Metro Ridership Recovery

126 Replies to “Metro Ridership Recovery”

1. I had occasion to visit Eugene, Oregon on Thursday and rode their BRT bus. Ridership was quite high, given the size of the town, a good 20 people on board a bus that was running every 10 minutes, around 1 in the afternoon. So, at least there, ridership seems to have mostly recovered, maybe even more so than a lot of Seattle routes.

   Here, I would imagine the hardest hit routes to be commuter expresses to downtown, Sounder being the most obvious example.

   1. Yes. If you look at it system-wide, the biggest hit is to commuter expresses. The Times article largely focused on Seattle bus stops.

   2. Eugene should be doing well with lots of U of Oregon students. Transit to the UW in Seattle looks back to normal.

2. > Do you see other ridership patterns in the charts, or have you seen trends in your own experience or in information from Metro?

   I’ve definitely seen the main workhorse bus routes recover. And checking the data this seems to be true as well. Filtering by the rapidrides, ridership is still increasing but still like 33% less than what 2019 is.

   Though on a more worryingly note for ridership as a whole while ridership has been increasing every year from 2020 to 2022, from 2022 to 2023 ridership has now been dropping again. For 2021 september ridership was 240k in 2022 september it was 320k but this year 2023 september ridership has dropped down to 250k. Though confusingly when I check the individual routes I am unable to find which routes have had such a large drop to account for such a decrease.

   Or perhaps with the september bus restructure has hampered ridership a lot more?

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

   1. Nvm figured it out, the issue is that the “link light rail” ridership data is only updated until 2023 May. So the ridership totals for 2023 June, July, August, September are undercounted by 70~80k. Assuming link light rail had the same ridership as 2022 September ~80k that would give the total ridership on this dashboard as 330k which is more than last year at 320k, though still below the 460k before covid.

      Note this ridership dashboard only includes king county metro busses and link, does not include sound transit express busses the 5XX.

      1. The June 2023 data has been online since August. I don’t know why the July days has not yet been published.

3. Wow. Ballard transit ridership remains mortality wounded. Maybe ST was prescient pushing for West Seattle (which is recovering nicely) rail before Ballard.

   1. It’s everything west of Greenlake, including Phinney Ridge and Greenwood. The question is, why? The answer may be, because it didn’t get a Link line in 2022. Ridership on the 15 and 18 was described as busy before Metro suspended them, so much that people were concerned about overcrowding on the D. Why is that invisible in the map? (And how are the D and 40 doing now?)

   2. West Seattle transit still lags Ballard bus service, it is just that West Seattle transit ridership was much lower to begin with. Consider the pre-pandemic high points versus now:

      RapidRide D: 14,500 then; 8,800 now
      RapidRide C: 12,100 then; 7,500 now

      40: 14,000 then; 7,500 now
      120/H: 9,000 then; 7,400 now

      21: 5,000 then; 2,500 now

      So there really isn’t a strong case for West Seattle rail. On the other hand, there is a strong case for rail on Rainier Avenue, since the 7 is performing better than ever, and was very high to begin with. Oh, and it would be much cheaper to run cut-and-cover rail on Rainier, and the time savings (for the bulk of the riders) would be much higher on the 7 than in West Seattle. If you put in enough stops, everyone would have a faster trip. In contrast, the vast majority of West Seattle riders would be forced to transfer (with West Seattle Link) and thus have a slower trip.

      So, yeah, nice try, but I’m afraid the case for West Seattle rail is weaker than ever.

      1. Anecdotally, I think the lack of recovery in NW Seattle is due to the higher proportion of affluent residents, who likely have WFH jobs, than other neighborhoods. Two (15 and 18) of the three peak-only routes (15,17, and 18) are fully cancelled, so the only “consistent” ways in or out of Ballard via transit are the D (which used to be routinely crush-loaded, and is now merely routinely standing-room only), the 40 (primarily serving tech employment centers, but still rather busy and slow), and the 44 (still very slow).

         Ballard is rightfully perceived as an island with poor parking, and bussing to Ballard is a long slog from anywhere further than Fremont. As far as I can tell, the missing Ballard rider are either simply staying in Ballard or driving.

      2. I don’t think Ballard is that different than the rest of the city. It merely didn’t get the boost out of Northgate Link that other parts of town did. Basically, if not for Northgate Link, my guess is the entire region would look very much like Ballard. Buses have gotten slower, less frequent, and less reliable. Many express buses have been cancelled (not just in Ballard, across the board). Overall, there is a general degradation in service while fewer people commute to work.

         There have been a few bright spots (e. g. the RapidRide H) but the only big one is Northgate Link. The thing is, Northgate Link does very little for Ballard. Maybe a trip to Capitol Hill is better, but if the 44 is slow and unreliable (and it is) you are better off taking the D, which means things are worse than ever. Like so many routes, the D is less reliable than it was before the pandemic, despite having fewer riders. Same with the 40. Less reliable and less frequent than ever. It is no wonder ridership is down.

      3. I would wholeheartedly support a cut and cover to replace the 7.

         I would also support running a center running train from Roosevelt up LCW to Lake City and beyond, maybe elevated through downtown Lake City.

         Both projects would likely be cheaper and serve populations that have jobs that are less likely to allow them to work from home, and for whom a car is a substantial cost burden that fast frequent transit would allow them to avoid.

      4. They have a frequent D, that gets them from the 15th and Market to 3rd and Pine in 23 minutes. How fast is the train going to be in comparison? 10 minutes? 15? Really worth the Billions?

      5. 23 minutes means there’s almost half an hour of overhead to get from Ballard to the rest of the region. And when there’s congestion it takes longer than that. If you live in Ballard that’s every transit trip every day, and that adds up to hundreds of lost hours per person per year. Seattle’s fourth-largest urban village should be better integrated into the region than that, to make it more viable to live or work in Ballard.

         The Queen Anne tunnel alternative was 11-13 minutes. The current alternative is somewhere between 13 and 23. If ST had chosen the Ballard-UDistrict line first, it would have connected Ballard to the region amazingly quickly, at less than 10 minutes.

      6. “23 minutes means there’s almost half an hour of overhead to get from Ballard to the rest of the region.”

         Sounds like the train will he similar.

         “And when there’s congestion it takes longer than that. ”

         Give the D fully dedicated lanes and signal priority.

         “If you live in Ballard that’s every transit trip every day, and that adds up to hundreds of lost hours per person per year. ”

         You could say the same for the almost 40K in Lake City, and it’s not a rich, dead-end cul de sac. And much cheaper to provide train access. Or First Hill. Or Kent. Places that have substantial places or populations where WFH isn’t a possibility, and transit has recovered, based on these maps.

         Sound Transit 3: Expensive Trains For the Ambivalent Rich.

      7. And much cheaper to provide train access.

         Whoa up, Cam. It would be very expensive in political capital to “give train access” to Lake City. I expect that it is possible to rebuild the pocket track just north of Northgate to rise up and overpass the northbound track, creating a grade-separated “flying junction”. But then the trackway would have to get over to LCW some way, presumably in the air because it’s already in the air.

         That elevated section along Northgate Way or 125th would be very unpopular.

         I hope you weren’t assuming that a subterranean junction north of Roosevelt could be built. I’ve detailed the extreme difficulty of such an endeavor several times over the past few years. Yes, it can be done but it is extremely disruptive and requires building what is essentially a “station box” surrounding the in-place tunnel, supporting the tubes on its foundation, then disassembling the top 2/3 of the pressure rings for enough distance to add the diverging trackways.

         Because the divergences are long the disturbance on the surface is roughly that of adding a station, with the added complexity that the box will inevitably be placed at a site not initially planned for digging, so the impact on neighborhood properties can be significant.

      8. > That elevated section along Northgate Way or 125th would be very unpopular. I hope you weren’t assuming that a subterranean junction north of Roosevelt could be built. I’ve detailed the extreme difficulty of such an endeavor several times over the past few years. Yes, it can be done but it is extremely disruptive and requires building what is essentially a “station box” surrounding the in-place tunnel, supporting the tubes on its foundation, then disassembling the top 2/3 of the pressure rings for enough distance to add the diverging trackways.

         I find it pretty unlikely Lake City will have light rail built within the next 20~30 years but it’s not due to technical blockers more about lack of ridership/politically wanting to build other corridors. The original forward thrust had it built along that path. Obviously it’s a bit hard to connect to the existing light rail line, but it could dive down into a two separate tunnels and most technically feasible would be to skip roosevelt and connect south of the station from the outside in wards (like freeway ramps).

         Alternatively there’s the 2015 HCT study to build light rail on SR 522, well the original idea was the ballard link would be extended to crown hill on holman road and then northgate way then finally up SR 522. Though I will note back then the light rail was supposed to be at grade in ballard and probably the rest of the suggested way making it much more affordable and actually financially feasible than elevated/underground.

      9. I don’t understand the Northgate comment. I wouldn’t go anywhere near Northgate, if I were Tsar.

         I agree with WL though. Where there is a will there is a way. There is no will.

         All I was saying is there are much better projects than Ballard out there, and they became differentially much much better, now that the techies in Ballard are hunkered in front of their double-set of curved screens in their 7 and a half foot basements, rather than kicking it in SLU.

      10. “Give the D fully dedicated lanes and signal priority.”

          And ditch the Uptown detour. Run on Denny Way like the Magnolia routes.

          “You could say the same for the almost 40K in Lake City, and it’s not a rich, dead-end cul de sac. And much cheaper to provide train access. Or First Hill. Or Kent.”

          Lake City is the next urban village, the fourth one. We ideally wanted Lynnwood Link to serve Lake City if it didn’t serve Aurora, and we’re now supporting a 130th station to get Lake Cityans to Link faster. First Hill arguably “has Link downtown and at Capitol Hill” and will have RapidRide G with center transit lanes. Kent is important as the highest-ridership, most central city in south King County, but it doesn’t have the potential for ultra-high ridership that more walkable villages like Ballard and Lake City do.

          “I don’t understand the Northgate comment. I wouldn’t go anywhere near Northgate,”

          Northgate is where the long-range Lake City-Bothell Link line starts. It has never reached the point of alignment and grade so those’s an unknown. I assumed it would run on Northgate Way and Lake City Way like the 20. If ST ever pursues it I assume they’d reevaluate whether to send it to 145th instead of Northgate. Although that would ditch Lake City again. But then, it would depend on which subareas it’s for. The 522 and Stride were never for North King; the 522 just serves Lake City because its predecessor did and it’s on the way and its ridership has been impressive. (Ross says over half the 522 riders go to/from Lake City.) But which subareas it’s for determines who pays for it, and North King has other priorities too.

      11. “Northgate is where the long-range Lake City-Bothell Link line starts.”

