a cactus leaf.

           > Urbanists may not like strip malls, but as long as people need the merchants there, they aren’t going away.

           We could have more of those too if it wasn’t always required to be in a separate faraway commercial zoned area. Lots of restaurants used to just be converted single family homes. Or on a smaller scale just decreasing parking minimums would allow restaurants to expand their seating area without having to buy a huge lot for surface parking.

       49. Interesting video on the history of strip malls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yIswZLu_cY. NOTE: It segues into an ad at about the seven minute mark.

           I think this does an excellent job of covering the love/hate relationship with strip malls. They are built for the automobile, and like most architecture built for the automobile, they are ugly. On the other hand, strip malls often have the most “urban” of uses — lots of small shops, right next to each other. Sometimes these are chains, but often they are independent little businesses. The problem really isn’t strip malls themselves, it is the parking. Take away the parking, and it starts looking like the downtown area of a European small town. Eventually folks build up, because there is no need to preserve space for parking.

           Like many things built for the automobile, government regulation played a huge part: https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2016/08/26/americas-ugly-strip-malls-were-caused-by-government-regulation/?sh=29aba0cc5ca1.

       50. A lot of the reason why strip malls are so ugly is that the parking is often grossly oversized, usually due to oversized municipal parking requirements.

           Without parking requirements, strip malls would still have parking. But, the amount would be decided based on what is actually optimal for the business, rather than some arbitrary formula imposed by the city, and in many cases, would be considerably smaller.

           To illustrate, here’s a couple of restaurants I’ve been to that were built back before modern parking requirements became a thing.

           Here’s a local example of a restaurant in Wedgwood: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.679602,-122.2903729,3a,75y,261.17h,86.41t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_Fj_9do9LIg2a5kMSKPDug!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

           And here is an example of one in Houston:
           https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7174517,-95.4135006,3a,75y,355.34h,88.37t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTvMu6iMquNyPrcTpH9j2lA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

           Both of these restaurants experience parking lots which fill up during busy times. And yet, both of them are very hopping on the inside and look to be doing very well, even if it means a few customers needing to occasionally look for parking on an adjacent street or pay for parking in somebody else’s nearby garage. Both these restaurants would look far uglier if they had double the parking lot size, and the large parking lot would also make the place look emptier from the outside, and therefore, less appealing to people passing by, not to mention a much higher rent/mortgage payment for all that extra real estate they’d need to host that larger parking lot.

           And for another example, here’s a shopping center in Houston:

           https://www.google.com/maps/@29.6863976,-95.462642,3a,75y,262.48h,89.27t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1se_unmmSkwwdycOF_bx8m_g!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3De_unmmSkwwdycOF_bx8m_g%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D223.38023%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

           This parking lot is a bit large, but at least seems well-sized based on the number of cars actually occupying it. Except, that right in back of the same shopping center I just pictured, you have this:

           https://www.google.com/maps/@29.6849585,-95.4631798,3a,60y,162.68h,92.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sU600j4E6z9zCf0tGuNKVMA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

           That’s right – a huge eyescore of concrete that, even on the Saturday before Christmas, almost nobody ever parks in (I grew up in this neighborhood and can vouch for that personally). And the only explanation I can think of for this overflow lot to exist is that the city is making them do it.

           When people talking about the need to eliminate parking requirements, it is about avoiding city-imposed burdens on businesses, forced to create eyescores of concrete they don’t need, with perfect understanding that any business is still free to build whatever parking its owners or lenders decide they actually do need. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with people’s willingness to walk, bike, or take public transit. In my Houston shopping center example, pretty much everybody drives everywhere (this is Houston, after all), and yet they have still have a whole extra overflow parking lot, almost completely unused, simply to fulfill the city’s parking code. This is the kind of stuff that parking reform proponents seek to prevent.

       51. “The problem really isn’t strip malls themselves, it is the parking. Take away the parking, and it starts looking like the downtown area of a European small town. Eventually folks build up, because there is no need to preserve space for parking.”

           Get rid of parking and you get rid of the strip mall because the businesses will fail. The eastside, even Bellevue, is never going to have the population density in which folks walk along strip malls on Main St., let alone the less “dense” parts of Bellevue like 124th.

           What business owner is going to lease a retail space with no parking? Do Bellevue Square, Lincoln Square, U Village or Northgate have no parking. No, they have endless parking. Some like U Village do a good job and spend a fortune to hide the parking and remove it from the retail experience. One benefit is the parking is right in front of the store as on the surface which shoppers like, although it isn’t attractive from the street. Some cities (like MI) went to a new model in which the facades are pushed out to the sidewalk and the parking in the back.

           Cities don’t just require parking for commercial businesses, they limit the permitting based on the amount of parking that will be needed. So for example, a night club or movie theater can’t be crammed into a strip mall with limited parking (compare for example the Factoria movie theater with its massive parking), which will consume every other business’s parking allotment.

           Ross is correct strip malls generally provide retail facade density in a small package. In our experience on MI most of our town center’s retail space is in these one-story retail strip malls because the tall mixed-use developments were only interested in housing and set aside bad retail space without necessary improvements like a Class A HVAC system at very high lease rates with inadequate retail space they leased back to the residential tenants, so we mostly ended up with yoga gyms.

           There is a tiny percentage of this region, or even Seattle, that has the retail density to be walkable. Almost none of that is on the eastside. Hence you see hundreds if not “strip malls” that are one story with surface parking from Main St. to Crossroads to Issaquah to North Bend.

           As Anonymous I think pointed out, all the best ethnic food on the eastside (and pretty much anywhere) is in strip malls. The lease rates are low, the area is safe, and there is plenty of parking, which is really hurting the CID.

           Dreams about “urbanism” in this region have to deal with the reality that the population is not there, the area is huge, and long ago when it was zoned a lot of areas like Seattle allowed retail to be dispersed throughout their entire cities, and it is pretty much impossible to put the genie back in the bottle today which is why this region has so little population or retail density, and the retail density it does have is in destination malls.

       52. I made no claim of optimality, only of quality, pushing against the idea that the best restaurants are necessarily in Seattle. Anecdotally speaking, I have enjoyed very tasty food on the Eastside but also in Seattle. My favorite Indian restaurant is in NE Seattle but there’s one near Overlake that’s a close second, for example. One of my favorite Mexican restaurants is actually on Mercer Island, I’m sure DT has been to it before. But I make no claim of authenticity, either, I evaluate my restaurants holistically in terms of “food that tastes good to me” and “friendliness” and “cleanliness” and “wait times” etc. I’m sure that there are much more authentic places than all of my favorites.

           Oh, and one of the best dim sum places I’ve had is along the 249 route on Northup. So if anyone is looking for a reason to boost the ridership on that bus route, there you have it :)

       53. What business owner is going to lease a retail space with no parking?

           Business owners who feel like a significant number of their customers will arrive without a car. Such businesses are common around the world, although less so in suburban America.

           In areas where a high percentage of people drive to businesses (like much of suburban America) then such places would be cheaper than those with ample parking. Thus you would likely have more low-income, “starter” businesses in those type of places. This means the very trait that people find attractive about strip malls are actually more likely if they loosen the regulations, and allow property owners to build them without parking.

       54. “Some cities (like MI) went to a new model in which the facades are pushed out to the sidewalk and the parking in the back.”

           Hooray! That’s what I’ve been advocating the past few years. An easy way to make a shopping plaza more urban is to move the shops forward to the sidewalk and hide the parking behind them. Then pedestrians don’t have to walk through several rows of parking to get to the entrances, and the facade is more pleasant. If you can’t reduce parking, hide it.

    2. “ riff raff”

       This is a ridiculous stereotype that pervades suburbia about transit riders. I think this needs to be called out.

       The vast majority of rail transit riders are not riff raff. They are working commuters, students in our public schools or in college, people going to medical appointments and other kinds of things. It’s actually tough to steal a flat screen TV and get on Link; thieves are going to drive. Even car thieves are less able to steal a parked car thanks to technology these days.

       Note that I am not talking about rider safety here. Sure there seems to be increasing incidences of transit used as drug sites or homeless shelters. However, transit is not the “cause” of these problems and we should try to discourage these activities on transit rather than let them destroy the rider experience and not have any transit service. It would be like closing a highway because drugged-out people are wandering aimlessly in lanes of traffic.

       Bluntly put, if denying 2 Line service across Lake Washington is preferred to keep out riff raff than the same logic can be said to even having an I-90 bridge for car traffic.

       1. “This is a ridiculous stereotype that pervades suburbia about transit riders. I think this needs to be called out.”

          It is a ridiculous stereotype, but enough people believe it that it affects politicians and policy, and we have to deal with that. The politicians aren’t buying it in general, but it may affect decisions in the margins.

       2. “This is a ridiculous stereotype that pervades suburbia about transit riders. I think this needs to be called out.”

          “It is a ridiculous stereotype, but enough people believe it that it affects politicians and policy, and we have to deal with that. The politicians aren’t buying it in general, but it may affect decisions in the margins.”

          I think you miss the point Mike: this stereotype is depressing transit ridership. People legitimately believe waiting for and riding public transit is too dangerous. And it isn’t just suburbia (although over half of Seattle is clearly suburbia).

          People will not ride transit under any circumstances if they don’t think it is safe. Period. They don’t care what you think. They care what they think.

       3. @Mike Orr: Yup, perceptions outweigh facts many times. Ask politicians who miscalculated their messaging, or former Mariner Carl Everett, who said, “Your perception is different from my reality.”

          Crime may be down in big cities, but if one person goes on their first trip downtown in ages and sees homeless on the streets and druggies on the bus, they’ll come away with the viewpoint that the city is a hellhole; then they’ll tell their non-city friends, and that goes via osmosis to other people, their electeds and then the media.

       4. Seattle is on pace for a record year for murders. Most often perception does match reality. But if it is your life how willing are you to risk your life or we’ll being when there are so many better, more convenient alternatives.

          Transit is inconvenient as hell, so it has to offer something better. You can’t blame transit for the decline of downtown Seattle but a lot of the media images are crime on transit.

          WFH proved folks don’t want to take trips they don’t have or want to, and proved they don’t want to take transit — even safe suburban transit — if they don’t have. So transit can’t have a HINT of danger or folks won’t take it.

          Plus the only place eastsiders would have any NEED to take transit is downtown Seattle because of the parking, but downtown Seattle has been dying for so long all those customers have switched to safe, clean, vibrant alternatives.

          The work commuter and transit slave is over. Either downtown Seattle and transit recover or they die. Welcome to the market.

          It is critical that folks on this blog don’t think this is personal or “classist” (maybe the stupidest term ever). It is no different than deciding to go to one restaurant over another because one has better food and is more convenient.

       5. “I think you miss the point Mike: this stereotype is depressing transit ridership. People legitimately believe waiting for and riding public transit is too dangerous.”

          That’s what I said, although you stated it more clearly than I could. People have these perceptions, and it affects their actions and what they tell their representatives and what decisions their representatives make. These people are voters and part of the public, so it matters if a lot of them think a certain way, even if they’re wrong or believing conspiracy theories they heard on TV or Nextdoor.

       6. “if one person goes on their first trip downtown in ages and sees homeless on the streets and druggies on the bus, they’ll come away with the viewpoint that the city is a hellhole”

          One person might jump to that conclusion, but another person might not. And the druggies and homeless are mostly outside the bus, not inside it. There’s a marked difference between twenty sketchy people on the sidewalk when I was waiting for the 132 today, and zero on the bus.

       7. “ the only place eastsiders would have any NEED to take transit is downtown Seattle because of the parking,”

          I took the B and the 255 back in December. None of the many riders got off at stops that were in downtown Seattle, since neither route goes there.

          If you’re going to try to make useful comments about transit on the Eastside, you might consider actually trying to ride transit somewhere on the east side? It’s pretty clear none of the transit riders on the Eastside are aware of where you think they should be going.

    3. “Eastsiders don’t want the riff raff anyway.”

       300,000+ Eastsiders don’t all think alike.

       1. Although there’s still a ways to go, I feel much, much safer on Link trains and at Link stations that I did 6 months ago. The increased security presence Sound Transit is paying for is really obvious, as are the longer-term cumulative effects of these security staff questioning non-destinational riders and moving them along off trains and out of stations for the past several months. The Link system has become an annoying place to try to sleep or do drugs, and the word has gotten out, and this is a great thing.

          There used to often be 1-3 people per Link train sleeping, experiencing withdrawl, or gearing up to use drugs when I got on the light rail in 2020-2022. People would be smoking fentanyl inside Roosevelt station whenever I got off there late at night. It’s been a slow improvement, but these past couple months it is now rare for me to see these things on light rail anymore. This makes a huge difference in rider perception, and I think a big chunk of the increased ridership recovery on Link this year can be attributed to it.

          I hope this new security presence continues. It also shows how easy it is to make rapid improvements in transit rider safety. SPD and Metro need to get their shit together and clean up the downtown bus stops following this same model, so that people like a female friend of mine who really wants to use transit will feel comfortable transferring there and be able to take transit to work.

    4. “Riff Raff”: code for I don’t want to see poor people here. I guess some people really can’t stop themselves from espousing their garbage classist takes to make themselves feel superior. If you need to punch down and sneer at people beneath you to make yourself feel superior, then you are honestly worse than the person you are sneering at.

       1. Zach B,

          No, you’re wrong. “Riff Raff” isn’t code for poor people. Nobody is afraid to ride the bus with a guy in a McDonald’s uniform, or a Starbucks apron on. As long as people fallow a few basic “common sense” rules and behave, transit works very well, thank you, no matter how much to how little money you have.

          But let’s be honest about this. Drugs are 100% legal in Seattle. Using drugs on transit is legal. Seattle has 10,000 people roaming the streets who would be in an insane asylum in a European country. These people are unpredictable, stinky and violent– common sense tells you to stay away. If you get robbed at a downtown transit stop, I doubt the police would even help you. Even is you don’t get jacked, who wants to go out to dinner and a movie only to ride home with a crazy dude who’s shit his pants and keeps talking to himself? Seattle’s a gawd damn mess.

          And the biggest problem is the Liberal rider’s “Mike Orr’s Badge of Transit Courage”. Posters here think they’re “woke” or “hip” or” enlightened” for riding transit with sketchy street people. It’s a personal judgement call I guess, but I’m with the 75% of people who aren’t going to risk it.

          Poor people, you know the workers at McDonalds or Starbucks…. they fucking hate the homeless. You want to clean up human poop at work? Tell some druggie they can’t use your bathroom 40 times a day? The union at Starbucks has “worker safety” right below pay on issues it wants to deal with.

          My vision of transit is in the here and now… I want more clean, safe and friendly service starting today. I have little use for “future transit” the promise of Sound Transit in 20 years. (and the goal line is always going to move back if you haven’t noticed)

          What many posters here want is “future transit” in a “future city” where big changes are made to suit their chosen lifestyle. That’s why we spend more time fighting about zoning that we do bus service here. The Mike Orr vision of Seattle being stuffed with 7 story “urban villages” that resemble Capitol Hill or Belltown…. or trying to force this crazy tolerance for the homeless on everybody….

          I don’t pretend to know what’s best for other people, we all make our own choices. I do know that transit would be better tomorrow with a bunch more drivers and transit cops working, and having some basic rules like “No smoking drugs on the bus”.

       2. I have witnessed more gruesome traffic accidents than I have someone messing themselves on transit. I definitely feel safer on the bus.

          The last assault I witnessed was a couple punching down (literally) on an elderly homeless man using a bench as a place to enjoy some food. The police blamed the victim and let the assailants go (but at least got their names into the record, which will hopefully deter recidivism). This happened in Des Moines, FWIW.

          Maybe I have not gone to the eastside much because there is rarely anywhere I want go there, certainly when compared to downtown Seattle.

          Even the car drivers seem to want to go to Seattle, judging by our traffic and preponderance of pricey parking garages.

       3. Well said tacomee. When I mean riff raff, I don’t mean poor people or working class people. I mean drug addicts and explicitly drug addicts who contaminate our buses with meth and fentanyl residue that remain on the buses. The fact that open drug use on our buses is not banned and does not result the passenger from being kicked off the bus is atrocious. All transit lovers should be outraged.

          You can’t have functional transit when you allow open meth use on our buses.

       4. “All transit lovers should be outraged.”

          You can’t fix it without fixing poverty, which is very much the core to the problem. Unless WA and US governments wants to fix healthcare housing, and social welfare to be line with other modern nations, you won’t see the homeless problem realistically change in any meaningful manner. Because otherwise it’s just moving the problem around with no real solutions.

          “The Housing Crisis is the Everything Crisis
          https://youtu.be/4ZxzBcxB7Zc?si=JMWw0WYWj4q2Fji_

       5. Telling a transit agency to fix the homeless problem is akin to asking me to make my house more fire proof when someone burned my house down from shooting a bottle rocket at it.

       6. “When I mean riff raff, I don’t mean poor people or working class people.”

          The term is ambiguous. I’ve only heard it in this sense: poor people, unfashionable people, etc/

          “I mean drug addicts and explicitly drug addicts who contaminate our buses with meth and fentanyl residue that remain on the buses.”

          There are unambiguous words for those: criminals and destructive people.

    5. “Redmond residents are not going to take Link to their own town center. They are not going to drive to a park and ride at night to take Link to their own town center.”

       No, people from outside Redmond. The only people who will take Link to Redmond are those where a Link station is in their direction. That’s generally from the southwest of Redmond.

       “Redmond does not and likely never will have the retail and restaurants to compete with areas upstream on Link. Few go there to shop or dine today.
       Redmond despite 3X the population has no more retail vibrancy than MI. So why go to Redmond to dine or shop.”

       Because a particular restaurant or chef is unusually good, or a particular kind of store is only in Redmond, or a particular yoga or MMA teacher is there, or a club meeting, or your friend’s rugby team is playing a match there and you want to see it, or you have relatives in Redmond…. I’d say Redmond has much more retail choices than Mercer Island, and a significant portion of them are unique. As to whether to go to Redmond or Mercer Island or elsewhere, it depends on the particular shop. Sometimes a shop you want to go to is in Redmond, sometimes it’s in Mercer Island (although unlikely since there are so few), etc.

       When I was in Mercer Island I went to a Japanese restaurant near the P&R, you probably know which one I’m talking about, and had my first seaweed salad. The meal was good but not good enough for me to go again, but it could have been, because sometimes others are. It’s up to the Mercer Island businesses and city to make it so; it’s not directly related to how big the downtown is or how vibrant. A big downtown just increases the changes that it has places you’d want.

    6. Why single out one of thousands of things that might happen?

       Mike, because the pontoons for 520 cracked and there are genuinely professional and NOT “anti-transit” engineers who have said it’s a danger. It’s really the single catastrophe out of those “thousands” you touted that would deep-six Line 2 cross-lake service for a decade.

       That would be several cartons of egg on ST’s face, so even if the likelihood is tiny [I hope] it’s worth admitting that it is a possible game-changer for East Link.

       1. Oops, I didn’t get the preceding slash on the blockquote entry, Apologies to the readership,

       2. Fixed.

       3. Thanks very much, Ross.

22. [ot] [This is not an open thread, among other problems.]

    1. One set of transit riders that should be considered are the riders of the ST-545 from downtown Seattle to MSFT campus at Redmond Technology Statuon. I believe I would prefer the ST-550 to the ELSL to RTS as an alternitive.

       1. I think the one seat ride on the 545 would be considerably faster most days. Maybe Link to 550 can win on afternoon trips when traffic on 520 is really bad, but even then, I’m not so sure. The problem is, if traffic is bad on 520, it’s probably worse on I-90, which means trying to be fancy simply results in sitting in traffic on the 550 instead of sitting in traffic on the 545.

       2. I suppose the ESLS might be a useful extension to the 560 for a few? The airport is a significant destination and some might wind up going down that way, maybe?

23. Some related news on housing for east link.

    Sound Transit approved transferring the land over to Bellweather to to build some 333 units of affordable* housing next to overlake village.

    “Key Business Terms for Overlake Village Station Transit Oriented Development”
    https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Motion%20M2023-73.pdf

    Below article has better pictures.

    https://news.theregistryps.com/bellwether-housing-to-build-333-unit-affordable-housing-complex-at-overlake-village-station-in-redmond/

    *affordable as defined by between 30% and 80% of area median income.

    Checking the sound transit website, the only other tod site on the east side is the one next to 120th https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/creating-vibrant-stations/transit-oriented-development/spring-district-120th

24. They’ve released a document on East Link service patterns both starter and post connecting the bridge. Most of it has already been discussed previously but it does more concretely outline what is moving forward. And also shows the peak crowding issues with a graph.

    A) With East Link starter line it seems the 1 Line will have 3 and 4-car trains running every 10 minutes (peak time) instead of 8 minutes. Though this seems more about reliability of existing train issues as well as the long train route. 2 Line will run every 10 minutes (only to South Bellevue) with 2-car trains. Additionally they are going to postpone the Lynnwood Link ST Express restructure and most likely continue running busses to at least Northgate/Lynnwood to alleviate the area of high crowding.

    B) After East Link is connected they are going to run on the 1 Line 4-car trains every 10 minutes (peak time) to Federal Way. 2 Line will have 3-car trains running every 10 minutes.

    This does seem a bit concerning, it seems the length of the route from Lynnwood to Federal Way is really hampering the frequency of the link. If Link 1 Line runs 10 minutes frequency during peak times, does it means it’s going to run even less frequently 12/15 minutes midday or 20 minutes in the evening? (well outside of single tracking lol)

    C) Interestingly the start of the ST2 extensions to redmond already denotes 2026, not 2025. I’m wondering if this means internally they already know the bridge can’t be fixed/service start by 2025?

    (ST2 Light Rail Service and Passenger Experience September 7, 2023)

    https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Presentation%20-%20ST2%20Light%20Rail%20Service%20and%20Passenger%20Experience%2009-07-23.pdf

    1. This switch to 10 minute trains generally and three cars for the fully-open East Link sounds to me that ST is figuring out that their 2024 crowding fears are being questioned.

       This kind of schedule alsopoints to the increased possibility that West Seattle Link will go into the DSTT as a third line and FW or Tacoma Dome 1 Line should probably turn around at Northgate after remaining in the DSTT.

       I’ve also feared that ST would stub the line from FW or Tacoma Dome st SODO. The line length problem seems more apparent.

       Man I wish automation was put on the table! Then the line length wouldn’t matter and headways could be tighter!

       The more I’ve looked at asT data, the clearer it is to me that the “overcrowding claim between Symphony and CID is a forecasting glitch that takes people off of Third Ave Metro buses and drops them onto Link for that short distance. .

       1. > This switch to 10 minute trains generally and three cars for the fully-open East Link sounds to me that ST is figuring out that their 2024 crowding fears are being questioned.

          I’m more worried it might be 15-minute trains off peak (midday). The length of Lynnwood to Federal Way as well as not addressing the slow down in Rainier Valley is really impacting the travel time, meaning they need more trains for the same frequency.

       2. The more I’ve looked at asT data [sic — I assume you mean ST data] the clearer it is to me that the “overcrowding claim between Symphony and CID is a forecasting glitch that takes people off of Third Ave Metro buses and drops them onto Link for that short distance.

          I agree. This is the same point I made up above (https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/09/06/breaking-down-east-link-starter-line-ridership/#comment-917544). The ridership modeling tools require you input the appropriate data. Ignore the frequent buses (and the depth of the stations) and of course short trips by train sound quite popular. The modeling tools base their numbers on most of America, which frankly, has really bad transit. Most buses are very slow, making rail transit more popular. That simply isn’t the case in much of our city, which explains why the original estimates for the streetcar were way off, and why it is likely this is way off. It isn’t like the East Side has great transit (it isn’t nearly as good as Seattle) but the B works for many of these trips, and runs just as often. The B takes a slow path, but sometimes that works in its favor. Link may be much faster between stops, but that time savings may be eaten up entirely be extra time spent walking to and from the stops. I’m not saying the stop choices on East Link are bad (or that the B has good routing) but I’m saying the influence on the modeling may be way off. A lot of people could switch from using the B, but my guess is they won’t.

25. The abundance of off-topic comments in this post is proof that starter line supporters know it will be a flop, otherwise they would have talked about the starter line, and not downtown Redmond and masks.