          Ah. That’s helpful. Thanks, Mike.

          Ballard is what? A pop of 27K? Do we really expect it to grow substantially more? It’s already crammed the most valuable zoning with townhouses and other low-end middle uses, and those are all pretty new. I’m having trouble picturing those razed for greater density. Ballard feels a close to maxed out. Now if it were 1 in a line of urban villages, okay. But to build this massively expensive train for just Ballard seems silly. Maybe if had went under QA, it might have made sense. The big wide curve across Holman is like transit searching for ridership in a single-family wasteland. The places with density on that route are better served by line 1.

          Kent has a population of over 130,000, is relatively affordable, growing, and already has 2 sets of tracks going right through it. And has a series of very large cities on the same line. Invest in those tracks, by either adding to them or buying them. Money much better spent than wasting it on Ballard. IMHO, of course.

      12. I agree with Cam Solomon about the wisdom of spending billions to run Link to Ballard. Cam does a good job of raising the constraints on future population growth in Ballard, but it also has to be remembered that there is very little along Interbay just to get to Ballard. There is a very steep hill from Interbay up to Queen Anne, and Magnolia is not dense or a beacon of transit ridership. Cam also does a good job noting how Ballard fits the demographic of folks who can work from home which is reflected in bus ridership today, and in my opinion work from home will increase, not decrease, going forward. It also isn’t clear where the one station in Ballard would be located, and how most Ballard riders would get to it, which would affect ridership on Ballard Link.

          I do think though Link has to access S. Lake Union somehow.

          I also agree with Cam, that on paper, Sounder S. makes more sense. The rails exist, Sounder S. accesses the downtowns of Sumner, Kent, Auburn, Puyallup, Tacoma and Lakewood that combined have many times more residents than Ballard, and Sound Transit is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new parking garages near Sounder S. in Sumner, Kent and Auburn.

          And yet ridership on Sounder S. has cratered post pandemic because the one common destination on Sounder S. was downtown Seattle. Sound Transit is considering repurposing the funding for station and platform upgrades and using some of that funding for some midday service, which I think makes sense depending on how expensive it is, but how many midday riders will there be on Sounder S. if peak ridership is down so heavily, and so few riders are going to downtown Seattle today? Will midday riders from one of these cities take Sounder S. to another one of these S. Sound cities even with plenty of park and ride space at the stations?

          I understand S. King, Pierce and N. King Co. are different subareas with different funding levels, but I personally don’t see how Ballard Link makes sense, or increasing Sounder S. levels of service unless the cost is not great, and if no riders show up it can be cancelled, which is not a possibility if N. King Co. builds Ballard Link and no riders show up.

      13. Both Ballard Link and West Seattle Link made sense when it was a smaller scale two-link train. Originally it was supposed just use exclusive lanes similar to mlk way like

          > This project would build light rail from downtown Seattle to Ballard’s Market St. area via Uptown, serving Seattle Center. It would include a movable bridge in exclusive lanes and at-grade light rail in exclusive lanes on 15th Ave. N.W. and Elliott Avenue W, with signal priority so trains woul generally stop only at stations

          And West Seattle was

          > This project would build light rail from downtown Seattle, over the existing West Seattle Bridge, to West Seattle’s Alaska Junction in a primarily at-grade profile.

          It was “upgraded” with a new tunnel and 4-car trains with elevated profile and stations but the cost never really made much sense against the density/expected ridership.

      14. Ballard is by far the best of the major ST3 projects. Much of Ballard is high density, with plenty of popular destinations. Ridership is way down, but remains much higher than other parts of the city. As noted, a big reason ridership is down is because service has gotten a lot worse. It got worse in other parts of town, but often those places benefited from Northgate Link (while Ballard did not).

          The time savings for trips from Ballard would be quite large. According to Google Maps, it takes 28 minutes on the bus to get from 15th & Market to 3rd & Pine. This is in the middle of the day, and assuming the bus doesn’t get stuck by the bridge. The train will do that in 11 minutes.

          Unlike West Seattle Link, there are significant destinations along the way: Uptown and South Lake Union. Travel times to and from these destinations would improve in a similar manner. Yes, Interbay doesn’t have a ton of apartments nearby, but it isn’t desolate either. It will primarily serve as a bus feeder station for those in Magnolia. The Magnolia buses, meanwhile, will all go to the U-District. There aren’t a ton of people in Magnolia, but enough that the station would get decent ridership.

          Ballard is an OK project (unlike the other projects in ST3) but the devil is in the details. It has be done right, and at this point, that seems unlikely. The Ballard Station appears to be moving *away* from where it would pick up the most riders (and provide the most time savings). The stations between Westlake and Uptown are not looking that good. Then there is a new tunnel — a complete fiasco at this point.

          The board did consider other options, but there are trade-offs with each one. One option was Westlake. This would have picked up Fremont, while skipping Uptown and Magnolia. Another options was to go through Queen Anne. (and down to Fremont). It performed the best, but cost the most. It would have added an additional station, while costing a bundle. Then again, current plans are costing a bundle as well.

          There is nothing inherently wrong with the route they took, it is just the decisions they made after it that are questionable. For example, one advantage of going via Elliot/15th is that you can run on the surface, saving a lot of money. They rejected that almost immediately, while turning around and saying they can’t afford a station closer to the heart of Ballard.

          Unlike so much of ST3, Ballard Link is not a fundamentally bad route. That being said, it could be replaced with improved bus service, and eliminating the big bottlenecks. You would have to do the following:

          1) Fix the bridge situation. At the very least, allow buses to bypass cars stuck waiting for the bridge to up. As it turns out, we need a new bridge, so it could be wrapped up n this. Build a bigger bridge, with bus lanes and a decent bike path.

          2) Fix the stop at Dravus. Right now the bus has to exit the main throughway (15th) and then get back onto it. There should be a stop right on the road.

          3) Faster service through Queen Anne. Some have suggested a little tunnel, which would be nice. Another option is to just add enough bus lanes so that the bus never gets stuck in traffic.

          4) Run all-day buses similar to the 15. 17 or 18. I could even see the D skipping Uptown. To make that work, you would need to extend the 8 (or a similar bus) to Mercer (and somehow find layover space). That way folks headed to Uptown would transfer, and be there quickly, while those headed downtown would just stay on the main bus (saving considerable time in the process).

          While a decent project, one of the big weaknesses of Ballard Link is the 15th/Elliot corridor. Other than the Interbay (Dravus) stop, there is very little there. Puget Sound is on one side, a greenbelt on the other. Thus it is a long distance between potential stops. I guess ST is used to that, but it is definitely a weakness. It also wouldn’t take that much effort to make the buses significantly faster from Ballard.

          In contrast, UW to Ballard has a lot more going for it. The pathway is not fast, nor will it every be fast. There is just too much in the way. Thus a train would be dramatically faster. It would be faster than driving, at noon. (You definitely can’t say that with Seattle, and you can’t even say it with Ballard Link unless the bridge is up). UW to Ballard is much stronger from a network standpoint as well. Our buses are fairly fast when it comes to going north-south. They are slow going east-west. Thus someone coming from the north (e. g. Phinney Ridge) would have a much faster trip to Ballard, the UW or Wallingford. It would enhance the grid much more than a route from Ballard, which mainly just serves Ballard itself. For example, Phinney Ridge lies quite close to the future Ballard Station (especially if it as 14th). But buses won’t connect to it, as it is very difficult to go east-west.

          One of the fundamental problems with Link planning is that they ignore the speed of current pathways. Partly this is because of cost. Running alongside a freeway or expressway saves money, but it means that the train has trouble competing. Even Ballard Link, the best major ST3 project (by a huge margin) falls into that trap.

      15. “Ballard is what? A pop of 27K? Do we really expect it to grow substantially more?”

          27K people need mobility. Other people beyond that number go to Ballard to shop, work, go to the medical center, see a band, go to a bar, go to the farmers’ market, or see the tourist attractions. It’s not just about Ballard. It’s about a total network that goes to all four quarters of Seattle, so that people can go from any part to any other part quickly. That’s what cities with effective transit networks have.

          “The big wide curve across Holman is like transit searching for ridership in a single-family wasteland.”

          Are you talking about the Ballard-downtown line or the Ballard-Lake City line? The former is in ST3. The latter I don’t think has been in any ST plan; it’s a Seattle Subway concept. I’m not particularly convinced of a Holman Road extension.

          “Ballard is an OK project (unlike the other projects in ST3) but the devil is in the details. It has be done right, and at this point, that seems unlikely.”

          That’s the problem. Sound Transit has taken the reasonable representative alignment in the ballot measure and is turning it into something that threatens to not meet its goals. The biggest issue is ultra-bad transfers downtown. The second is the possibility of moving the station to 14th. 15th is already at the edge of the village, and the distance between 15th and 14th is three blocks not one. And then these tunnel upgrades that don’t appear to have funding.

      16. I’m not sure I’d call “much of Ballard high density” Sure there’s one pocket of apartments but beyond that most of it is dense single family homes/ townhouses similar to the rest of Seattle.

          Checking say https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?layers=38b7672a1977426caa6cf4c62e37b777 and spot checking with https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/OPCD/Demographics/GeographicFilesandMaps/PopulationDensity2010.pdf

          There’s only one 1km squared section with 8000 people (near 15th ave & market) The rest have 4000~5000 people per square km. Which is nice, but I mean it’s the same density as South Seattle along sections of Rainier ave and we don’t really consider it “high density”.

          For comparison UW’s densest area is 15k and surrounding at 10k, while West Seattle’s Alaskan Junction is at 3.5k.

      17. “I’m not sure I’d call “much of Ballard high density””

          We have to take what we can get. Ballard is better than no Ballard, and a well-connected Ballard is better than a poorly-connected Ballard.

          “For comparison UW’s densest area is 15k and surrounding at 10k,”

          Not everybody can live in the U District. They wouldn’t fit; some people prefer Ballard; and Ballard is there ready to contribute to the stock of walkable villages available.

          “Sure there’s one pocket of apartments but beyond that most of it is dense single family homes/ townhouses”

          The solution is to upzone northern Ballard, not throw the entire neighborhood away.

      18. WL, sorry, but you did not read my reply. It doesn’t matter one iota whether you deviate the new tunnels between or to the outside of the existing ones — or for that matter, one of each. No matter how you do it you have to excavate a cavern long enough for the deviating tracks to be far enough separated from the tracks in the existing tunnel that a new tunnel can be bored without damaging the existing one.

          There are two general ways to do that. The most common way to do it is just to dig a hole big enough to accommodate the box, dig four slot trenches and put curtain walls in them. The walls parallel to the existing tubes go down to a few feet below the tube bottoms, while the end walls go that deep to the outsides of the existing tubes but just to the tops ofvthe tubes between and over them.

          Then the volume within the walls is excavated and necessary cross-supports added as the hole deepens. This leaves the existing tubes supported on a longitudinal ridge of undisturbed earth.

          A floor is poured in the two “wings” on either side of the ridge supporting the existing tubes. A series of support platforms a couple of feet thick are added alongside the ridge.

          Then supports for the existing tubes are driven through the ridge of earth and raised to take the weight of the existing tubes. Once all are in place, the earth is removed, the floor of the cavern completed under the existing tunnel and the end walls are completed around the existing tubes.

          The other, more expensive, but less demanding of surface properties is to dig a small shaft hole down to near the depth of the existing tubes and mine the box cavern and erect walls, the ceiling and floor as the mining proceeds.

          In either case, once the box is complete and sealed, the top 2/3 of the compression rings of the existing tubes are disassembled and the construction of the turnouts and connecting tracks undertaken.

          When that is done, the TBM’s drillingvthe new diversion “hole through” the “away” end wall of the box and the tracks are connected up.

          Unless ST decides to allow a level-crossing, the track on the side of the box opposite to the direction of the new branch has to plunge or rise enough to run under or over (at least one) of the existing tubes depending whether the diversion on the side opposite the direction of the new branch is outward or between the existing tunnels.

          There must be a box excavated to build a junction to an existing TBM drilled tunnel. It doesn’t matter “where” you put the junction, or how the new tracks approach the existing ones.

          And it’s no walk in the park.

      19. “And yet ridership on Sounder S. has cratered post pandemic because the one common destination on Sounder S. was downtown Seattle.”

          Ridership on Sounder has cratered because Sounder is fairly near useless except for the peak commuter, and we all know what happened to them.

          If it went to hourly with a predictable schedule and provided to use it on a round trip with a way to get home with late evening runs and on weekends, we have no idea how much ridership it would garner.

          From Tacoma, I actually do go to Kent. I do go to Auburn. I go to Puyallup even more frequently. It would never, ever, in a million years occur to be to even consider taking Sounder to those places. And I often try to think of transit modes, or any modes I can use other than climbing into my truck.

          I do take it to Seattle in the evenings, and try to encourage others to do so as well. But they look at the schedule and are baffled I would even suggest it. They would be trapped, as bus service in Pierce and parts of S. King has so bad for so long, it does not exist in the minds of the vast majority of users. The 594 is some weird spaceship that they won’t consider as a viable option.

          The Sounder, on the rare occasions it provides weekend or evening round-trips for game days, is quite full. Because people won’t be stranded, they take it.

      20. “Are you talking about the Ballard-downtown line or the Ballard-Lake City line? The former is in ST3. The latter I don’t think has been in any ST plan; it’s a Seattle Subway concept. I’m not particularly convinced of a Holman Road extension.”

          I wasn’t really talking about any line. I was just thinking about any justification for building the line to Ballard, and one that has been proposed (by Seattle Subway) is that we eventually extend it. But it really is a dead end. Actually much more so than West Seattle, which at least has White Center, Burien or SeaTac to extend to.

      21. “Another options was to go through Queen Anne. (and down to Fremont). It performed the best, but cost the most. It would have added an additional station, while costing a bundle. Then again, current plans are costing a bundle as well.”

          This I could have supported. I could have also supported Ballard to UW. I lived in Fremont for almost 10 years, and attempting to ride transit made me bond with biking, transit through there was so bad. Which is really odd, given how central it is. The only service I used regularly consisted of climbing a steep hill and standing on a highway waiting for the 5. Not ideal.

      22. Which makes me wonder, tangentially, why there isn’t simply a fast, frequent bus that follows the Burke-Gilman. It would be substantially faster than 45th or the meandering route along 40th through Wallingford.

      23. @Mike

          I understand what you were saying. I don’t think a sr 522 light rail is coming anytime soon nor that would connect up with the existing tracks but was mainly noting it is technically feasible. Secondly it is done throughout the rest of the world that is how they connect up to existing transit tunnels. I mean yeah it’s not easy but it’s not a particularly unique thing to do either.

          The Ballard to Lake City to SR 522 light rail was part of the HCT corridor studies. It’s not just a Seattle subway idea. Though since there arent enough riders compared to the cost it converted into Stride 3 brt instead.

          For Ballard density I’m just noting it’s still mainly medium density. I’m not saying it’s unimportant to connect it with high quality transit. But it’d be incorrect to overstate its importance as well.

          @Cam

          > Which makes me wonder, tangentially, why there isn’t simply a fast, frequent bus that follows the Burke-Gilman. It would be substantially faster than 45th or the meandering route along 40th through Wallingford.

          There was a study for Ballard to u district alternatives including a route similar to that. Light rail along pacific and Leary (at grade) estimated 10~13 minutes from Ballard to u district. BRT bus along the same route, though with mixed traffic lanes, estimated 14~19 minutes.

          https://seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/CentralEast_KBIBUDUKR_Lev2_060514_Final_Exec.pdf

      24. “I was just thinking about any justification for building the line to Ballard, and one that has been proposed (by Seattle Subway) is that we eventually extend it.”

          It should be extended to 85th, and that was in the long-range plan during ST2. That would bring in all of the moderate-density part of Ballard, and allow Link to fully serve the northwest quarter of the city. North of 85th is large-lot single-family so we don’t need to bother about that. But that wouldn’t change the line from unjustified to justified. It’s justification is the concentrations at Market Street and in SLU.

          “Another options was to go through Queen Anne. (and down to Fremont).”

          “This I could have supported. I could have also supported Ballard to UW. ”

          I did support both of those. Ballard-UW was my first choice, and the Queen Anne-Fremont tunnel was my second. I put those in feedback to ST several times, and wrote an article about article about Queen Anne. Ballard-Fremont are one continuous urban village, and that’s what makes it larger than Lake City. Fremont alone is enough to justify service, and serving both Fremont and Ballard on one line would get us closer to having all the larger urban villages on Link. Upper Queen Anne is not particularly dense or large, but it is walkable and has corner stores, and it’s hard to serve by transit. A station near QA & Boston would solve the hard-to-serve problem once and for all. But ST wasn’t willing to spend that much for the most sensible alignment that would have served all the villages. Instead it’s backing into tunnels after the vote, which may end up costing as much as the Fremont tunnel would have but miss Fremont. (I assume it would be surface on Leary Way west of Fremont.)

          I have a story about Ballard, but I’ll put it in a top-level thread below since this one is so long.

          It performed the best, but cost the most. It would have added an additional station, while costing a bundle. Then again, current plans are costing a bundle as well.”

      25. “why there isn’t simply a fast, frequent bus that follows the Burke-Gilman. It would be substantially faster than 45th or the meandering route along 40th through Wallingford.”

          You mean a bus on the trail? That would miss Wallingford and is a hill down from practically all the U-District. And it would destroy the trail. The Burke-Gilman Trail is nationally known as one of the first and most successful rail-trails. We need transit corridors, but we also need off-road bike/pedestrian corridors, especially those that go through natural settings like the Ship Canal and woods and parks.

      26. I don’t think any discussion about changing the ST3 promise to reach Ballard is valuable until the technology options are reassessed first.

          I see the core problem is the very expensive design and operation of Link light rail vehicles. The stations are deep and large for four car trains. The frequencies cost money because if drivers. The track itself must meet grade and curve restrictions. The tunnels must be built tall enough for catenaries.

          The main advantage to the vehicle type is that they provide consistency with the current fleet. (Note that there are automated vehicle options that can even use existing tracks and power to reach an OMF.)

          Another main advantage to the current technology is that it is good for median grade street operation like a streetcar. However the current plans propose no more “streetcar” segments anywhere, even in places where it could be attractive like on Market St in Ballard (or Fauntleroy in West Seattle or into Downtown Tacoma).

          So I’m very much in favor of revisiting the vehicle choice before choosing any SLU/ Ballard lower cost option — with an eye to shorter automated trains.

          Changing technology could actually make it possible to better fulfill the ST3 promise at a more affordable price and less controversy. Without study though it’s hard to assess.

          It’s like saying that we have to eat at the same restaurant with the same prices and same menu even there are many likely better options within walking distance.

      27. “You mean a bus on the trail? ”

          Of course not. That portion of the trail probably has more riders than all the E-W buses going through Fremont combined. It’s a freakin’ super-highway.

          I was thinking of the orange line on Page 13 of WL’s link.

      28. I don’t understand the Northgate comment. I wouldn’t go anywhere near Northgate, if I were Tsar.

          I started at Northgate because it is the only place that a pocket track exists and could be repurposed as the west-to-south leg of a flying junction from Lake City.

          I have explained how difficult and nosebleed costly it would be to build a subterranean junction anywhere along North Link. If Lake City is to receive a rail line it will branch just north of Northgate or come from Ballard as an extension of Ballard Link, as unlikely as that is.

      29. P.S. The fact that Lake City Way would make a great transit backbone begs the question “why did Skycastle Transit spend a hundred million to include a pair of bellmouths just north of Roosevelt Station in order to accommodate a diversion? Yes it was not “On The Long-Term Plan” [trumpet flourish]. But veteran transit systems all over the world include stubs for future branches exactly to avoid the catastrophic level of impacts that adding one later requires.

          They did not even include a demising wall at University District Station for an underground connection to an east-west line they’ve studied themselves.

          That might have cost ten million, tops.

      30. I love you, Tom. You are terrific. And, though I can’t be certain, you may know a lot about engineering.

          But you need to make some attempt to speak in English, rather than assuming everyone has the time and correct edition of the Uniform Manual of TrainHuggers ™ to decipher your posts.

          Also, though also can’t be certain, you seem to have forgotten a negative in your post above.

      31. “I was thinking of the orange line on Page 13 of WL’s link.”

          Oh yes, that was one of the original alternatives. It has many of the same problems as going on the trail: it misses Wallingford and the U-District; i.e., where the riders are.

      32. “They did not even include a demising wall at University District Station for an underground connection to an east-west line they’ve studied themselves.”

          I asked that same thing in a U-Link open house. The ST rep said, “Because the east-west line isn’t voter-approved yet, and it may not even go through that station.” The orange alternative was a live possibility then, and the possibility it might continue east on 520 across the lake.

          When I was in Toronto in 2000, I stayed with a group on west Queen Street. We took the streetcar to the Yonge subway, and in the subway station or host pointed out an unused part that was intended for a future subway transfer. There was going to be an east-west subway on Queen Street, but it was stalled. When it was revived decades later, it was decided to move it north a mile to Bloor Street, where it was running when I was there. So that transfer stub never got used. I still think it was good foresight, not a waste of money. I tried to tell ST that several times in open houses and in feedback, but they didn’t believe it.