    1. To be fair, the last open thread was about a week ago or longer, so people end up drifting in their topic selection where there is audience. I recently posted something in the open thread (as you know), but I don’t think anyone else started a new topic there in a good few days. Perhaps it’s time for someone to post a new open thread.

    2. I did try to keep posts tangential to East Link stuff happening, but as you noted there’s not really much more to talk about the starter line. And as Anonymouse noted perhaps another open thread.

    3. I don’t distinguish much between the Starter Line and the full Line 2, because we’re preparing for both situations within a few years of each other. My downtown Redmond comments assume the downtown Redmond extension is open, of course.

       If the plinth problems really take until 2026 or later to finish, then that might raise the possibility of opening the downtown Redmond extension before cross-lake service. That would increase ridership on the Starter Line because it would have a strong all-day anchor at the east end.

26. The ELSL will be what it will be. You can hypothesize only so much.

    I don’t think the ELSL will be a “flop” because its possibilities without connecting to Seattle or downtown Redmond — with Microsoft WFH — were so limited to begin with. It makes no sense from a transit point of view. There won’t even be a bus restructure to serve the ELSL so obviously ST and Metro don’t think the ELSL will be effective transit.

    The real questions IMO are:

    1. Will East Link be able to run full capacity across the bridge, and when will it open. WL’s post on progress on replacing the plinths was sobering, with EL opening sometime around 2027. The Board knew about the plinth issue in 2019 but did not disclose that — even to Eastside mayors — until 2022 so we can’t rely on transparency or honesty from the Board.

    2. Even if East Link can open full capacity across the bridge what is the likely ridership post pandemic. Just like I think it is unfair to call the ELSL a flop because it will have low ridership, I don’t think you can call the full EL a flop post pandemic based on ridership that will be less than 1/2 of ST’s crazy pre-pandemic ridership projections in order to sell the Eastside — the swing voter in the ST taxing district — on ST 2.

    At around $5.5 billion for East and Redmond Link the cost for such a large and affluent subarea isn’t a big deal. The route is unfortunate, but Bellevue can run a very frequent shuttle from 110th to Bellevue Way to solve that problem (if it wants too). But after the main station there is pretty nothing today until Redmond which is estimated to have only 1300 boardings/day, which is 650 riders.

    The only “flop” is comparing actual ridership on ST 2 and 3 to ST’s crazy pre-pandemic ridership estimates to sell the levies, plus a pandemic, and for some projects like WSBLE due to the unreasonably cost.

27. Does anyone have the ridership statistics for the B-Line, 249, and 550? I would love to know what ridership along the East Link Starter Line corridor is/has been

    1. Here’s a couple I found.

       For 2017, B line has 6500, 249 had 900, and 550 had ~10,000.

       Currently for 2023 (estimating here), B line has ~4750, 249 has 500, 550 has 3700.

       The 249 is basically a coverage route with low ridership, the B line and 550 have been increasing in ridership and probably can get moderately higher. I’d assume the B line will end up around ~5750 for some time. The 550 is a bit odder, I’d guess it’d slowly increase back up to ~5,000; though obviously most of that will change whenever East link actually opens (not just the starter line).

       https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/elected/executive/constantine/news/release/2018/February/21-metro-ridership.aspx
       https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/2017-q4-service-delivery-performance-report.pdf

       (Current using this link)

       https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/depts/transportation/metro/about/accountability-center/rider-dashboard.aspx

       For sound transit ridership below

       https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership

       1. That seems about right. 10,000 boardings/day on EL based on bus ridership today, although maybe a bit higher when adding in the 554 and disappearing peak express routes, although as Sam notes not all riders will transfer. For example how many riders on the 554 will transfer at S. Bellevue to go to 110th?

          ST estimated something like 53,000/day pre-pandemic, although that might include boarders from Judkins Park to Lynnwood.

          I don’t believe in induced demand, at least on the Eastside. Eastsiders don’t take trips for the hell of it, especially on transit when most trips begin with a park and ride.

          I live on MI. If I could walk to the Link station (which I can easily through a beautiful park) and take East Link to a safe, clean and vibrant 3rd and Pike with a safe, clean walk to the Market and back — in the dark — I would and even my wife would.

          If the trip is east to suburbia (Bellevue to Redmond) no frickin way. I am driving in suburbia, and there is zero chance I am driving — let alone taking Link — to lame ass Wilburton, “The Spring Dist.”, God forbid Overlake or Redmond.

          Come on. How many urbanists and transit nuts on this blog take a bus to Wilburton to Redmond?

       2. There’s also the 226. Sept 2019 had 2,660. Sept 2022 had 947.

    2. That’s a good question. From which routes will riders switch to the starter line, and where? I know you asked about ridership stats for the bus routes, but I don’t think that info is as important as just identifying which are the likely routes riders will switch from the bus to the ELSL, and where? Remember, in some cases where it might make sense to switch from the bus to Link, there are riders who don’t like to transfer, and if there’s a choice between a 2-seat quicker ride, and a 1-seat slower ride, they’ll choose the slower ride because in their mind, it’s less hassle.

       1. Consider typical trips:

          Bellevue TC to 116th (hospitals, Whole Foods): 226 or 250 (closest to hospitals, 6 buses/hour weekdays), Link, B.
          Bellevue TC to 124th: Link, B, 226 (depends on which part of 124th)
          Bellevue TC to Crossroads: B.
          Bellevue TC to Overlake Village: Link, 226, B. (None of them go directly to the Safeway block.)
          Crossroads to Overlake Village, Redmond Tech, downtown Redmond: B.
          South Bellevue (transfer from 550) to 116th: Link.
          South Bellevue to 124th: Link if closer to Bel-Red. 550+B if closer to 8th.
          South Bellevue to Crossroads: 550+B.
          South Bellevue to Overlake Village: Link.
          South Bellevue to Redmond Tech: Link.
          South Bellevue to downtown Redmond: Link+542/545/B.
          Downtown Seattle to downtown Redmond: 545.
          U-District to downtown Redmond: 542.

          I don’t think the 249 is likely for any of them because it’s so indirect. It only has a niche if you’re going right to 20th/Northup Way.

       2. The key to Eastside trip “pairs” is how did the rider get to the station.

          There is a reason ST built so many park and rides in suburbia. But here is the key to park and rides: the end of the transit trip has to be “there”. Really “there”. Not Wilburton “there”. Eastsiders ain’t taking transit after Link. . That is why EL is predicated on the work commuter. Your trip ended in downtown Seattle, which was “there”. End of trip.

          The other thing about first mile access is whether the walkshed is transit riders. Folks living within walking distance of the Main station are wealthy. They don’t walk to transit —let alone 10 Bellevue blocks — to go grocery shopping.

          I don’t think eastsiders think in terms of “trip pairs”. Or that they will take transit intra-Eastside unless they don’t have a car, and that is a tiny percentage.

          Make downtown Seattle something you can’t get on the Eastside and you will get more discretionary trips by eastsiders, but not a lot with WFH.

       3. I took the 560, B and 271 a few months back.

          The 560 serves the most parking spaces, and only had 2 other passengers.

          At 8 pm on a weekday night, the 261 westbound was quite full east of Bellevue. The B was pretty full too, headed eastbound.

          None of these passengers got on or off at any of the park and rides.

          So, your declared reality doesn’t seem to match actual reality.

       4. “I don’t think eastsiders think in terms of “trip pairs”.”

          A trip pair is simply planner-speak for where you are vs where you want to be. When you say, “I’m going to the store”, that’s a trip pair, whether it’s by transit, car, or foot.

       5. Mike, I think I understand what trip pairs means. Someone needs to return home or their point of departure after a trip.

          You see trip pairs through the the lens of someone who doesn’t own a car, lives on lower Capitol Hill, and does errands and spontaneous trips on transit.

          Your first mile access is a short walk, which really isn’t part of a trip pair. When you add in a park and ride the trip pair becomes a trip quartet, which pretty much rules out spontaneous transit trips, or running errands on transit when you are already in your car on the way to the park and ride and the destination will have free parking.

          This is also why it is critical that Link (or a bus) takes someone originating in a park and ride to their ultimate destination. If a transfer is required you just took a trip pair and made it a trip six. That is why so much Eastside transit ridership was peak to downtown Seattle. Parking was expensive, the trip was long on the bus so worth it, the time away (at work) was 8 or more hours, and when you got off in downtown Seattle from your one seat bus your trip quartet was worth it because you were there (until WFH).

          So that was how I was differentiating “trip pairs” where you live and suburbia where most transit trip pairs are trip quartets assuming a transfer is not required, and then it is a trip 6 and few will do that since obviously they have a car.

          The other issue is that the eastsiders who can walk to a Link station (and most eastsiders probably won’t walk 1/4 mile each way) often live in very expensive areas and don’t usually ride transit. Surrey Downs, Beaux Arts, Main station, the residential neighborhood to the north of the station on MI. etc. We can’t even get Islanders living in multi-family housing a short flat walk from the bus stop to use transit although our mixed-use buildings with awful retail spaces and inadequate onsite parking were sold as “TOD”.

          The rest of stations going east don’t have a lot of multi-family housing within easy walking distance of a Link station although that housing is not as expensive.

          The development plans for Wilburton and The Spring Dist. were light on housing, and the housing was very high end because it was all new, with a lot of onsite parking.

          So I think there are few trip “pairs” on the Eastside. When you add in a park and ride to a transit trip it fundamentally changes how someone decides whether to take transit and where.

       6. A trip pair is the person’s origin and destination, not the number of seats on the way.

          I live halfway between two Link stations, and one of them is where most of the bus transfers are. And with the arthritis in my hip now I can only walk a mile a day before it starts hurting so I have to conserve my steps to get more than one errand done or go on a walking tour. So I take a short bus trip to the transfer, which is somewhat analogous to driving to a P&R: I call them 2-3 seat trips but they’re technically 3-4 seats.

28. I actually walked from the vicinity of the Main station to Old Main today. It’s kind of a long walk and I think made worse by the big Bellevue blocks and waiting at intersections with left turn lights. Only a mile away but felt long and not particularly relaxing or engaging. It’s definitely not something I would do regularly. Might as well just park in the garage. So dumb not putting the station on Bellevue Way.

    I agree with DT. There’s no “there.”

    1. The three hotels near the station might provide something,

    2. I think most of us wanted Link on Bellevue Way because the Bellevue Square and Old Bellevue areas are full of the kinds of trips a metro is good at, and there are apartments all along Bellevue Way. But Kemper Freeman wanted to keep Link away from his mall and prevent Link entirely, and half the city council agreed and obstructed planning for a year, and insisted on an alignment either on 112th, 405, or the Eastside Rail Corridor. The upzone at Main & 112th was a kind of consolation prize, and Main Street was growing anyway.

       1. The NE corner of Bellevue Way and Main Street would’ve been perfect for an East Link station. It’s only a few blocks from the fancy new hotels near Lincoln Square, it’s across the street from the mall and the park, and not that far from the entrance to Bellevue High. Plus, there hadn’t been much there other than a sporting goods store, so acquiring the real estate would’ve been inexpensive. Too bad Kemper Freeman and some Bellevue politicos stopped it.

       2. I would have run East Link underground one block east of Bellevue Way with 3 stations, at Main, NE 4th and NE 8th. Otherwise the construction disruption on Bellevue Way would have been too great, and Bellevue Way is pretty much the western border of “downtown Bellevue”. If that was too expensive or disruptive to NE 8th then probably two stations at NE 2nd and NE 6th before turning east (of course knowing what we know today I probably would have ended East Link somewhere near there or a turn around nearby).

          I don’t know why Bellevue objected to this plan. Some say Freeman and property owners along Bellevue Way hate transit, or don’t covet transit riders, or were worried like every other station stakeholder group to years of construction, some say ST didn’t understand the amount of subarea revenue E KC would generate with ST 2 and 3 in order to fund the tunnel when ST tunneled from 43rd to Northgate.

          In any case, today the solution is a frequent (2-minute frequencies) straight shuttle from the DBS up 6th to Bellevue Way. Most of the rest of the route for East Link is fantasies about future TOD that will take a miracle to get built and to be attractions when Bellevue Way already is, so focus on that last bit of last mile access.