      33. ” It has many of the same problems as going on the trail: it misses Wallingford and the U-District; i.e., where the riders are.”

          Wallingford seems to like being stuck in Amber. I don’t see substantially more density now than it had 10 or 20 years ago. I would suspect Lower Fremont, Lower Stoneway and Lower Wallingford have more residential and business density than 45th, at this point.

          You have a good point about U-district along 45th however. Perhaps a turnaround at 45th and Brooklyn, near Link and the biggest apartment buildings would solve that.

      34. “Wallingford seems to like being stuck in Amber. I don’t see substantially more density now than it had 10 or 20 years ago.”

          That’s the perennial current vs future debate. Wallingford has walkable businesses and apartments now on Market Street that should have good transit access; i.e., not a bus that gets caught in SOV congestion. The biggest problem in Pugetopolis is there are too few urban village and most of them are too small. That makes people drive because they can’t walk to everyday destinations and it’s hard to serve all those houses by transit. So when we have a village we should support it. Otherwise we’re throwing it way, which means even people in those walkable villages will feel the need to drive more. The solution is to strengthen the village. That means both upzoning the immediate surrounding area (because a village just on one street [45th] is substandard), and improving transit. We should improve transit even if we can’t get the upzones. Because it’s a general improvement in Seattle’s/Pugetopolis’s urbanism choices (where people can live or go to in a walkable/transit environment).

          These debates should start with travel time. What’s the right travel time for Wallingford-UDistrict, Ballard-UDistrict, or Ballard-downtown; i.e., what would cities like Vancouver or New York or Toronto have? For Ballard-UDistrict, 15-20 minutes might be a good target? Yet the 44 can take 45 minutes when there’s congestion. ST’s Link study had something less than 10 minutes. That would be wonderful, amazing, like New York. Is it worth a billion dollars? Reasonable people differ. I’ll just point out that ST’s study said it would cost less and have higher ridership than Ballard-downtown. But McGinn really wanted Ballard-downtown, and he was the mayor so he had clout.

          Because an underground line doesn’t have to follow the street grid, a Ballard-UW line could zig down to Fremont and zag up to Wallingford and still have good travel time. It could potentially replace the 44, so those hours could be redeployed to other routes.

          What would a bus alternative be? Well, you’d need transit priority lanes. That’s the story of Seattle: it needs more transit-priority lanes. Wallingford businesses made a fuss that they didn’t want to give up street parking spaces for transit, they said it would kill their business. Never mind that you gain more walk-up customers than you lose drive-up customers if you do it right and make it really convenient for people to walk/bus to. There’s also the physical narrowness of 45th, and the inability to widen it without displacing businesses/housing. The western slope of Phinney Ridge has only three lanes. If two are transit lanes, that leaves only one for cars, and in only one direction. That sounds too infeasible, especially given that the hillside means there’s no close parallel streets. So realistically there could only be at most one transit lane in one direction there. That limits the speed of buses, and thus the minimum travel time they could achieve.

          So 45th can’t be perfect with buses. But could it be good enough? I’d like to see how much strong transit-lane priority could do, and what we could do about the I-5 entrance bottleneck. The initial vision of RapidRide 44 in Move Seattle had extensive (unspecified) transit priority. That got watered down to transit-priority lanes between I-5 and 15th. Then that got watered down too. Then the project got canceled/deferred. In the meantime SDOT has installed some queue jumps; e.g., around Green Lake Way. That’s something but it still doesn’t make the 44 good. At best you can say it’s faster than the 3/4, but we should aim higher than that.

      35. I’m not sure I’d call “much of Ballard high density” Sure there’s one pocket of apartments but beyond that most of it is dense single family homes/ townhouses similar to the rest of Seattle.

          Right, and you could say the same thing about Capitol Hill or Roosevelt, or pretty much any broadly defined neighborhood. Part of the issue is what you call the neighborhood. In the case of Ballard, the “pocket” of density is quite large. North of Market, it forms a rectangle, between roughly 14th and 24th (west and east) and 65th. It also spreads west along Market (to the other side of 24th) and south (to Old Ballard). It is one of the larger contiguously dense areas in the city.

          If, on the other hand, you want to look at greater Ballard, then it isn’t particularly dense. Neither is Seattle. Most of Seattle is single-family homes. The urban part of Ballard is an exception, just as the urban part of Capitol Hill and Roosevelt are exceptions.

          It is also an attraction. Not at the same level as Capitol Hill, but similar. There is a hospital there, and it is a significant entertainment district.

          That doesn’t mean the station is in the right place. It isn’t. This is the biggest problem with Ballard Link. If you add only one station, and put it at the outskirts of where the density is, the bulk of the riders can’t walk to it. It would be like putting the Capitol Hill station at the north end of Volunteer Park. It is still Capitol Hill; it just isn’t where the people are.

          That is why folks wrote articles like this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/03/21/a-better-ballard-option/, and this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2022/03/10/st3s-ballard-station-has-to-serve-ballard/.

          As far as Ballard being “far”, that is ridiculous. It is about five miles to downtown — closer to downtown than Roosevelt or Northgate. It is about three miles to the UW. It may take a while to get there, but that is because of the roads. This makes the case for grade-separation much stronger (not weaker). If it is fairly close (which it is) and slow to get there via a car, then there is a strong case for rail there. But again, the case for rail is much stronger for an east-west alignment than it is north-south, because it wouldn’t take that much effort to make the north-south buses fast, while it would be extremely difficult to do that if you are heading east-west.

          I would caution anyone from overreacting to this data, especially since we don’t even have access to it. It is also heavily influenced by other changes (like the cutbacks in service or congestion on the buses). There are definitely permanent changes, but they largely just coincide with what we know already. Long distance trips (e. g. Fife to Seattle) were rare before the pandemic, and now are even less common. Extending the subway that far was a bad idea then, it is a bad idea now. In contrast, nothing has fundamentally changed with Ballard — it is still a fairly dense area with some attractions. The Interbay route has the same strengths and weaknesses as before. The only big change is that the stations themselves have gotten worse.

      36. Wallingford seems to like being stuck in Amber. I don’t see substantially more density now than it had 10 or 20 years ago.

          Again, we have the problem with trying to define a fairly large neighborhood. Much of Wallingford hasn’t change a bit. But the urban part of it has gotten substantially bigger. The same thing is true of Roosevelt and Fremont. There are areas that haven’t changed at all, and areas that have a lot more density. It is all because of the zoning. There are plenty of zoning maps if you want to look at them, but I like this one: https://jeffreylinn.carto.com/viz/681ff218-0a5d-11e6-8f50-0ea31932ec1d/embed_map. It shows apartments that exist inside areas zoned for single family (as well as the opposite — areas that are zoned multi-family but only have houses right now).

          Much of the growth in Wallingford has been alongside Stone Way. But there is still plenty along 45th. An east-west route would definitely get good ridership in Wallingford, along with the other stops. When it comes to a Ballard-UW line, there was always the question: Serve upper Fremont (e. g. 45th) or lower Fremont (the more urban area). The advantage of serving upper Fremont is easy access to Aurora buses. From what I can tell, you could serve both, by having a station under Aurora, close to the troll. You would have to add a stop on Aurora, and most likely, some sort of elevator so that riders could go between stops. But overall, that still wouldn’t be that expensive (compared to the overall project).

          It would require a different mindset: quality over quantity. ST has always been about distance.

      37. > Right, and you could say the same thing about Capitol Hill or Roosevelt, or pretty much any broadly defined neighborhood. Part of the issue is what you call the neighborhood. In the case of Ballard, the “pocket” of density is quite large.

          No not really. Capitol Hill is much denser than Ballard. Capitol Hill has not only a 14k section (1km squared) but multiple sections surrounding it at 10k and further at 5k. Sure Roosevelt is lower at 6k, but it has the underground station more by way of exiting the underground tunnel from the water underpass.

          > That doesn’t mean the station is in the right place. It isn’t. This is the biggest problem with Ballard Link.

          The point I am making is Ballard while it does have medium density enough to justify light rail at-grade/elevated, it does not have the high density to justify an underground tunnel alignment. Plus the high expense of underground construction makes it exceedingly expensive to extend the link any further north severely limiting it’s potential.

          I guess one might say sure it could build apartments in the future — but if that is the case then the 15th ave nw alignment works just as well.

          For ballard we’ve gone from a 2 billion dollar 2-car train link, to a 4 billion drawbridge 4-car train to now a 9 billion high bridge, (10?/11 billion if tunneled what is it “additional funding” required). Sure I know part of is the downtown costs, but even for that section what is 2 billion for that tunnel to cross into ballard — the entire east link only cost 4 billion. Ballard’s density seriously just isn’t enough to justify spending this much.

      38. I mostly agree, Ross. I know 45th is horrendous to take E-W. And it’s not just I-5. It’s also the Aurora ramps, and all the lights and street parking in central Wallingford. I would do anything to avoid driving that in a car, and ditto with a bus. I’d generally stay low, but would even go all the way up to Greenlake or even all the way down Westlake and around the south end of Lake Union, depending on my eventual destination, if in a car. Anything to skip 45th.

          We shouldn’t be putting buses on streets that have highway ramps if we can avoid it.

          The low route along 34th that WL’s link highlights has so little cross traffic and lights that it wouldn’t likely need a priority lane, except maybe when it goes under the Ballard Bridge or in central Fremont.

      39. “Much of the growth in Wallingford has been alongside Stone Way.”

          Good point! I don’t think of Stone Way as Wallingford so I missed that. But I see it on the 62 and when walking from Gasworks Park. Stone Way has denser multistory buildings now than 45th does.

      40. Cam, I did indeed. “[W]hy did Skycastle Transit NOT spend a hundred million…”

   3. I’m not really supportive of either, honestly.

      You have made a good case that West Seattle would be better served by Rapid Ride, and I selfishly think it would be more likely to create decent connectivity to the 5XX express buses somewhere around SeaTac, than Link ever will.

      I just think that the transit voice in Ballard is far stronger than the need. Surface running BRT with dedicated lanes would do them fine. Ballard is a mostly wealthy, highly educated white-collar enclave where I bet much greater than 50% WFH. And it’s a big fat dead-end, geographically. No need to spend billions. Let them ride the bus.

      1. Ballard is a mostly wealthy, highly educated white-collar enclave where I bet much greater than 50% WFH.

         Ballard is not especially wealthy, any more than Capitol Hill is especially wealthy. Sure, if you own a house then you either bought it a long time ago, or have a very high salary. But the heart of Ballard is mostly apartments, with a range of rents. It also has plenty of density (the type of place that make sense for light rail).

      2. Sure, if you throw in Sunset and Crown Hills Ballard probably is pretty wealthy, but “highly educated” isn’t necessarily wealthy,for instance UW grad students, postdocs, and non-tenured lecturers. Most of those people aren’t able to work from home either.

      3. “Ballard is a mostly wealthy, highly educated white-collar enclave where I bet much greater than 50% WFH.”

         We can’t make long-term transit decisions based on a short-term situation. Work from home is probably less than 50% if you consider all Ballard residents, and just because it’s high at the moment doesn’t necessarily mean it will be that high in twenty years. We don’t even know who will live in Ballard in twenty years; we just assume the units will be filled. Then there are the people who work or shop in Ballard, who are 100% non-telework. And even people who work from home travel to other places, at minimum for groceries, and for a lot more besides. Three-quarters of people’s trips are non-work related. We want to get more of those onto transit. And more apartments continue to be built. It won’t double Ballard’s population but it will add something, especially if you look at the line won’t even open for at least fifteen years, so that’s fifteen years of growth.

   4. The article seems to have bee written by people who were trying to be well-informed about transit, but don’t actually ride it themselves. Despite acknowledging that trends even before COVID were against commuter and peak-hour service, they still focused on routes that have only become more peak-oriented like the 28 (15-minute service at peak, otherwise hourly), rather than a stop around the corner for the 44. The 44 might still be down by 40% or so but it was hit hard by the random service cuts (sometimes down to effectively half-hourly) and is much improved now, in part thanks to the service moved from the 28.

      I’ll be curious to see how the frequent routes that were sacrificed for peak service before the September service change fare now that they’re more reliable.

4. Ah, maybe I missed it, but did that article ever say what the overall Metro ridership level is currently as compared to pre pandemic? Because last I saw Metro ridership was at about 60% of pre pandemic levels, and represented just about the worst transit recovery in the state (excluding very small systems). And, yes, that info is a bit outdated (March 2023), but I doubt things have changed that dramatically over the last 6 months.

   It is easy to cherry pick this or that stop in a large system to develop some sort of narrative, but often such cherry picked data doesn’t give a true picture of the situation. Aggregate data does a much better job of that, and I don’t see any such data in this article.

   And why the odd reference to spending an additional $28 billion to increase service by 70%? If Metro still isn’t at full recovery I would think that Metro would redistribute service first before going whole hog on adding new service. And maybe reduce service further to bring costs more inline with demand.

   I think I see the long hand of the Metro PR department behind this article.

   1. No, it’s more of a stop report than a route report. Stops imply routes but I didn’t want to go beyond what was certain, or forget that a route was added or removed from a stop.

      “why the odd reference to spending an additional $28 billion to increase service by 70%?”

      It sounds like it’s referring to Metro Connects, the long-range plan published in 2016 and updated in 2021. That plan is still nominally on, and the county was going to have a levy on it in 2020 when covid hit, and it keeps saying it will have a levy real soon now but it never sets a date.

      “I would think that Metro would redistribute service first before going whole hog on adding new service.”

      It’s not adding service now. This is something it might do in the indefinite future. Ridership might be different by then.

      “And maybe reduce service further to bring costs more inline with demand.”

      Reducing service would be counterproductive, as you need service to generate ridership. Reducing service would just lead to a downward spiral. We’re already suffering with the driver-shortage suspensions.

      1. Ah, but looking at any one “stop”, or small group of stops, is almost guaranteed to be misleading.

         Think of it this way, the authors went to a stop that is dominated by lower income people who often don’t speak English as a first language, sometimes don’t have paperwork, and often don’t have other transit options. Even the authors admit they did this.

         The authors then claim that the stop as at 97% of pre COVID-19 ridership levels. So what conclusions are we to draw from this?

         Is this a “Yea Metro” moment because this stop is at 97% recovery? Or is this proof that we live in a society where some people don’t have WFH options, don’t have other transit options, and don’t have economic resources to change their housing location?

         I.e., should we conclude from this one stop that Metro is recovering very well? Or should we conclude that we really do live in an unequal society where some people just don’t have the options that many of us enjoy, where some people really are transit captives, and where some people truly live in unfortunate circumstances?

         I think the second explanation is closer to the truth (for this one stop).

         And why on earth would this region throw Metro another 28 billion bones when we don’t even know what overall recovery level they are currently at? Let’s get some real data before we start throwing money around.

      2. “the authors went to a stop that is dominated by lower income people who often don’t speak English as a first language… The authors then claim that the stop as at 97% of pre COVID-19 ridership levels.”

         They analyzed all stops each year and compared them. That’s what the charts are based on. The two individual stories are just “human interest” anecdotes to illustrate it; it’s not an undergraduate reporter interviewing two people as their entire research for their first freshman article.

         “Is this a “Yea Metro” moment because this stop is at 97% recovery? Or is this proof that we live in a society where some people don’t have WFH options, don’t have other transit options, and don’t have economic resources to change their housing location?”

         Both? Riders are riders, no matter whether they’re going to work or have a car. At the same time we live in one of the most unequal societies with the least transit in the industrialized world.

      3. @Mike Orr,

         “ They analyzed all stops each year and compared them. That’s what the charts are based on.”

         The charts are meaningless.

         First clue? The scale that they use goes from 0 to 250 times pre pandemic ridership levels. In percentage that is from 0% to 25,000% of pre pandemic levels. Really? That is the scale they choose? And on top of that, the scale is actually some bizarre exponential scale.

         Exponential and logarithmic scales have valid uses in science and engineering, but there is no reason to present Metro ridership data using such scales. None.

         Additionally, just comparing each stop to its pre pandemic level and presenting that value on a shaded map is meaningless per overall ridership recovery data. The stop data needs to be normalized by ridership level. Some stops have higher total ridership than others, so the recovery levels on those stops will have a higher impact on overall Metro ridership recovery.

         Think of it in terms of frequency. Recovery on a route that runs every 10 minutes for most of the day is much more important than recovery on a route that only runs every 30 minutes and just in the peak period.

         So why present such data on a map as if they are equal? Because they are not equal.

   2. Ah, maybe I missed it, but did that article ever say what the overall Metro ridership level is currently as compared to pre pandemic?

      It is difficult to do an apples to apples comparison with any aspect of the system. Sounder is an exception. Things haven’t changed that much, and ridership is way down. Ridership is down around 60% (or ridership is only 40% of what it was). But with things like ST Express, the system has changed. Overall, ridership the last few months has grown — but ridership is still down around 30% from 2019. But again, there have been significant changes.

      With Link, it is completely different. Northgate Link was a huge addition. The three stations now account for 22,000 boardings. That doesn’t seem like much, but assume for a second that all of those trips are to other stations (i. e. Capitol Hill and places south). Also assume that each of those riders takes Link the other direction as well. That would mean that trips involving those stations account for 44,000 boardings. Ridership peaked at 83,000 boardings, which means there is a chance that over half the ridership involves the new addition.

      Of course there are also trips that just involve those stations (e. g. Northgate to U-District) so it is quite likely that the addition is not responsible for over half (or even half) the ridership. At this point, since ST hasn’t released station data by direction (at least to my knowledge) we don’t know the details, but it is clear that Northgate Link was a huge addition.

      Since we don’t have detailed data, we can’t do an apples-to-apples comparison on Link. We do know that on most stations, ridership is down. For example, ridership is down around 30% for Beacon Hill Station. But at the same time, it is reasonable to assume that people are riding from Beacon Hill to U-District, Roosevelt and Northgate. So the fact that ridership is down for that station — as it is for most stations — shows how dire things have become. Even one of the biggest additions to our main mass transit system (Northgate Link) hasn’t been enough to stem the tide.

      Metro is in the same boat. Overall ridership is still way down. Ridership peaked at 354,000 (per day) in May 2023. In contrast, ridership was 488,000 in October of 2019. So obviously it is way down. Link poached some of that ridership, but obviously, not that much (Link ridership is still tiny compared to Metro’s).

      Things are bad across the board. I don’t know of any bus line (or any Link combination) that has had an increase. The 7 is close to what it used to have, but it still is below pre-pandemic numbers. Capitol Hill Station is the only station with more riders, but it is clear that is due to ridership from the north (since ridership on every station to the south is down).

5. Where do we find the stop-level data that the Seattle Times used? On Metro’s dashboard, I only see route-level data. And in fact, some routes (like the 372) are missing entirely from Metro’s dashboard.

   1. That is the challenge. I can’t see it anywhere. In looking at Metro data, it doesn’t seem to match the conclusions of the article. To be clear, ridership in Ballard is way down, but ridership in West Seattle is also way down. An interactive map would be more helpful.

   2. The closest thing I can find is https://gis-kingcounty.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/kingcounty::transit-stops-for-king-county-metro-transitstop-point/explore

      I’m guessing Seattle Times sent in a custom data order including the bus stop ridership?

6. per RossB, the greatest ridership decline and smallest ridership recovery has been on one-way peak-only routes oriented to office employment. Sounder is similar; since ST will continue that service, it provides Metro an opportunity to delete routes 102, 143, 157, and 162. Some two-way all-day routes seem to have attracted more office workers than others (e.g., Route 522 and the C Line).

   The Seattle Times used 2019 as their base year. Ridership peaked in 2018. In 2019, ridership declined when several agencies simultaneously messed up downtown Seattle: the county sold CPS and ended bus service in the DSTT prematurely; WDSDOT closed the AWV SR-99 and had not opened the deep bore; Seattle kept 1st Avenue for the zombie streetcar; ST slowed I-90 bus routes; ST and Metro failed to truncate radial routes at UW Link; Metro did not restructure southend peak routes to feed Sounder; so, too many bus routes and trips were sent to a more congested downtown Seattle.

7. There are a lot of things going on, all at the same time:

   1) Northgate Link. This was huge (as expected).
   2) Various neighborhoods (like along Rainier Avenue) continue to grow.
   3) People continue to work from home.
   4) Traffic is really bad, and there isn’t enough right-of-way for buses.
   5) The driver shortage.

   Because people continue to work from home, ridership on express service has been hammered. Many express routes have been cancelled. For many routes, this is a double-whammy. Not only are fewer people commuting in to downtown, but those that are doing so have a much slower bus (e. g. the D instead of the 15).

   In Northeast Seattle, Northgate Link likely helped mitigate the damage. It is worth noting that U-Link left the area with very few express buses. So Northgate Link meant a shorter trip before taking the same train you were taking before (if you were heading south of the UW). For those in the far north end, a two-seat ride to the UW was much better on the train than with the local buses. The 348, for example, is one of the few buses that has essentially the same ridership as before the pandemic (to be fair, it still doesn’t have a ton of riders).

   South of downtown, the extension also probably helped a little. If you are going from West Seattle to the U-District, Roosevelt or Northgate things got substantially better with Northgate Link (versus U-Link). Not enough to counteract the overall loss in ridership, but it likely helped mitigate it.