       3. The NE corner of Bellevue Way and Main Street would’ve been perfect for an East Link station.

          Yep.

          I’m tempted to just stop there — like when someone says “Hey, that Jimi Hendrix dude could really play the guitar”, but I’ll keep going. First off, it is just far enough away from the other Downtown Bellevue station to avoid overlap. Coverage is diagonal, which is ideal for a downtown area that is fairly small, but square.

          Second, by being on Bellevue Way, it works with buses that go north-south. They avoid having the awkward turn to serve the other downtown station. It is easy to imagine the future 271 (renamed the 270) just running north-south on Bellevue Way through downtown, laying over at say, South Bellevue Station (where there is ample parking). The bus could overlap with a similar bus coming from Factoria (giving Bellevue Way the type of headways only found in Seattle).

          Third, it is clearly in the heart of “Downtown Bellevue”. There are skyscrapers nearby, and density surrounding the area. You leave out the area north of there, but again, buses could serve it quite easily.

          If you really wanted to cover Downtown Bellevue with Link stations, you would need three stations, but that would be really difficult and awkward, even if you weren’t trying to go anywhere else. In contrast, that stop would cost very little, while basically doubling the walk-up ridership of Link in the area and make life much easier for those who have to take a combination of bus/train to get anywhere (i. e. the majority of riders).

          So, Yep. Yep indeed.

    3. “ There’s no “there.”

       That’s true today but things are coming. There are active plans to build large building complexes on the other three corners on Main and 112th. I think there is supposed to be about 10 buildings over 20 stories all totaled around there when completed.

       I also note that the original Bellevue Downtown Station was supposed to be at 4th and 110th but got moved to 6th and 110th. That puts buildings south of NE 2nd closer to East Main.

       Finally, it’s less of a hill on Main St than on NE 4th to get to 116th. There are lots of things happening at NE 4th and 116th.

       1. Isn’t 116th on the Eastside of 405?

          At this time there isn’t a lot happening on Main between 112th and Bellevue Way. Old Bellevue is pretty quiet during the day. The walk from Main to NE 8th is very long.

          Both Main and NE 6th are a slog uphill to Bellevue Way. I have my doubts about the development on 112th north of Main. That has always been Class C space next to a freeway. We built East Link based on filling in the riders later, until interest rates skyrocketed and WFH.

          Bellevue will need to install a shuttle that is direct and very frequent if it wants to get Link riders to Bellevue (and Bellevue might not want Link riders on Bellevue Way). I would choose the Main station because NE 6th to NE 8th is the heart of Bellevue, and Bellevue’s performing arts center will be on Bellevue Way and 110th which alone is a long walk from NE 6th.

       2. “Isn’t 116th on the Eastside of 405?”
          It crosses 405 at SE 4th Street, so Link would have been on the west side from I-90 to there. Then it could have followed 405 to Main Street, where 112th and 405 are close together.

       3. This is under construction across Main St from the East Main Station:

          https://www.bellevuedowntown.com/go/broadstone-bellevue-gateway

          It is scheduled to be open before ELSL. It includes senior housing I believe.

          Yes 116th is across 405. However, there is not an interchange there. It’s much less steep than NE 4th. It doesn’t take walking across ramps or dealing with ramp signals with long crosswalk waits. It beats crossing at NE 4th or NE 8th by far.

          One thing that happens with rail stations is that riding pedestrians avoid walking uphill. I could see riders getting off at Bellevue Downtown Link but board at East Main.

       4. This is an interesting mixed zone site. It looks like one of the two planned 7 story buildings got eliminated. It is all residential. Not sure if the senior housing is subsidized.

          How does a senior or anyone at this complex get anywhere if they don’t get one of the 246 parking spots? There was a reason the hotels along 112th had massive parking.

          405 is to the east. Surrey Downs to the south. To the west is a steep hill and 12 blocks to Bellevue Way, still 8 blocks away from the mall. Even if someone made the walk on foot across 405 to reach 116th it is mostly big box stores and isn’t walkable.

          I supppse they could walk to ELSL or EL but then what? They still can’t get to Bellevue Way. They could go to MI to grocery shop, but 112th is just a very difficult place to get anywhere without a car. Maybe Uber or Bel-Hop.

       5. At some point there really should be a pedestrian bridge across I-405 there. Nothing quite so spectacular as the Northgate bridge, but enough to link the station and downtown Bellevue to the Eastside trail.

          It’d be expensive, but a freeway lid with parking for the hotels and for the car dealership could allow the hotel parking by the station to be converted to something useful.

       6. @Glenn

          The new main street bridge is basically what you are asking for as while it maintains the original 4 car lanes, it will include a 12.5 feet multi-use path in one direction and in the other direction a 8 feet sidewalk and 5 feet (on roadway unprotected) bike lane. Not quite sure why they don’t just build a multi-use path on both sides of the road but it’s still pretty good either way. This is part of the ongoing i-405 toll expansion program.

          https://wsdotblog.blogspot.com/2022/07/learn-more-about-new-and-improved-main.html

       7. Good to hear better pedestrian access is at least possible.

          Highway vehicles are granted crossings at 12th, 10th, 8th, 4th and Main, and for them a several block diversion represents less than a minute travel time.

          Not having a pedestrian crossing at what would basically be SE 3rd and going up to main would add about 7+ minutes between the Botanical Garden (one of the regional attractions in the area) and the “East Main” station (which is actually fairly far south of Main.

          Yeah, I know. Finances are limited and tight finances require saving every transit penny for valuable projects like Sounder to Falls City or whatever, but it would be nice if pedestrian minutes counted the same as automobile minutes.

       8. “How does a senior or anyone at this complex get anywhere if they don’t get one of the 246 parking spots?”

          Some seniors can no longer drive and won’t need a parking space.

       9. Glenn, you can’t be serious about a pedestrian bridge being needed between East Main station and 116th Ave on the other side of 405.

       10. Define “need” please.

           Main station is cut off on the east side by a wall. To the west there’s hotel parking lots, which might redeveloped into something useful if the parking were put on top of the freeway. To the north and south there’s not much.

           If you’re going to spend $250 million or whatever SoundTransit spent on this station, it might be a good idea to make it so what is around the station can access the station.

           Portland has recently built several such bridges over I-84 and it’s own I-405. Granted, there’s actual stuff around the Portland bridges, but it wasn’t that long ago there wasn’t.

           To look up more:

           • Ned Flanders Crossing
           • Congressman Earl Blumenauer Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge

           and a somewhat smaller structure across Burnside:
           • Barbara Walker Crossing

           It might not seem like they add much from the perspective of someone that drives everywhere, but for a transit user they are very useful.

       11. @Glenn

           But the main street bridge is really not that far away? Adding a pedestrian bridge also doesn’t help the walkshed that much

       12. Yes, pedestrian bridges can be useful … in the right place. I don’t think that’s a good place for one. I do think there should be a pedestrian bridge spanning 405, but I think it should connect Downtown Bellevue Station to 116th/Eastrail. A ped bridge like that is planned as part of Bellevue’s Grand Connection. One proposed location is to have it cross at NE 6th, next to the Link guideway, and another idea is to put one little further south, in between NE 6th and NE 4th. Those would be two good locations for a ped bridge.

       13. It’s rather silly they didn’t include a pedestrian segment as part of the Link structure.

           MAX Green Line has one here:
           https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4794168,-122.5672123,157m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
           View from street level:
           https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4794525,-122.5672032,3a,75y,119.5h,99.11t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sqf1e6IMogZT3_Z0BKih_LQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3Dqf1e6IMogZT3_Z0BKih_LQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D211.19408%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

           MAX Orange Line has one under this bridge:
           https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4402359,-122.6401602,158m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
           Street level view:
           https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4407851,-122.6398668,3a,75y,254.51h,87.83t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1spM5CBAV0UxF1Djk-0p5-mA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DpM5CBAV0UxF1Djk-0p5-mA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D341.58652%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
           and
           https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4384548,-122.6407736,3a,15y,7.75h,88.8t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBC77UTeiN4ZhxbW9rq685A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

           Neither of these are particularly obvious locations for such structures. In the case of the green line one over Foster Road and Woodstock Blvd, the pre-MAX route of the bike path was to cross at street level. The bridge saves maybe 5 minutes due to not having to deal with all the auto traffic. It doesn’t seem like much in a car worshipping society that looks at a few blocks distance as 30 seconds, but for pedestrian access to the station it does make life quite a bit easier.

           The orange line one connects several apartment complexes to downtown Milwaukie in a somewhat shorter pathway than having to go all the way around on the highway bridge. It doesn’t look like much to someone that drives everywhere, but again for pedestrian access to both downtown Milwaukie and to its MAX station it saves quite a bit of time, and doesn’t require anywhere near as much walking next to a loud, busy road.

           Both of these bridges are located in places with much less of anything around them than Bellevue.

       14. Glenn – thanks for the Portland links. I think the difference with the 405 crossing is threefold
           1. There is an freeway crossing 1 block away both north and south. Neither are great pedestrian experiences, but they do exist.
           2. The ROW is very tight. Immediately to the north is WSDOT ROW, and the long term plan is for that direct access ramp to extend to the east. To the south, that lot is zoned for towers; much more expensive to acquire the incremental ROW vs the suburban Portland examples.
           3. There is a plan for a crossing, so an ST cross would be duplicative. Bellevue may make the same errors as Seattle did with the Northgate bridge – focusing on a ‘signature’ bridge rather than a functional crossing, and therefore building something much later & more expensive than if ST was in charge. #3 may end up looking more like a Lid, which could be great, but it also feels like it is a decade away.

           Also, for the connection from Eastrail, there will be a good pedestrian bridge that will connect directly to the Wilburton station. Not helpful if trying to get from Eastrail to downtown Bellevue (NE 10th or rebuilt Main are the two good options), but will work great for Eastrail-Link transfers for a rider heading to somewhere outside Bellevue.

       15. To extend the South Main station walkshed, I thought the Option 5 & 6 here would have actually worked really well. That bridge (perhaps with car lanes, but hopefully without the freeway ramp) could return in the future as the Bellevue’s urban core grows south and east and there is a desire to continue to rebuild the street grid.
           https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/08/18/bellevue-weighing-options-for-new-i-405-interchange-in-south-downtown/

           Otherwise, I’d love to see a pedestrian bridge at the Hilton property that points straight at the southern station entrance, perhaps funded through upzoning of the parcels on both sides of the freeway and/or a development agreement. Some of the long elevated public pathways in Tyson Corner connecting WMATA to office blocks might be a good examples?

       16. Here is a description of the East Main Village project presented in 2022:

           http://bellevue.com/article.php?id=430

           Among the details….
           “ The project will have 1.9 million square feet of office space, 1,350 residences, 27,000 square feet of retail and 340 hotel rooms–spanning six towers up to 38 stories tall–all over a shared podium and underground garage with 2,900 parking stalls. A pedestrian bridge over a street will connect the project to the new Bellevue light rail station.”

           So there is supposed to be a new pedestrian overcrossing from the site to the station, and there will likely be some sort of walkway system through the planned development.

           https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhciefVhbYj7gsTHNDh2mJ8gD8DyPYbyRAjBXUxgyrFp3rg0S_0wYj-bSRX2Uvw2FNiUI_ly-e__u8uZu_0C875Z7W_62CHeNyTPvcMIU3D8bEc0WTKA0w7FwlAz90PVLwwHWL3e2IfRDCDHJemdF0ejkpX2Q_-hOBV7UBiXUDEA35ZEm4asbJvgw/s1365/future-bridge-design.jpg

           It should be mentioned that East Main Station has connections to 112th north and south of the platform. The north entrance is only about 400 feet south of Main St.

           For those that are still looking at Google Map street view, that bridge is gone. The cross section of the new bridge has a 12.5 foot multi-use path and a 6 foot planter buffer between that and traffic. So it’s pretty much a separate pedestrian bridge already.

           116th climbs as it runs southward from the Main St intersection. So not only is 405 creating a wall, but the east side of 405 is considerably higher than the west side. Any crossing there would have to include lots of stairs and an elevator for ADA.

           So the pedestrian circulation isn’t horrible today, and the developer holds the cards about future pedestrian connectivity. I can’t imagine that given the modest retail space expected in the development that they want it porous to people walking through. Things however can change. Stay tuned!