   In contrast, it is hard to see Ballard or Magnolia getting anything out of this very important extension. A lot of the core routes simply parallel the extension. The one exception is the 44. Taking the 44 east and then Link south (to Capitol Hill) seems like it would be popular. Oddly enough, ridership on the 44 is way down.

   I think with the 44, as with the 8 (and many other buses) we see the impact of the driver shortage and congestion. On time performance of the 8 hit an abysmal 57% in June of this year. This was the low point, but in the last five months, every month has been worse than any month on record. The 44 hasn’t been quite that bad, but it has been similar. Despite work done by SDOT, on-time performance is still much worse than before the pandemic.

   Thus you have lots of different things all happening at the same time. Some increase ridership, some decrease it. The big things that need to happen (in my opinion) are:

   1) Move to an all-day, everywhere network. Our network is still very much out of date. Not everyone is going downtown for work. As I’ve written before, the last few restructure were so bad — so full of inertia — that I think we should ask an outside team to come in (like Jarrett Walker’s).

   2) Fix the driver shortage, and fund more service. We could do a lot with a better network — way more than people assume — but we still need more drivers to provide the level of service that is appropriate for the city. Running buses every ten minutes on Capitol Hill would be a huge step up (over the ridiculous twenty that is planned) but in a lot of cases, they should be running every 7.5 minutes. For that matter, it is terrible that the 40 is running every fifteen minutes, given its potential (and the relatively efficient network in that neck of the woods).

   3) SDOT needs to speed up work to make the buses faster. The changes for the 40 are great — but they are taking too long. Changes to the 8 are long overdue. The changes for the 44 were too tiny. The city is moving in the right direction, it is just moving too slowly. This may mean spending a bunch more money. So be it.

   1. Ross, how are #1 and #2 compatible without a big transfusion of money? In fact, how do you get to #1 in a city with so many topographical barriers? As you yourself have lamented, even in North Seattle, which is otherwise pretty nicely “gridable”, Green Lake and the steep sides of Phinney Ridge around 65th torpedo a grid there.

      The City is essentially four geographically isolated neighborhoods with frequently clogged connections among them. All of those inter-neighborhood connections already have pretty frequent transit, except West Seattle to Beacon Hill / Rainier Valley, which is pretty hopeless. Unfortunately those connections are almost all hobbled by the inadequate, clogged street network on which they run.

      So far as #3, SDOT simply cannot willy-nilly transfer very many lane-miles to BAT or Bus-Only status without bringing the City to a halt. The streets are a shambles, and even still many are overused. Take many more lane-miles, and they’ll congeal like cold grease.

      I agree, it’s a nasty situation

      1. > So far as #3, SDOT simply cannot willy-nilly transfer very many lane-miles to BAT or Bus-Only status without bringing the City to a halt. The streets are a shambles, and even still many are overused. Take many more lane-miles, and they’ll congeal like cold grease.

         There’s a bit less cars along those sections/more transit riders than you might think. I guess it might seem really congested during peak times, but outside of that there’s a lot less cars. In 2019 on westlake it has around 25k car count while the route 40 had 13k riders (of course crashed down to 7k). Same for rainier ave, while it has the car count of 34k route 7 has the ridership of 10k and from the 106 another 5k. In 2019 15th Ave had the car count of 40~50k depending on the segment while the Rapidride D had 15k ridership (now 8k), albeit 15th ave already has partial bus lanes.

         The 8 on denny way unfortunately is a bit harder to justify more bus lanes. The ridership even before covid was at 8k (now 5k) while there are 20~28k car count. Honestly the only real way I see to ‘fix’ it is to price manage that freeway on ramp. Or maybe just close it during peak periods when it’s just a parking lot? For context, WSDOT has considered consolidating some downtown freeway ramps as there are too many close to each other to help speed up freeway traffic.

         https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/VisionZero/2019_Traffic_Report.pdf

      2. TT: West Seattle could have several routes reach the SODO Link station via the South Lander Street overcrossing. Link serves SE Seattle. So, that is not hopeless; it could be a frequent-to-frequent transfer.

      3. Eddie, Link serves a strip of SE Seattle. Since West Seattle and SE are roughly parallel north-south, in most cities with a “all-day grid” there would be four or five lines running from California Avenue to Lake Washington. Folks would generally need to take only two buses to get anywhere in the other neighborhood from anywhere in either.

         But of course, West Seattle is a one-entrance cul-de-sac so either it gets rationalized to every bus is a stub to and from SoDo except the C and H RapidRides to downtown -basically your suggestion or more radically as now where they’re truncated at The Junction.

         The first means three seats to anywhere in SE not within walking distance of a Link station. The second requires four (two to get to Link) or three by going downtown on the C and taking a long racial route back south.

         This my point about the geographic constraints. Seattle is very hard to serve as an all-day grid.

      4. It is impossible for Seattle to have a perfect grid. But we can have a much better grid than we have now. It is just about a grid, either — you can have a much more efficient network that doesn’t really look like a grid, but functions in much the same way. For example, years ago, David Lawson came up with this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/08/19/your-bus-much-more-often-no-more-money-really/. More recently, I came up with this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/08/30/high-frequency-network-surrounding-rapidride-g/. It isn’t really a grid in a classic sense. But the frequency improvements are dramatic (despite lack of funding). That is basically what I’m talking about.

         As for Ballard, it is challenging, but it is also fairly well designed. There are plans to address the biggest weakness from a grid standpoint — Greenwood to Northgate. I would make a few changes, but it is generally pretty strong.

         As I wrote though, the biggest weakness in Ballard is simply frequency. The 40 should run every ten minutes, if not every 7.5. Same with the 44. These are core routes that carry a lot of people. They are reasonable choices for converting to light rail (various parts were seriously considered in earlier planning) and if RapidRide focused on the most productive, busiest routes, they both would be RapidRide by now. They should be running more often.

         So far as #3, SDOT simply cannot willy-nilly transfer very many lane-miles to BAT or Bus-Only status without bringing the City to a halt.

         I disagree. Traffic adapts. The West Seattle Bridge was closed. The viaduct was closed (with no replacement for a while). The city just took a lane on one of the busiest parts of Aurora (for bikes no less). People adapt. The problem right now is that riding a bus is no better than driving in much of the city. This leads to more congestion. I am confident that SDOT knows all this. The problem is, they are moving too slowly.

         Consider the 40. Obviously the engineers did the due diligence when they came out with the first plan. There were issues, but by and large, everyone liked it (based on public feedback). So why not just implement it now? It is highly likely that there will be no major changes since that first proposal. You get 90% of the benefit right there. The other 10% can be haggled over later.

         It is the opposite of mass transit planning. If you are building a subway, it is a measure-twice, cut-once proposition. You need to study the heck out of it before you break ground.

         That simply isn’t true with traffic. The city makes temporary changes all the time, because of construction. A lot of these changes can be made in the same way. To a large extent, it is just paint. Make the change and see what happens.

         That being said, it doesn’t have to be aggressive (that “willy-nilly”). The traffic engineers would still look at their studies. You would have a brief period for people to discuss the changes, but that’s it. It is worth noting that traffic studies often exaggerate how much people drive. It is well known now that a lot of car traffic just disappears. People don’t take that trip, or they find another way of getting there (bus, bike, etc).

         As I mentioned, it might take more money. If SDOT is reluctant to just experiment by taking transit lanes, they can have the engineers do the appropriate study. If that is the weak-point in the process, then so be it. Hire more traffic engineers and do the work. But again, I think one of the weak points is the long public-input process. There should be some, but it shouldn’t take this long.

      5. The 8 on denny way unfortunately is a bit harder to justify more bus lanes. The ridership even before covid was at 8k (now 5k) while there are 20~28k car count.

         Yes, but you have to consider congestion within those numbers. The 8 actually has very good ridership-per-mile numbers, while simultaneously being very slow. These are key metrics — the type often used to justify a major mass-transit investment (i. e. a subway). For now, I think that is overkill. Ridership is good, but not especially peak-oriented. Make it fast and frequent and the buses should be able to handle the load.

         You are right about the number of cars, but cars adjust. There is a parallel street that also works for cars — Mercer. Depending on your destination, you can also head south through downtown. There are always alternatives.

         SDOT is willing to take lanes. They are moving in the right direction. Fifty years from now, I expect almost every roadway to be one general-purpose lane each direction. Even roads like Aurora and Rainier Avenue. Maybe not Mercer (between Roy and the freeway) simply because there are no buses there. But most major streets (and definitely the minor ones) will be reduced to one lane each direction. It is simply a matter of time.

         I get the cautious approach taken by SDOT. It is best if you do things in order (from a traffic standpoint). You don’t want increased congestion in one part of town because of a change, especially if that corridor has buses. Ideally you do things in order, improving things bit by bit, without any major new congestion point. Over time, people just stop driving so much.

         But I don’t think we can wait, nor do I think we should. We are way, way behind in that regard. People are way too car dependent. Driving in the city is down, but it nowhere near where it should be. One big reason for that is that riding the bus is slow. Transit is usually slower than driving, but the difference shouldn’t be that big. During peak traffic, taking the bus should be faster than driving, even with all of the stops. In some parts of the city this is true — for the 8, it is not.

         We are familiar with the concept of “induced demand”. Well, the reverse is true as well. Just take a lane — it will be OK.

      6. TT: Yes, it is a weakness, but note that SDOT and Metro have improved Route 60 to be 15/15 headway. It connects with Link at Beacon and Capitol Hill stations. Route 50 seems too indirect. Historically, the Duwamish and the rail yards are largely vacant obstacles and do not produce much ridership. During WWII, there was significant factory employment there.

      7. We had an article about the ultra-productive but slow 8 in August.

      8. @Ross

         > Yes, but you have to consider congestion within those numbers. The 8 actually has very good ridership-per-mile numbers, while simultaneously being very slow.

         I guess the another problem is that the freeway turn onto Yale Ave is on the right side so while you could extend the bus lane, it is on the wrong/middle lane for it to pick up passengers on Denny Way. The only semi-reasonable idea I can think of is say at Fairview and Denny Way remove the left turn lane and turn the five lanes into [westBound, westBound, eastBoundBusLane, busStation, eastBound] Or like remove some bus stops so it doesn’t need to stop at the right side? I guess at taylor ave you could do something again like what I described above.

         But yeah if you have or know of any proposals to fix the right-side bus stop problem with the middle bus lane it’d be interesting to hear. I checked the late8 campaign and they just say to paint the bus lane extension but don’t really outline what exact the plan is. I guess maybe is it the bus lane on the right side?

8. 255 truncation is a failure. 50% of ridership lost. Investment in S. Kirkland P&R parking structure wasted. Service unreliable. Put a fork in it, it’s done.

   1. That would cut off 92, 000 Kirklandites from Seattle completely. They’d have to go around via Bellevue or Bothell. Limping 255 service is better than no 255 service. It would be harder to expand Kirkland-Seattle service later if the 255 is deleted and we’d be starting from scratch.

      Unreliable service is a problem on many Metro routes, not just the 255. It was bad in the early 2010s, then Metro invested in more standby buses to step in when one got caught in congestion, then the pandemic and its aftermath devastated those funds, so unreliability has risen again. It’s a larger issue of stable revenue, driver recruitment, maintenance-worker recruitment, and supply-chain bottlenecks. We need to incrementally fix Metro as soon as we can, not throw it away. If the 255 had continued running downtown it would be something like half as frequent.

      P&Rs are always dubious investments. They have a high cost per parking space, and they can only fit a small fraction of total riders. Especially since the tendency is to park there 8-6 so only one car can use a space per day.

      1. Mike, I think they are saying they’d prefer that the 255 continued to downtown and are against the truncation, not that they hate the 255.

      2. @Mike Orr,

         I’m with you on this one. It is way to early to consider eliminating the 255. There are simply too many people who rely on the 255 for access to Link at UWS and access to UWMC and the UW campus in general. Eliminate the truncation and all those riders will see their trips become even longer and even less reliable.

         That said, I would guess that RIP’s main issue with the 255 today is the unreliability, and a lot of Metro’s current problems with reliability are self inflicted. They just never reduced their route structure sufficiently to match the staff they had available. Metro has been trying to do too much with too little. Metro needs to right size their operation first to improve reliability, then build back up to current service levels.

      3. The WSDOT construction at Montlake is the problem; it will end. Route 255 would work well otherwise. Metro might run it more often; ST should run Link more often. Route 545 should folded into Route 542 as well.

      4. “I would guess that RIP’s main issue with the 255 today is the unreliability,”

         The 255 has gotten the short end of the stick as almost every Metro problem has converged on it. Right after the truncation, covid hit, and ST and Metro responded by reducing both Link and the 255. Link can’t fulfill its mission at 30-minute frequency, and it makes the transfers predicated on Link unviable. A similar problem exists with 15-minute Link and 15-minute 255, but at least it’s a lesser problem. Then the 520 construction has closed the Evergreen bridge or the Montlake bridge many times. No other bus route in the region suffers so much. And as a result, no other city suffers as much as Kirkland.

         But 520 construction will eventually end. Metro will someday be able to improve reliability and restore its January 2020 service level. Link will have double-frequency when the full Line 2 opens. Link could have higher frequency beyond that (6 minutes per line, so 3 minutes at UW) if ST ever decides to. Stride 2 will provide a more frequent alternative to transfer in Bellevue for Seattle as a fallback, and East Link will be faster than the 550.

      5. >That would cut off 92, 000 Kirklandites from Seattle completely. They’d have to go around via Bellevue or Bothell. Limping 255 service is better than no 255 service.<

         I don't think ridership on the 255 is 92,000/day, which is the entire population of greater Kirkland. As RIP notes, ridership on the 255 is down 50%. 520 is still there.

         When RIP writes, "Investment in S. Kirkland P&R parking structure wasted" I don't think he is complaining about the park and ride, which is the best way for someone in Kirkland to get to the 255 on the eastside.

         His complaint is truncation on the west side has made the 255 a poor choice, along with unreliable service, so the park and ride is not being utilized to its full potential. Ideally park and rides are full if ST/Metro are going to build them. RIP's point is if the park and ride is empty so is the 255.

         RIP is not stating he dislikes the 255, or the park and ride, he is stating truncation and unreliability make the 255 less convenient and slower for him, which is true or going to be true for a lot of Link because transfers add time and inconvenience to any trip. If ridership is indeed down 50% then other 255 riders must agree with RIP and have found an alternative to the 255. Whether ridership would be stronger, or service more reliable, if the 255 went downtown rather than truncate I don't know.

      6. “I don’t think ridership on the 255 is 92,000/day, which is the entire population of greater Kirkland.”

         The point is that everyone in Kirkland has the opportunity to take the 255, and none of them have another even remotely comparable transit option to Seattle. With 92,000 people in the Kirkland city limits; 734,000 in Seattle; and maybe 400,000 in North Seattle that the 255 particularly serves; and large destinations like UW and downtown Kirkland; and just five miles between them — there will inevitably be a sizeable number of cross-lake trips, like there is in every metro area. Even people who don’t ride the 255 regularly enough to be counted, and people who always drive, will take transit when their car breaks down or they have a temporary disability or lose their license — or if they’re going to a ballgame. The 255’s current ridership is stunted by its (in)frequency and unreliability, Link’s (in)frequency, and land use in Kirkland and Seattle that make large parts of them unwalkable. Land use won’t change until Kirkland and Seattle revise their policies, but transit frequency and reliability is something that can be addressed easier than that.

      7. The 255 has a lot of potential once the construction ends and it gets a transit -priority offramp from 520 to Montlake, especially when the 2 line opens and Link frequency between UW and downtown doubles. Giving up on it’s routing now would be extremely foolish.

         I will also say that if you’re going almost anywhere not downtown, the new route is simply better. It avoids backtracking and/or extra transfers to reach anywhere in north Seattle, and for trips to the airport or Rainier Valley, it is better to have the connection at Husky Stadium (assuming no football game or ramp/bridge closure) than downtown.

      8. Also, this is not the future we expected. Line 2 was supposed to open two years ago, and Federal Way last year, and RapidRide G around now. Everything is in a holding pattern for years longer than we expected.

      9. @asdf2,

         You are correct, the 255 is certainly heavily impacted by the current construction. But that will end eventually, and transferring to Link to get downtown is still preferable to the long slog on I-5. And the improved access to UWMC and UW west campus is a bonus for 255 riders. I don’t see the current routing changing, at least until the full East Link opens.

         And you are also correct that the current transfer to Link at UWS also better serves riders going beyond downtown to the south, and also riders heading north from UWS (although that is probably a small number).

         And things will only get better in the future. Lynnwood Link, East Link, Federal Way Link, interlining north of downtown. Can’t wait.

      10. I also just watched a very crowded 255 bus leave South Kirkland park and ride, as I type this comment, so please don’t say the bus isn’t being ridden.

      11. “I also just watched a very crowded 255 bus leave South Kirkland park and ride, as I type this comment, so please don’t say the bus isn’t being ridden.”
          Pre-COVID, pre-reroute 255 had 7,000 weekday riders. Spring 2022 255 had 2,000. Probably still in the 2,500 ballpark unless it has recovered much better than its peers. This is not a lot of riders.

      12. @asdf2,

          “ I also just watched a very crowded 255 bus leave South Kirkland park and ride, as I type this comment, so please don’t say the bus isn’t being ridden”

          Ah, I believe today was the first Kraken home game of the season. So what you saw was probably not anywhere near typical.

      13. “today was the first Kraken home game of the season. So what you saw was probably not anywhere near typical.”

          It’s still part of what buses are for. Ballgames and other large events occur dozens of times a year. And sometimes something is more popular than predicted, so it’s good to have capacity for those unexpected spikes. And congestion can make a bus not show up, so then the next bus has to carry twice as many people.

      14. “This is not a lot of riders.”

          Why is it not a lot? What is a lot of riders, or enough riders?

      15. “I watched a very crowded 255”
          Probably because the previous trip or two never came
          “Underused S. Kirkland P&R”
          When the 255 had direct service to downtown Seattle there was never a parking spot to be found. 255 was viable to use for Mariners or Seahawks or any court business or commuting to Seattle. It’s way less useful now, it’s far too unreliable and time consuming
          “When construction is complete”
          255 service patterns are a disaster. Practically every evening there is a reroute. Construction is closing something all the time. Add in football games. Montlake bridge maintenance. General Montlake congestion. Why was the 255 subjected to all this? Could have waited until it was done. Why did Kirkland City leadership let this happen? And no, the unreliability will never go away. The Montlake Bridge will always have openings and maintenance. It will always have congestion. The bridge will never be twinned, not in our lifetimes. Husky stadium and HecEd aren’t going away nor is the traffic on Montlake Blvd. This service is never going to be good or reliable. The eventual HOV off ramp will improve things… a little. It has a traffic light on the ramp so that SOVs can turn south. It will still feed into the general congestion.
          The ridership data tells you what you need to know. Compared to pre-Covid the 255 has lost more ridership than any other cross-lake route.
          The 255 is dead to me and many other former Eastside riders. The S. Kirkland P&R was my goto P&R. It’s useless now. Way to go that we wasted capital funds building a parking garage. And now don’t bother to run service anyone can use.

      16. And why the hell don’t all the buses from UW going to the Eastside serve the same stop at UW? There are times when I am going to need to make a transfer and have multiple options of where to transfer. Why can’t a rider wait at one stop and get on the next 255, 271 or 542 that comes by? And not have to know which one is late or canceled?

      17. And given how often 520 is closed these days, why do we run a fleet of trips across I-90, up I-5 to the U-District when it’s not where people even want to go. The 542 is totally wasted service when the few riders who need to go to U, esp weekends, should just use 545 & Link. The 255 could go to BTC and let riders transfer to 550 or 271 for UDistrict.
          That would be a rational use of operating dollars and our supposedly scarce operators. This nonsense has been going on for years. It’s frequent enough that there can be a standard service pattern in place.

      18. @Mike Orr,

          “ It’s still part of what buses are for. Ballgames and other large events…… ”

          You can’t judge the overall ridership of a route by how much it gets used during an occasional special event. In fact, the FTA specifically forbids the inclusion of special event ridership in most ridership estimates intended for use in grant applications.

          Why? Because using such ridership gives a false impression of overall ridership. The FTA wants their financial investments to be useful on a daily basis, not once per decade when the Mariners manage to have a good season and don’t get mathematically eliminated in April.

      19. @RIP,

          “ When the 255 had direct service to downtown Seattle there was never a parking spot to be found.”

          Ah, the availability of parking at the P&R today probably has more to do with the pandemic than with the the current routing. There just aren’t as many people going into downtown every morning.

          And remember, the unreliability of the 255 is mainly due to construction, not the routing. And the 255 would need to deal with the SR 520 construction even if it bypassed the UW and the Link transfer, in addition to having to deal with the new reversable HOV lane construction at I-5 and all the other I-5 messes.

          As per who in Kirkland allowed this to happen, I have no clue. Kirkland hasn’t been well run since Dave Russell was mayor.

          But I do agree with you that there will never be another bridge, here are simply too many lawyers living in Montlake for that to happen. And the problem isn’t the bridge anyhow, it’s the cluster of traffic lights surrounding the triangle parking garage.