       17. Yeah, they will add pedestrian crossings over 405. It looks like it will improve the area close to the Bellevue Downtown Station (BDS). It won’t do much for East Main Station, and there is little that can be done, really. It is simply a bad place for a station. It is easy to imagine all of these futuristic wonderful things being added, when ST simply should have put the station a few blocks to the west. For those not familiar with the station, here it is: https://goo.gl/maps/quLhn1FsDQEiGzNCA. A few things jump out at me:

           1) There is no street grid. Look directly west of the station and you will notice a lot of houses. As the crow flies, the closest houses are on 111th, but this is what the walk looks like: https://goo.gl/maps/quLhn1FsDQEiGzNCA. Basically, you can’t get there from here. The problem isn’t limited to those houses. It takes over fifteen minutes to walk from the high school or performing arts center: https://goo.gl/maps/J98R7Zyj2Nzi4iAQ7 (and I thought the walk from Franklin High to Mount Baker Station was terrible). The grid isn’t any better to the east. Obviously the freeway blocks access, but fortunately at least Main Street goes over. The problem is, it soon ends as well, creating trips like this: https://goo.gl/maps/yr9CvKyWx5ArDHv57. Meanwhile, the lack of a crossing to the south means trips like this: https://goo.gl/maps/JgJuuj3WT5VnRqv99. Like the house directly west of the station, this is one of the closer places to the station (as the crow flies). But people aren’t crows, and the street grid makes it unlikely that people will walk that far.

           2) Poor feeder bus service. This goes along with the first item. There is no attempt to run east-west buses there (along Main) because you really can’t. Thus the only buses that run there also run to BDS. The buses that do serve the station are not particularly frequent, and make sense for a limited number of trips. For example, you could take the 240 from Bellevue College to East Main, then ride to Overlake. But it would be simpler to just take the (more frequent) 245 directly to Overlake.

           3) A lot of empty space. Not only do you have the freeway of course, but you also have lots of green belts, reducing the potential walkshed (https://goo.gl/maps/oLcC6Ack6LQE5ej46). That is Sturtevant Creek (and associated wetland), which you can see on this map: https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=47.61005,-122.18582&z=17&b=oo.

           4) Low density housing to the west. It is a land of single family houses on large lots, with wide streets.

           5) Close to Bellevue Downtown Station. BDS is about a ten minute walk due north. It sits east-west, with an entrance on 112th, and one closer to 110th. In contrast, East Main Station lies north-south, with entrances on 112th. Thus folks a bit to the west will gravitate towards Bellevue Downtown Station, while those a bit to the east will gravitate to East Main. The problem is, the people are to the west, and it is hard to go east (see above).

           As a result, there is only a tiny sliver of land served by this station, and most of it is low density. You would have to change the zoning, redo the street grid, add platforms over the freeway (with new development on top) and rewrite the environmental laws to get a decent walkshed to the station. Sorry, but that isn’t going to happen. The station will be reliant on development close to the small bits of land to the north and east (largely next to the freeway) and that’s about it. I would expect some density there — the problem is that you just have so little land to work with.

           I could see this accounting for a few hundred riders once the train gets to Seattle, but until then, the main destination for this line is Downtown Bellevue, and it just doesn’t make sense for a lot of riders to take this train one stop. It will be interesting to see how many people ride the train once this opens, but I wouldn’t be the least surprised if it is under a hundred.

       18. The problem with Bellevue’s downtown, and something that is endemic to eastside town centers in an area with more land than retail, is it is HUGE. The only reason Bellevue and eastside town centers are not even more spread out is because SFH zones prohibited retail and commercial. Otherwise Surry Downs would just be another series of strip mall.

           Now because East Link doesn’t run along Bellevue Way, which has taken around 50 years to achieve any kind of retail density even if you call Main to NE 10th dense, ST and transit advocates have decided to make the downtown even bigger and more dispersed.

           Now “downtown” Bellevue will run from Main (or even areas south) to NE 12th to 124th to 130th with a freeway in the middle. No one could possibly walk from one part to another. I worked in the first tall tower in Bellevue at NE 8th and 108th in the late 1980’s. It was like being on the moon. The only “action” was the mall, and Bellevue Way to 108th isn’t that short of a walk, especially in a one hour lunch hour. Even today once you get east of Bellevue Way any kind of vibrancy falls away, certainly retail. CPK closed, although the Men’s Warehouse is still open I believe.

           A pedestrian bridge from Main and 112th to 116th makes no sense. First it will be a long and very unpleasant walk. Second it will go from nowhere to nowhere. 116th is dead, unless you plan to walk to NE 4th and 120th for Uwajimaya and Home Depot.

           All these master plans for East Main, The Spring Dist. and Wilburton are pie in the sky post pandemic. Bellevue developers all thought they had hit the mother load with the demise of downtown Seattle. Much of it is based on downtown Seattle continuing to implode, Amazon moving to Bellevue, huge growth in tech hiring, normal Seattleites getting tired of the crime and filth, Millennials marrying and wanting a SFH on the eastside, and huge population growth. But with WFH it would be like me asking what your predictions for office and downtown development would be if our regional population declined by half, because that is what WFH has done to work commuters.

           Tacomee has a point. Urbanists and transit advocates have a habit of constantly ignoring the present and dreaming of a new utopian future someplace after spoiling where they are now that is fundamentally different than the present. Since downtown Seattle is shite they move on to Bellevue, which is so huge it has basically no urbanism, except by eastside standards.

           Here are the fundamental keys:

           1. The vast majority of eastside wealth is in the SFH zones, and those folks will always drive or take Uber to their destination in Bellevue.

           2. Those living in “multi-family housing” in the current “dense” areas (Bellevue Way) are too wealthy to take transit.

           3. There is only so much retail — especially on the eastside — to go around in a part of the county that is larger than some east coast states. As I said, it has taken probably closer to 50 years just to get Bellevue Way — which we appreciate especially with downtown Seattle off limits — BEFORE WFH, and still East Main, Wilburton, 116th, 124th, The Spring Dist. are deserts except for big box stores with huge parking lots that are not going away. The parking lot for Home Depot alone runs almost half the distance from 116th to 120th ON NE 4TH.

           Ok, so East Link got a bad route. The solution is feeder service to Bellevue Way, not to think Bellevue can support five other Bellevue Ways. No one is building office buildings anymore, so all those grand “mixed-use” developments that were mostly commercial space anyway are not happening, and the areas won’t have the work commuters to support anything.

           My God, if downtown Seattle has lost 56% of its work commuters and is dying retail wise does anyone think Wilburton or The Spring Dist. — on the wrong side of 405 — will rise out of the ashes before Seattle gets a decent council that begins to turn around downtown Seattle, when office buildings in downtown Seattle including vacant and city buildings will be free for the taking?

           No one is going to cross 405 by foot (or bike since Bellevue was kind enough to provide a 5′ wide unprotected bike lane on the Main St. bridge, which gives you an idea just how progressive Bellevue is). First, no one is going to be on 112th on foot, and second no one wants to be on foot on 116th, even at NE 4th let alone Main. What are you going to do? But some bags of soil and Home Depot and a case of wine at Total Wine and walk back to 112th?

           I read today ST is estimating something like 57,000 NEW riders on LLE (in addition to those who drive or take feeder buses to Northgate Link), and I think ST is still estimating 43,000 to 52,000 riders on East Link. We have to give those estimates up. I agree with Ross that the actual new number of Link riders will be pretty close to the number of bus riders Link will replace or who already use Link from another station. So these grand plans to “urbanize” all of downtown Bellevue to create some kind of Link ridership or urbanism is counter-productive because it has taken us 50 years just to achieve the tiny sliver along Bellevue Way, and the tragedy of eastside retail density (like Issaquah) is the region always had more land than retail.

           If you want retail density and vibrancy you have to think completely the opposite: condense, condense, condense, and understand who has the money to support that retail. There is a damn good reason East Link runs along 112th — Class C property in Bellevue — and not Bellevue Way.

       19. A 6th St. bridge would compensate for abysmal treatment of pedestrians on the 405 overpass at 8th St. Those wide turns going both on and off the freeway encourage people to drive fast, and nobody ever expects pedestrians nor stops for them. The city has no intention of doing anything to make it better as far as I can tell; they won’t even paint in a marked crosswalk. And on top of that, the lights at 112th and 116th both have interminable waits.

           The 10th St. bridge is much better, but if you’re coming from south of 8th, it’s quite a bit out of the way. Hence, the need for a 6th St. bridge. In a ideal world, this bridge would actually be two diagonal bridges, one going to 4th/116th, the other to 8th/116th, with both bridges crossing over 116th itself, bypassing intersections with long light cycles and lots of turning cars.

           But, of course such a project would be expensive and the justification for such a project would have to come out a belief that transit brings customers to businesses and is good for the economy. As long as the people in power believe that transit riders are, at best, too poor to buy anything (the retail workers can just suck it up and either walk down 4th, wait for a connecting bus, or go buy a car), or worse, just a bunch of shoplifters and drug addicts (in which case, making it hard for them to get to retail establishments becomes a good thing), the willingness to pay for such a project will never be there.

           Sometimes, I feel there is sort of a “collective punishment” effect, where business owners perceive transit riders as undesirables, so people that actually do want to take transit there to do legitimate shopping get a worse experience, in spite of doing nothing wrong. This is why EastLink can’t have a stop closer to Bellevue Square. It’s why the C-line detours to stop a block away from Alaska Junction, rather than on California Ave. itself, and why the H line makes a similar detour at White Center. It may also be why the buses in Redmond detour two blocks to the transit center, rather than stopping on Redmond Way itself in the middle of Redmond downtown.

           It shouldn’t need to be like this.

       20. It’s a catch-22 asdf2:

           If the power brokers discover East Link brings lots of affluent customers without a lot of problems, they want them to go to Bellevue Way. So simple remedy: run a simple, fast, frequent shuttle from BDS to Bellevue Way on 6th.

           If they discover Link doesn’t bring the kind of customer they want why spend money on a bridge across 405 to get them to walk from 112th to 116th, which sounds by definition like the customer they don’t want?

           Part of the problem is we eastsiders who know Bellevue well can’t understand what it is on 116th anyone wants to walk to (Chick-fil-A?), let across 405, and what you can shop for and carry back across the bridge to 112th, which is also nowhere.

           Or is this based on some dream that 116th (and who knows, 112th) will one day be like Bellevue Way. If that is the case, I suggest they check out the Bravern Mall that was touted as shifting the retail locus from Bellevue Way to 112th, except for the crummy parking on 112th and the resurgence of Lincoln Sq. N and S. Or the restaurants in the hotels along 405.

           Walking from 112th (let alone being on 112th on foot) across 405 to 116th is just so incomprehensible to eastsiders we don’t understand it. It took us 50 years — and the demise of downtown Seattle — to get any kind of retail density and vibrancy on Bellevue Way. It will take another 50 to achieve the same on 112th and 116th no matter how many housing projects are built near there. MAYBE a dozen people each day would walk across a bridge from 112th to 116th. Why I have not idea, when the same amount of energy would get you to Bellevue Way.

       21. “ No one is going to cross 405 by foot (or bike since Bellevue was kind enough to provide a 5′ wide unprotected bike lane on the Main St. bridge, which gives you an idea just how progressive Bellevue is). First, no one is going to be on 112th on foot, and second no one wants to be on foot on 116th, even at NE 4th let alone Main. What are you going to do? But some bags of soil and Home Depot and a case of wine at Total Wine and walk back to 112th?”

           Good grief! Come back to reality, DT!

           1. A multi-use trail is open to bicyclists.
           2. The shops south of NE 4th and 116th include Target and Whole Foods, places where people routinely buy lighter weight products. Dave and Buster’s is an activity destination and teens love going! And these stores are all only a few blocks from East Main Station.

           These things are also OPEN TODAY. They aren’t pie in the sky plans.

           I get that our public discourse thrives out feigned outrage rather than facts. However to put forth blatant mistruths is only a way to make oneself look uninformed and stupid.

       22. “I get that our public discourse thrives out feigned outrage rather than facts. However to put forth blatant mistruths is only a way to make oneself look uninformed and stupid.”

           There is no outrage Al except from you, and the proof in the pudding will be the number of pedestrians and bicyclists who use the Main St. bridge each day, especially pedestrians since that is who we were talking about mostly. A lot of non-eastsiders don’t understand how far the walk is just from 112th to 405 and from 405 to 116th.

           “2. The shops south of NE 4th and 116th include Target and Whole Foods, places where people routinely buy lighter weight products. Dave and Buster’s is an activity destination and teens love going! And these stores are all only a few blocks from East Main Station.”

           Target is up the hill from 116th and effectively on 103rd. Dave and Busters is on NE 4th. The only Whole Foods I know about is north of NE 8th. Is that the Whole Foods you are talking about? https://www.yelp.com/biz/whole-foods-market-bellevue (I think there is one in Bellevue Square https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/judge-orders-whole-foods-to-reopen-shuttered-bellevue-square-365-store/). Have you been to Bellevue recently or any of these places you list?

           Are you suggesting someone on 112th cross the Main St. bridge on foot and walk north along 116th (a wasteland today unless you plan to buy a car along the way) to NE 8th, cross NE 8th, buy very few groceries you can carry, and walk back to and across the Main St. bridge?

           A gallon of milk in a plastic jug weighs 8 pounds. Try lifting one. All fluids are heavy, as is glass, cat food, canned goods, wine, beer, pop. Do you live solely on dry goods, which can be heavy too. What are these lightweight products folks buy at Target and Whole Foods you are talking about? My wife shops at both, and the bags I have to carry up the stairs to the kitchen weigh a ton.

       23. I did admittedly make one mistake, It’s PCC on the SE corner of NE 4th and 116th — and not Whole Foods.

       24. I think I’m going to add “I’m not the one coming up with insane hypotheticals, you are!” (to paraphrase) to my Suburbanite Crank Commentary bingo card – although maybe that’s just the center square.

       25. I actually think some sort of mass transit might work for Bellevue Way….. if it was possible to build it without shutting down a growing retail core for years on end. The problem with Sound Transit is it seem to kill off more retail than it grows.

           I don’t really know Greater Bellevue past Downtown and Crossroads…. mostly because I have a Home Depot in Tacoma. Why drive up 405 in the first place? And why on earth take transit? Crossroads is pretty cool, I do go there once in awhile with the Mrs.

           No matter what Mr. Orr says….. everything, everything, everything about Sound Transit is about downtown Seattle. It’s a spoke and hub rail system to downtown Seattle. If there’s no need or reason to go downtown, you have to question why Sound Transit is even still around.

           Let’s take a deeper look at the Eastside here. Bellevue really has tried to build a couple of retail hubs and add some denser housing options around them….. hooray for Bellevue!! Right? Because this is the sort of urban planning we need. But the more successful Bellevue is at becoming a total city with everything a person needs only a 15 minute car ride away at most, and even closer for the new development….. East Link starts to look pretty darn “horse and buggy” to me. I say kill it and have better bus coverage.

           Does the perfect “15 minute city” even need transit?

       26. “Does the perfect “15 minute city” even need transit?”

           15-minute city is ON FOOT. The entire point of a 15-minute neighborhood is to reduce car trips, not to describe what you can drive to in 15 minutes.

       27. I take it tacomee is not terribly impressed with the Federal Way Commons.

       28. everything, everything, everything about Sound Transit is about downtown Seattle. It’s a spoke and hub rail system to downtown Seattle. If there’s no need or reason to go downtown, you have to question why Sound Transit is even still around.

           I’m not sure what you are saying here. Are you saying that ST is too focused on downtown Seattle? I suppose, but ST3 isn’t. On the East Side (the subject at hand) the only addition is a line that goes from Issaquah to South Kirkland — it doesn’t go to Seattle at all. The extensions north and south go to downtown Seattle, so you have a point there. Ballard to UW would have been much better than West Seattle Link, and would likely be better than Ballard Link (given all the problems with Ballard Link). But if the point of the extensions is just to get people to downtown Seattle, most of ST3 is rather stupid. Take Tacoma, for example (your hometown, presumably). Taking Link from Downtown Tacoma would require a transfer, and be very slow. During rush hour, Sounder would be faster. Outside of rush hour, an express bus would be faster (and avoid a transfer). So at no point will Link actually be faster from Downtown Tacoma to Downtown Seattle. The same thing is true for Everett — an express is faster most of the day. The only reasonable argument for say, Everett Link, is that lots of people will take Link to various Everett locations (like Boeing) or to exciting destinations like Ash Way or Mariner. Maybe you are suggesting that ST is focused on getting people downtown, but simply doesn’t know what it is doing — if so, fair enough.

           If you are saying that ridership is all about going downtown, then that simply isn’t true. It has never been true. A lot of Link riders skip downtown. UW to Beacon Hill/Rainier Valley, for example, is a significant trip (according to a previous study, although I can’t find it). Now that Link has expanded, there is more of that sort of thing. Capitol Hill Station is the only station that saw an increase in ridership. Plenty of other (non-downtown) trips are taken as well. Of course ST could have done a much better job of serving those non-downtown areas, but they at least served some of them.

           Does the perfect “15 minute city” even need transit?

           Yes, absolutely. People in 15 minute neighborhoods are more likely to take transit to other neighborhoods. Places like Capitol Hill are fairly self contained. But people are also drawn to that neighborhood. Folks from that neighborhood sometimes work or visit other neighborhoods, and since they are less likely to own a car, they will use transit. The more Downtown Bellevue “urbanizes” if you will, the more likely transit there will be successful.

       29. “The shops south of NE 4th and 116th include Target and Whole Foods, places where people routinely buy lighter weight products.”

           Those same kinds of stores exist on Aurora and people take the bus to them. Also to the Lake City Fred Meyer and the stores north of Northgate Way. The E gets only a few people at the northern terminus, but then more than seventy people get on and off along the way, some of them to the stores, and it’s not even the densest area. Just because you always drive to these stores doesn’t mean everybody does.

           “A gallon of milk in a plastic jug weighs 8 pounds. Try lifting one. All fluids are heavy, as is glass, cat food, canned goods, wine, beer, pop. Do you live solely on dry goods, which can be heavy too. What are these lightweight products folks buy at Target and Whole Foods you are talking about?”

           Um, all my groceries and almost all my household goods. I don’t buy much of the things you list. A gallon of distilled water for my CPAP; that’s comparable to my milk jug. I can get that from a store I can walk to. Once you have furniture you don’t need a lot of big heavy things. Wheeled carts also exist for bigger grocery runs.

       30. “Does the perfect “15 minute city” even need transit?”

           Tacomee, Bellevue is not a 15-minute city (although some consider only walking in their definition of a 15-minute city, and some include walking and transit). It is a mall — Bellevue Square and Lincoln Square — with basically density diminishing pretty quickly as you head east until you get to 405 and then the big box stores to the east of 405, surrounded by SFH zones. Just walking from NE 4th to NE 8th on Bellevue Way is a long way. Try walking across the parking lot at Home Depot, let alone across the street to Total Wine or Uwajimaya. Bellevue Blocks are very long.

           Link doesn’t make a ton of sense on the eastside today post pandemic, and of course was predicated on crazy ridership estimates pre-pandemic. In 2004 and 2008 when Seattle was one of the rising superstars and Microsoft was WFH — and 1 million new residents were going to move to the area and all live in TOD — it made some sense since it was mostly (completely) on the surface and used public ROW’s (while U Dist. to Northgate is all underground) so it only cost $5.5 billion from Judkins Park to Redmond. Now East Link is based on fantastical development dreams, TOD for rich people, 1 million new residents moving to the area, some kind of shuttle system to where folks really want to go, the demise of downtown Seattle, and basically mimics the 550 without going to Bellevue Way and the B Line. Ok.

           East Link for Bellevue was about one thing only: massive construction dollars and tax revenue, and an excuse to massively upzone some commercial zones that were pretty dead anyway. WFH has thrown that into doubt, but Bellevue will survive. It really had nothing to do with East Link or transit, which is why East Link was shunted to 405. The folks who run Bellevue and Bellevue Way don’t want transit, and don’t think it will make them any money, which is why East Link runs through Class C areas: how much harm can it do to Class C areas? Folks went along with upzoning these Class C commercially zoned areas because no one cares about them, which is why East Link runs through them. Try upzoning Surrey Downs and the s%$t hits the fan. Or developing a park.

           Mass transit won’t work for Bellevue because eastsiders don’t ride transit, at least 95% don’t, and they have all the money. Plus so few commute to an office anymore. Area wise, it is like serving S KC with transit, but with money. Buses and Link for the businesses and property owners on Bellevue Way are for the poor now that the suburban work commuter works from home. Asdf2 hit the nail on the head earlier: these Bellevue folks fundamentally think transit is for the poor.

           All eastsiders ask for is some place on the eastside to have dense retail vibrancy that is safe and clean for kids and women, and free parking when they get there. And for their SFH zones to be sacrosanct. No one on the eastside I know of is asking for 15-minute cities considering most live in a SFH zone. With the demise of downtown Seattle if we want a 15-minute city we pretty much have to fly to someplace.

       31. ““The shops south of NE 4th and 116th include Target and Whole Foods, places where people routinely buy lighter weight products.”

           “Those same kinds of stores exist on Aurora and people take the bus to them. Also to the Lake City Fred Meyer and the stores north of Northgate Way.”

           Mike, we were talking about walking from 112th and Main across the Main St. bridge to 116th and NE 4th, and back. Not taking a bus. People also drive to the stores you mention.

           You are the same guy who posted last week that your arthritic hip limits you to walking 1 mile total in a day. I would also suggest your shopping list is much different than the shopping list for most eastsiders. My wife tends to buy five 1-gallon jugs of distilled water for my C-pap machine and other uses when she buys it, and even when the kids are away ar college we buy cat food, cat litter, wine, beer, soda, bottled water, canned goods, meat, vegetables (which can be heavy), flowers, milk, coffee, creamer, fruit (also heavy in bulk), juice, toiletries, baked goods, cereal (not heavy but bulky), jam, candy, ice cream, frozen goods, some prepared foods (Costco chicken is good), cheeses, etc. despite the fact she grows many of her own herbs and tomatoes in her pea patch, and carrying a dozen tomatoes from a p-patch to the car is not easy.

       32. Mike Orr,

           Maybe your definition of the “15 minute city” is on foot, (along with a lot of urban planners) but the residents of Bellevue might see it differently. Those people have SUVs with car seats….

           Bellevue is at the point where a couple with kids can buy a house there (a bigger one with a home office and space to entertain) and never leave Bellevue for months at a time. And why should they? Since Dad starting working from home, he’s the assistant soccer coach and has more time to be a better father. At what point did you forget America is about hearth and home? I’m a live and let live sorta guy, but Capitol Hill really is the place for single people living alone. You can’t really want to try to convert Bellevue into Belltown, right?

           The fact you’re forgetting is time in transit sucks. On the bus, on the train or int he car, pissing away 1-2 hours commuting to work isn’t good for people. Or the planet. Work from home such a big plus for the environment.

           It’s time for young urbanists to wake up and smell the coffee…. transit has changed forever. Seattle has a bonafide housing crisis. Use some common sense here. The Eastside stater rail is a toy train and I think deep down you it. Bellevue actually needs low income housing.

           I’d like a public vote to kill off Sound Transit and use the money pegged for silly rail projects to be moved into building more housing on the rail lines we already have. It’s called urban planning. The needs of Greater Seattle changed since the ST3 vote in 2016.

       33. That area of Bellevue around NE 4th from 116th to 120th where the Best Buy, Home Depot, PCC, REI, Target are, doesn’t lend itself to the pedestrian shopper. The lack of frequent public transit, and residential housing, makes driving the easiest way to patronize those businesses. Not even the coming Link or pedestrian bridges will help. To get (some) people out of their cars, that area will need a frequent bus route.

       34. I have walked a number of times from downtown Bellevue to REI, Best Buy, Home Depot, etc. over the years. There is, in fact, a reasonably frequent (for the East Side) bus line going in that direction, the 271. However, the problem is that (as Daniel often points out) transit trips are origin-to-destination, not bus stop to bus stop. And the 271 bus stops near 116th and 4th are very annoyingly located relative to most of the relevant (to me) store fronts, which means there’s a good 5 minute walk by the time crossing the roads diagonally, etc. happens. On top of that, the 271 was pretty full approaching downtown Bellevue around the time I went (evening commute time after work), which meant that if I was only catching it for a few stops, it was just as comfortable to walk the rest of the way than to wait, getting crushed by the others on the bus, then get stuck at the same lights I would be having to cross on foot, too.

           I don’t see East Link being particularly useful in this sense, though it would help me to get to other stores I never bothered to frequent on foot, like Uwajimaya or Whole Foods, I suppose. But I also do empathize with the sentiment that it’s all kind of hopeless for most such trips – the vast majority of people will drive. It’s the nature of the stores, to a great extent, as well as the way the buildings are set up. Perhaps a setting like the Northgate Landing area (which also has Target and Best Buy) would work better, and to some extent we have that there with REI and TJ, but I don’t see how you can pile all the stores in those blocks on top of each other in any feasible way.

       35. “Are you suggesting someone on 112th cross the Main St. bridge on foot and walk north along 116th (a wasteland today unless you plan to buy a car along the way) to NE 8th, cross NE 8th, buy very few groceries you can carry, and walk back to and across the Main St. bridge?”
           “A gallon of milk in a plastic jug weighs 8 pounds. Try lifting one. All fluids are heavy, as is glass, cat food, canned goods, wine, beer, pop. Do you live solely on dry goods, which can be heavy too. What are these lightweight products folks buy at Target and Whole Foods you are talking about? My wife shops at both, and the bags I have to carry up the stairs to the kitchen weigh a ton”

           Some people use wheeled shopping carts if they don’t have a car and are carrying heavy. I do, I take it with me to Costco or Safeway and is the size of a small carry on bag and works great for how I ride transit. It’s also less stress on the body as it doesn’t overextend your arms to do more work compared to just carrying grocery bags by yourself.

           This is something you see here in the US and Europe everyday. I know french friends who do it for daily or weekly shopping trips where they live and take them on metros or buses there no problem. You’ve likely seen them riding the bus yourself with older people who usually have them.

           https://www.ouiinfrance.com/grocery-cart-on-wheels-old-lady-style-or-chic/

       36. Shopping isn’t the either/or described here. Far from it.

           I’m an Eastsider lucky enough to live a couple of blocks away from a grocery store and drug store, so 80 percent of those essential trips I can take on foot. If I ever get a place to myself in Downtown Kirkland or Redmond, the type of areas I’d like to live in (I’m not a city person), that percentage would bump to 95.

           However, I have to take a car for frequent Costco trips to fill up on business and food supplies for our small business, and you cannot carry five Costco boxes of stuff in a pull cart and walk alongside a stroad for multiple miles (plus, no bus routes between Costco and work). Also, extended family also congregates at our townhouse, and the food and supplies for a dozen people exceeds my typical work Costco run. I’ll need to use the compact SUV and lower the middle seats, because a sedan cannot fit all that stuff.

           Some people can get buy with a small armful of groceries and essentials. Others need a vehicle with space due to the sheer size of things on the shopping list, and the distance to transport it. And some like me end up on both sides of this paradigm.

       37. “Are you suggesting someone on 112th cross the Main St. bridge on foot and walk north along 116th (a wasteland today unless you plan to buy a car along the way)”

           You may not be aware of this, but Bellevue has changed a bit in recent years. The car lots may very well become prime real estate for conversion to some other use. They’re far closer to Link than much of downtown Bellevue.

       38. Michael,

           I’m one of those who also fits in the middle. As I do not have a car myself, all my own trips are very much of the transit-or-walking only nature, and I have typically shopped for “as much as I can reasonably carry in a backpack and one light bag in each hand” that way. Having said that, I am not a fan of pushing carts on crowded buses (and some of the buses I rode pre-pandemic were very crowded), so the cart thing was out. And that meant nothing super heavy. One or two gallons of milk are all I could reasonably fit in a backpack. The more involved shopping (at Costco or even grocery stores) was done in a vehicle. As you said, there is room for a variety of approaches, no matter where one lives – in Capitol Hill or Finn Hill alike. It would be great if the readership here were more willing to see that.

       39. I have walked and driven over 405 in Bellevue many times and, yes, I do see people walking there. I have even seen people braving the 8th St. crossing carrying Whole Foods grocery bags, hoping they make it to the other side in one piece.

           I also also done my grocery shopping on foot for the past 15 years. I know how it’s done, and the way it’s not done is carrying a bunch of cardboard grocery bags full of heavy stuff that will tear before you go 50 feet. Rather, it’s done through a combination several things. First, you carry a good backpack with waist straps so that all the weight isn’t borne by your shoulders. A backpack that is good enough for somebody to hike up a mountain with 40 pounds of gear is good enough to carry groceries one mile home that probably weigh much less than that. Next, you don’t buy everything at once, even if it means visiting the store twice a week rather than once a week. Third, it means ordering the really big and bulky stuff online and saving the walking trips for items that are smaller, lighter, and easier to carry. And fourth, quit worrying about price, as traveling further solely to save a little bit of money on the groceries is almost never worth it. Sure, this doesn’t work for everyone – maybe someone with arthritis can’t walk to the grocery store, for example. But, it does work for a lot of people, and it’s counterproductive to say that because not everybody can do it, no resources should be spent making it easier or safer for those that can.

       40. I almost never see anyone walk over the Main street bridge, or the 4th street bridge. I do see some people walk over 8th, 10th, and the 12th street bridges.

       41. “I almost never see anyone walk over the Main street bridge, or the 4th street bridge. I do see some people walk over 8th, 10th, and the 12th street bridges.”

           If Bellevue is going to allow/zone over 1 million new sf of development along 112th from Main to NE 4th the solution is to require one of the developments to include a grocery store.

           Only one problem with that, and it is the zenith of the argument that zoning is not construction: very few people can effectively run a grocery store, probably the most cutthroat industry in America, which even Amazon is finding out. These folks make Kemper Freeman look like a progressive.

           Is a grocery store on 112th between Main and NE 4th with limited or underground parking (at $90k/stall) going to survive. Of course not. This is the eastside. Look at every grocery store and Costco from MI to Issaquah to Kirkland to Redmond to Bothell. What are the three defining characteristics:

           1. Acres of surface parking, even Whole Foods on NE 8th.

           2. Huge amount of store GFA.

           3. Near a freeway.

           You don’t survive if you are a grocery store on the eastside on grown male urbanists coming in with a backpack to carry their items back home. That is why the grocery stores have bag boys/girls. They survive on the mom/wife having $800 worth of groceries loaded into the back of her SUV, knowing she can drive to any number of stores, and if like my wife does because she thinks each has certain benefits, either price or quality. Which is why so many Seattleites south of I-90 hop on I-90 to shop at the grocery stores on MI. With that kind of volume the stores can afford the loss leaders like excellent fruit, produce, meat and fish, and they are clean and safe.

           One thing I learned from my dad as he got old is the society the elderly find in a well-run safe and clean grocery store filled with moms and kids and teenagers. My dad didn’t buy a lot (my wife shopped for him) but he loved just pushing his cart up and down the aisles looking at the fresh meat seafood, bakery area, prepared foods area, and so on while enjoying all the life going on around him which when he was younger he did.

       42. @Daniel Thompson

           > Is a grocery store on 112th between Main and NE 4th with limited or underground parking (at $90k/stall) going to survive. Of course not. This is the eastside. Look at every grocery store and Costco from MI to Issaquah to Kirkland to Redmond to Bothell. What are the three defining characteristics:

           Daniel, is your ideal city with every single building consisting of the first 10 floors being a parking garage? Also just having abundant parking isn’t quite the panacea you’d think — plenty of dying malls are overfilling with free parking.

       43. “That area of Bellevue around NE 4th from 116th to 120th where the Best Buy, Home Depot, PCC, REI, Target are, doesn’t lend itself to the pedestrian shopper. The lack of frequent public transit…”

           RapidRide B is four blocks away, and is frequent.

       44. “Northgate Landing area (which also has Target and Best Buy) ”

           “Northgate North” it’s called. The Landing is in Renton.

           I like Northgate North because it has big box stores stacked on top of each other. It’s ugly but compact. If we’re going to have big box stores, this is the way to have them.

           The Ballard Blocks is like this. I haven’t been to the new retail on 116th and 120th enough to say about that. Except I lament that Uwajimaya is a one-story standalone building and a lost opportunity.

       45. Yeah, Northgate North, sorry. Got my places confused :) I actually like Northgate North too, as I think I’ve mentioned before. It’s convenient.

           I assume you mean the B stop along 8th? I’ve not tried to go that way. The problem with the B is that – okay, you catch it along 8th and then go one stop across the freeway to BTC, but then if you need to go farther into downtown you have to change buses anyway. At least the 271 keeps going. And I find walking along 116 more annoying than walking along 4th to 110th, even though the distance is longer. Also also, it feels like going the “wrong way”. If there was a frequent bus along 116 then that would be more palatable perhaps? I dunno.

           Also also, the B is slow getting to BTC from there, it always gets bogged down making that left turn. Like, if I’m going to walk 4-5 blocks just to get to it, then wait for it, then wait to make that nasty left turn, I may as well walk the 6 blocks instead.

           Have you found it convenient to walk to the B instead, and go west, rather than wait for the 271 or just walk to BTC? I’m genuinely curious because I would’ve never thought of it.

       46. “Daniel, is your ideal city with every single building consisting of the first 10 floors being a parking garage? Also just having abundant parking isn’t quite the panacea you’d think — plenty of dying malls are overfilling with free parking.”

           WL, this isn’t about me. I am not a retail or mall expert and I am not a grocery store expert. All I do is look around at what the experts do, especially the experts that are successful. And by the way, there is something called underground parking, and if you want to build in downtown Bellevue you are going to build your parking 100% below grade in exchange for the new higher height limits.

           My ideal is a city with a dense and vibrant retail core. We don’t have that in this area.

           If you want to build a Costco without parking go ahead. Or a mall. Are there any malls that flourished without parking? How is downtown Seattle doing by restricting parking for retail?

           Yes, many older malls across the U.S. are suffering, in large part due to online shopping and an obsolete style, but so are office buildings and urban centers from WFH. Many malls are doing quite well. Pre-pandemic there was a return to the urban retail scene, but post pandemic that is doing poorly because the commuter has returned to their suburban neighborhood.

           In this region anyway, due to the lack of population, general size of the area, and zoning decisions made long ago to disperse retail throughout a city (Seattle) along with the demise of downtown Seattle, most of our retail vibrancy and density is in destination malls, and those experts install tons of parking, except unlike old malls like Redmond Mall they segregate the parking from the retail experience. I assume they know what they are doing.

           Your beef isn’t with me. It is with Kemper Freeman, U Village, Northgate Mall, Simon Properties, all the grocery stores, the folks with skin in the game. These folks are right of Attila the Hun. They don’t care about some urbanist dream of a carless society of mostly men.

           If you are wondering whether those folks are targeting you as a customer or my wife, and I can tell you it is my wife, and she ain’t taking a backpack and transit to grocery shop.

           If you can get the number of trips on the eastside by car below 95%, and get the folks with most of the money out of the SFH neighborhoods, maybe we can talk about car free retail. Don’t forget the only reason we are having this discussion is because downtown Seattle retail is so dead, so Seattle progressive policies don’t hold a lot of sway with the folks who do the retail. It isn’t as if they are transit advocates.

       47. “The car lots may very well become prime real estate for conversion to some other use.”

           They’re already half converted. From Google and Bing Maps:

           116th Trader Joe’s, REI, Target, three restaurants.

           120th: Uwajimaya, federal agencies, Wine World (from memory), Best Buy, Home Depot.

           Other buildings are unlabeled so I don’t know what they contain.

           Fun fact: Kevin Wallace owns several of the 116th lots. When the East Link alignment was being decided, 116th was still all car dealerships, and Wallace was on the Bellevue City Council. He proposed a “Vision Line” alternative that would have put Link next to 405, with some kind of moving walkway to the transit center. It looked like an attempt to raise the value of his properties. I don’t remember now if it would have been on the east or west side of 405. But if it were on the east side of 405 (and thus on the west side of 116th), ST would have had to buy the lots from him for the track, and a station would have added value to future developments there and across the street.

       48. Mike, the proof that the area doesn’t lend itself to the pedestrian shopper is one doesn’t see many pedestrians in the vicinity of those businesses. Btw, a couple of weeks ago you said the Summit neighborhood in Capitol Hill isn’t served by Broadway buses, which is similarly just a few blocks away. You said something like an elderly disabled blind woman shouldn’t be expected to walk uphill on an icy winter day from Summit to Broadway to catch a bus.

       49. @Daniel Thompson

           > WL, this isn’t about me. I am not a retail or mall expert and I am not a grocery store expert. All I do is look around at what the experts do, especially the experts that are successful. And by the way, there is something called underground parking, and if you want to build in downtown Bellevue you are going to build your parking 100% below grade in exchange for the new higher height limits.

           You do realize underground parking costs double of above ground parking or even higher to construct right? Especially the deeper one goes. It might be fine for a limited amount for a mall/office, but it isn’t quite as tenable for many apartments without implicitly greatly lowering the density.

           > If you want to build a Costco without parking go ahead. Or a mall. Are there any malls that flourished without parking? How is downtown Seattle doing by restricting parking for retail? …. Yes, many older malls across the U.S. are suffering, in large part due to online shopping and an obsolete style, but so are office buildings and urban centers from WFH. Many malls are doing quite well.

           The main point I’m making is that abundant parking is not the panacea you are assuming it to be. Northgate Mall had plenty of parking and failed and so does Redmond Town Center have plenty of parking and it doesn’t guarantee success.

           > Your beef isn’t with me. It is with Kemper Freeman, U Village, Northgate Mall, Simon Properties, all the grocery stores, the folks with skin in the game. These folks are right of Attila the Hun. They don’t care about some urbanist dream of a carless society of mostly men.

           You do realize a lot of those properties have or are redeveloping their surface lots to have apartments right? Northgate is redeveloping to be mixed use. Redmond Town Center is going to add apartments so has Alderwood Mall already. No my beef isn’t with you, I am more just confused how you keep holding onto this 1950’s utopian vision of cars.

       50. “At this time there isn’t a lot happening on Main between 112th and Bellevue Way.”

           There’s a lot more happening than when I was in high school. A couple years ago I walked on Main/Lake Hills Blvd from Medina to 112th to see how the area is doing now and what the walkshed of East Main Station is like. Old Bellevue between 100th and Bellevue Way is superb: it’s the most pleasant walkable are in the Eastside. Between Bellevue Way and 110th is similar-sized large buildings out to the sidewalk, although without the beauty of west of Bellevue Way. There’s some retail in there. Right at 112th it’s mostly a construction are for a park-like open space in front of the station and buildings on the other corners. So it’s not much now because it’s in transition. Between 112th and 116th the agencies are replacing the viaduct over 405, so that’s in transition too.

       51. “You do realize underground parking costs double of above ground parking or even higher to construct right? Especially the deeper one goes. It might be fine for a limited amount for a mall/office, but it isn’t quite as tenable for many apartments without implicitly greatly lowering the density.”

           For surface parking I agree. But if you look at ST’s parking numbers a multi-story above ground parking structure is very close to underground per stall. When MI was looking at building commuter parking at the Tully’s parcel it bought in the town center with ST’s $4.5 million match the cost per stall for above ground and below ground was not much different. It turns out it isn’t that expensive to dig a big hole (and generally any tall building will need to dig for the foundation anyway), and then you are simply building a parking garage below grade in a big hole.

           “The main point I’m making is that abundant parking is not the panacea you are assuming it to be. Northgate Mall had plenty of parking and failed and so does Redmond Town Center have plenty of parking and it doesn’t guarantee success.”

           Agreed. Many factors go into whether a mall or grocery store is successful or not. The point I was making is without adequate parking, success — especially in suburbia — is virtually impossible. Plus cities like Bellevue and lenders don’t buy the developer bullshit that folks will take transit when it sets its parking minimums.

           “You do realize a lot of those properties have or are redeveloping their surface lots to have apartments right? Northgate is redeveloping to be mixed use. Redmond Town Center is going to add apartments so has Alderwood Mall already. No my beef isn’t with you, I am more just confused how you keep holding onto this 1950’s utopian vision of cars.”

           Yes, standalone surface parking lots in a vibrant or urban area are not a good use of land (although downtown Seattle still has several). The point you are missing is the replacement parking — above or below grade — is much more than the surface lot. For example, each Lincoln Sq. has 6 stories of underground parking on the same building envelope surface parking would allow one. U Village has many stories of parking in which each story equals the parking capacity for a surface lot. They are not spending tens of millions of dollars to build parking garages above or below grade on a former surface lot to have less parking. They are spending that money to have more parking. The same reason a ten-story apartment building has more units than a one-story building.

           I don’t know what you mean by “this 1950’s utopian vision of cars.” This blog is the outlier, certainly on the eastside. 95% of trips on the eastside are by car. Car drivers don’t have “utopias” like urbanists do. They just choose the mode of transportation that works best for them, and retailers respond. Like I said, if you start to reduce the number of eastside trips by car, which went up due to WFH, to something less than 95% then you can start looking a utopian carless society on the eastside, and maybe retailers will respond. This blog really needs more eastsiders and more women.

           Remember, I walk to work, and mostly walk to the town center or Roanoke to eat or drink out. I am probably in practice one of the most “urban” folks on this blog because I don’t even take transit let alone drive most days of the week.

       52. Just an observation:

           Target on 116th in Bellevue is closer to East Main Station on Link than Target in Northgate North is to Northgate Station on Link.

           This idea that people won’t walk across the East Main bridge with its multi-use trail separated from traffic to get groceries seems terribly misplaced. Trader Joe’s, Target and PCC on 116th are much easier to get to from 112th than Whole Foods is on NE 8th with its high volume and higher speed ramp activity.

       53. There’s a Safeway one major block away from Main & Bellevue Way and there’s H-Mart at 110th and 2nd. So the question is, will those be more appealing options than walking across 405 to get to PCC and TJ. I’m sure that some will walk there, but there are easier places to get to just to buy milk, IMHO. OTOH I could see people going to Whole Foods because the Wilburton station is literally right next to it.

29. Seattle still has got a lot of things Bellevue doesn’t. It’s got all the pro sports and maybe even the Sonics coming back in a couple of years. It’s got the symphony, opera, and ballet, all national class institutions. It’s got a really nice zoo and an expanding aquarium. It’s also got UW.

    We need to address the public drug use and dealing problem in Seattle though. And Zach B’s blame everything on poverty schtick just makes it less likely we address anything at all including public drug use and poverty. We really need to separate these hardcore drug vagrants from people with economic hardship. Grouping them together like Zach does above is actually highly offensive to the working poor.

    1. You can be sympathetic to income inequality and poverty in America and still draw a clear line against lighting up fentanyl on a public bus or actively selling drugs at our bus stops. The same bus stops our middle schoolers take to get home from school.

       I’m not sure why this is even controversial or why global poverty must be ended as Zach B suggests before we consider removing open drug users on our buses. It’s just pure nonsense.

       1. EastsideBluess,

          The problem on this blog is the belief in some sort of Leftist Utopia where transit–housing–social services–everything else aline into a New World Order Seattle. Of course this alinement is always in the future and we never get closer to it happening, (Sound Transit should get a Congressional Medal for kicking the can down the road) but you’ll never convince the “true believers”.

          This is why there’s endless talk about future rail projects and changing building zoning (with a eye towards the future) but absolutely no ideas or support for hiring more drivers, mechanics and security for today’s transit.

          Are tomorrow’s rail lines more important than today’s bus service? And no, we can’t do it all. Light rail on the Eastside is nothing but a boondoggle. We have” light rail” in Tacoma so I know a transit boondoggle when I see one.

          I think our transit system overall sucks more every day and I want a system wide u-turn as soon as possible. Of course I’m from the hinterlands and not in a transit rich Seattle zone like Capitol Hill. What Sound Transit really does spend huge money in “lucky” neighborhoods and make “transit ghettos” in outlying areas.

       2. Let’s stick with the Eastside here. We talk about downtown Seattle’s problems a lot in other articles and in open threads.

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30. Consider 566 riders at Redmond Tech waiting for their evening return ride.

    Why wait for the 566 when you can make up as much as 10 minutes catching the train to Downtown Bellevue, and possibly catch up with the previous 566?

    1. Unless a 566 just left and there’s heavy traffic, there’s kind of no point. You’ll end up waiting for the same next bus anyway, it’s just a matter of which transit center you wait at.

       But, the real reason why the 566 should be truncated at Bellevue is not about the person getting on the bus at Microsoft, it’s the person getting on the bus in Bellevue. Because the bus is coming from Microsoft, it has to pass through unpredictable traffic on the way to Bellevue, which can cause the bus to arrive very late and leave Bellevue riders stuck standing at the bus stop for a long time. If the bus is truncated, Bellevue riders see their southbound bus arrive on time, every time, while Microsoft riders meanwhile have an extra transfer, but no additional time added their commute because the train avoids traffic. And on top of this, it saves the agency money. If a move leaves two out of three stakeholders better off and the third one neutral, it’s a net benefit overall, and should be done.

       I would also imagine downtown Bellevue to be a significantly larger ridership draw for the 566 than Microsoft anyway.

       1. Yes. It would be silly to run the 566 to Redmond once East Link is complete. You would get very few riders, the benefit to them would be minimal, it makes the route less reliable and costs the agency money.

          Prior to the pandemic, downtown Bellevue had about 400 riders, and Redmond about 150. My guess is both numbers are way down now. Ridership is about a third of what it was then.

31. Saw this board document recently about the tile work at the South Bellevue Station.

    > During the process of completing the work, the Contractor Balfour Beatty dba Howard S Wright discovered construction deficiencies in the platform tile installation at the South Bellevue Station, constructed by SPJV. After further investigation, Sound Transit determined that all the platform tile and supporting mortar bed needs to be replaced on the platform and mezzanine areas at the South Bellevue Station.

    > Shimmick Parsons JV disagrees with Sound Transit’s determination of defective work and refuses to complete the necessary repairs. To expedite the platform tile replacement work and avoid delay to the East Link Starter Line revenue service, Sound Transit would execute the work with Balfour Beatty dba
    Howard S Wright. Sound Transit will seek reimbursement from SPJV for the cost of platform tile reconstruction work.

    I’m kinda confused how this platform tile work keeps having so many issues.

    “Increase Contract Contingency for Follow-on Package 1 Contract for the East Link Extension Project” (September 14, 2023)

    https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Motion%20M2023-81.pdf

    1. I read that motion the other day as well. One has to admire ST’s ability to select vendors who do shoddy work on station elements. So ST is now going to pay dba Howard S. Wright to make the necessary corrections and then try to collect from SPJV somewhere down the road. Who knows what’s going to happen there. We’ll probably never hear boo about it as any board discussion will inevitably be done in executive session. Anyway, the interesting part to me is the contract change for dba HSW:

       Original Contract Amount, $2,618k
       Original Contingency Amount, $393k
       Original Total Contract, $3,010k
       Contingency Percentage, 15%

       Revised Contract Amount, $2,618k
       Revised Contingency Amount, $3,393k
       Revised Total Contract, $6,010k
       Contingency Percentage, 130%

       What a deal for HSW!!

       P.S. Thank you STB editors for the extra latitude with regard to staying on topic, i.e., ELSL ridership.

       1. There is an attitude in with some, which I experienced a couple of time when I was younger, that quick and sloppy is better than slower and correct. One supervisor I had valued speed over everything. He yelled at workers doing things the right way who were slower than those doing sloppy work quickly. He trained everyone to be quick, and not worry about quality.

       2. > P.S. Thank you STB editors for the extra latitude with regard to staying on topic, i.e., ELSL ridership.

          I mean it’s about “To expedite the platform tile replacement work and avoid delay to the East Link Starter Line revenue service” so I doubt there’s any other documents more relevant. :)

          > Anyway, the interesting part to me is the contract change for dba HSW:

          I think the contract just doubled in cost because they are paying a different contractor to redo it? Though not sure if I am interpreting it correctly.

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