      20. There will always be folks who want the one-seat ride to downtown. I’m sure there are people who really miss the 41 (especially back when it went into the tunnel). Thus there are always trade-off when it comes truncations.

          In this case though, it makes way more sense to truncate at the UW. First, because the UW is a major destination. Second, the old approach (to drop people off at the freeway station in Montlake) just won’t work anymore. At best you would get off the freeway, serve a stop, and then somehow loop around to get back on the freeway (going the same direction). This would require riders headed to the UW (or headed to Link) to walk quite a ways, while also significantly delaying the bus.

          Even if we ignore the negative impact on riders headed to the UW (or Link) we would still have a route that takes a lot longer. The 255 used to go into the tunnel — those days are gone. The bus would go through downtown, and while being reasonably fast, would still be time consuming (compared to turning around at the UW). This makes it a lot more expensive to operate the bus at a time when Metro has a driver shortage. Even without a driver shortage, it is too expensive to send the 255. Would you rather have a 255 that runs every 15 minutes to the UW, or every half-hour to downtown? I think most people would prefer the former.

          The problems with the 255 right now is the work on 520. It doesn’t just inflict the 255, but buses like the 271 suffer as well. Getting to the UW from 520 is terrible right now. Eventually that will be fixed, and it will actually be better than ever.

      21. But I do agree with you that there will never be another bridge, here are simply too many lawyers living in Montlake for that to happen. And the problem isn’t the bridge anyhow, it’s the cluster of traffic lights surrounding the triangle parking garage.

          I agree with you about the bridge. It was typical WSDOT overkill. It definitely isn’t worth the money. The approaches to the bridge (from both sides) will have bus lanes. This makes all the difference. If you’ve ever been stuck by a bridge opening, you know that you are better off being close to the front. This is counter-intuitive, and maybe not the case at 3:00 AM. But most of the delay is not caused by the bridge going up and down, it is the massive congestion that occurs soon after. Arrive just as cars start going across again, and you bound to spend a really long time waiting for traffic to clear out.

          The buses will sidestep that. A bus will get into bus/BAT/HOV lanes in Kirkland, and not exit them until they merge onto the bridge itself (past the congestion point). Not as good as their own bridge, but pretty close.

          At that point they have to turn around near the triangle, or keep going to the U-District. It does seem like a waste that the buses don’t turn around in the parking lot next to the station (using Walla Walla street). I’m not sure why they didn’t explore that. I realize that the UW makes a lot of money on the parking, but it seems like they could carve a pathway out for the 255 (and other buses that are turning around in the vicinity). In general I’m not a fan of transit malls, but since the area is basically just a giant parking lot, this would be a good place for one. Then again, maybe Metro just assumed that most buses would keep going (to the U-District) instead of turning around by the UW Station. The 255 and 271 just keep going.

          In any event, they have taken steps to make going around the triangle better. There is a special traffic light to make a left turn from the (rightmost) bus lane on Montlake Boulevard to Pacific Place. This is a clever way for the bus to avoid some of the congestion. There is more that can be done, I’m sure, but SDOT and Metro keep chipping away at the problem, making the western tail of that bus (from the bridge up to Campus Parkway) faster.

      22. Why can’t a rider wait at one stop and get on the next 255, 271 or 542 that comes by?

          I agree. That is a problem that is not unique to the area. In this case though, it seems like a no-brainer. There are three groups of buses that head south by the station:

          1) In-city buses (43/48).
          2) Buses that are just ending their route there (44, 73).
          3) Buses headed to the East Side.

          For the buses that are ending there, it doesn’t really matter. But the other two sets of buses should be grouped (I’m pretty sure the 43 and 48 share the same stop).

      23. Thanks Dan Ryan, the ridership data is very important in my opinion.

          If there were more riders the Kirkland area pays enough in Metro taxes to afford both a 255 to UW and a 255A to downtown Seattle, each with 15-minute frequencies. Asking someone from Kirkland who is going to downtown Seattle, which likely means a job so they have to be there when work starts, to add a transfer at UW is just frustrating even if construction delays are eliminated. But if you have maybe 2500 daily riders on the 255 today that probably means at most 1250 riders to downtown Seattle (less the riders originating in Seattle going to Kirkland) so a dedicated 255A to downtown with the same 15-minute frequencies is probably not worth it, even if Kirkland is actually paying for that level of service.

          In many ways the 255 is the poster child for Metro equity that is based on ridership.

          The other thing missing about the 255 is how many stops it has on the eastside. It has 40 total stops.
          https://moovitapp.com/index/en/public_transit-line-255-Seattle_Tacoma_Bellevue_WA-522-5872-666079-1 Arguably Totem Lake and downtown/south Kirkland are two of the densest areas on the eastside. So when the eastside actually plans for and builds some dense housing that is walkable to transit Metro provides a single bus to downtown via UW that has almost 30 stops before the Kirkland Park and ride, which is why the few times I have taken the 255 to a game at UW I drive to the Kirkland Park and ride.

          Mike makes a good point that East Link was supposed to be operating by 2023 from the Overlake area. The problem for folks in Kirkland with East Link is not so much the long trip around the lake but the difficulty of getting to an East Link Park and ride. S. Bellevue is south of Bellevue on 405, and the park and rides in Redmond are not easy to get to either from Kirkland and are in the opposite direction east. So how does someone along the 255 get to East Link when it opens, and then ride around the lake although the transfer to Link in Seattle will be eliminated.

          Regional planners like the Puget Sound Regional Council would say the decline in ridership on the 255 is a good thing. People should work and play and go to school near where they live, and long slow trips across the bridge to Seattle make little sense when everything one would need (except a sporting event) is on the eastside. Work from home, more offices on the eastside, better dining and shopping on the eastside, all contribute to the decline in ridership on the 255, and East Link won’t change the total number of eastsiders taking transit or driving to Seattle.

          But if you live in Kirkland and need to take transit to Seattle or UW and your city pays a lot toward Metro taxes and is one of the few eastside cities that has at least approached density the 255 is very poor transit service with way too many stops, a transfer at the UW to go downtown, and is an insult really to Kirkland. Maybe if Kirkland was a true equity zone and so any service it received was a subsidy I could understand. But at the same time if so few folks from Kirkland are going to the UW or downtown Seattle that is kind of of our regional planning goal. Maybe the 255’s low ridership is the result of the success of regional planning and the ability of those who live in Kirkland or the eastside to go across the lake today.

          Yes the trip on the 255 to Seattle today is pretty bad, especially if you start at Totem Lake, but at the same time 5000 eastsiders who used to ride the 255 no longer have to make that trip today.

      24. “You can’t judge the overall ridership of a route by how much it gets used during an occasional special event. In fact, the FTA specifically forbids the inclusion of special event ridership in most ridership estimates intended for use in grant applications.”

          I’m interested in transit that’s useful for people, not in accounting abstractions. Metro isn’t applying for a federal grant for the 255.

          “Asking someone from Kirkland who is going to downtown Seattle, which likely means a job so they have to be there when work starts, to add a transfer at UW is just frustrating even if construction delays are eliminated.”

          That’s just how you might ride it, not how everybody rides it. asdf2 is one of the people who takes the 255 from Kirkland to the U-District and to other parts of north Seattle. There are jobs in Seattle outside downtown. And North Seattle has hundreds of thousands of people, and a commensurate number of destinations, more per capita than Kirkland has because it’s a more urban area.

      25. @Mike Orr,

          “ I’m interested in transit that’s useful for people, not in accounting abstractions.”

          Exactly. And that is exactly the reason that the FTA doesn’t normally consider event ridership for grant applications. And it is also exactly the reason that Metro shouldn’t consider event ridership in general service decisions.

          Because if you are really interested in transit that is “useful for people”, then it makes no sense to spend dollars day in and day out for service that people only really use for the rare special event. Those dollars would be much better spent on transit that is “useful for people”, not on transit that only gets used a few days a year for special events.

          If you want transit that is “useful for people”, then transit decisions should be based on the typical rider and not on the atypical, special event rider.

          The FTA understands this, Metro should too.

      26. It’s the same route. The route that connects the northwest Eastside to Seattle is the same one that people take to ballgames. And it’s not “occasional”. There are large events almost every weekend in the summer.

      27. Even if the UW did somehow allow Eastside routes to terminate in the Husky Stadium parking lot, I’m not sure it would be a good idea because it would significantly degrade connections to many places. Of course, for Link to downtown, it wouldn’t matter. But to reach somewhere in north Seattle not along the Link line, you need to make a bus-bus connection in the U-district, and the 255’s extension to campus parkway makes these bus-bus connections much quicker and easier compared to if the bus just ended at Husky Stadium.

      28. I’m one of those Kirkland people who relied on the South Kirkland Park and Ride. It’s how I got to Sounder games and to some nights on the town in Downtown Seattle. I haven’t been able to use it much lately, because of the pandemic and because of family issues; both of my parents have long-term health problems, and I’ve had to cut down on going out to watch over them. Once things stabilize, I still plan to use South Kirkland to take the 255 to Seattle when I don’t want to drive.

9. Just took a look at the dash, and the routes with the highest percent of trips over capacity limit is as follows:
   October 2023 – 218 17.2%, 311 11.3%, 981 11.1%, 372 10.3%, 322 4.1%, 45 4%, 302 3.3%, 257 2.5%
   September 2023 – 895 75%, 311 16.3%, 981 15.8%, 218 15.3%, 212 4.4%, 322 3.4%, 257 2.1%, 372 2%, 545 1.9%

   Not sure what Metro can do regarding custom school routes, but for the other peak routes it seems like Metro just want to overcrowd them, force riders back to their cars, and then claim peak is diminishing?

   1. I’m not as familiar with peak routes as the all-day network, but I think a lot of those are overlays on routes that aren’t overcrowded (218 riders could take the 554, 322 riders could take the 522). Given that the alternatives aren’t making the list, it seems the problem might be more wayfinding than anything else.

      Even with that said, overcrowded trips are something like 10% of the levels they were in 2019, so I’m not sure it’s a problem worth worrying about at this point.

      1. All day routes have higher visibility than peak routes, so the overcrowding suggested that 554/522 are inferior on the cases you mentioned.

         I believe there is one older STB article on streamlining selected trips on 554. The overcrowding on 218 may be a signal to actually make the recommendation on that post a reality

   2. It’s the driver shortage. If Metro didn’t suspend or reduce peak routes, it would have to reduce other routes. The peak routes were the least ridden so it suspended those. That can cause crowding on the parallel routes that remain. When Metro has enough drivers, it will restore the routes.

      1. I kind of wonder if the routes that are not changed in September 2023 service changes can have minor reductions without causing issues and reallocate service that are overcrowded now (or reinstate some parallel routes)

10. Minor but important correction: youths 18 and under (not “under 18”) can ride free on all transit in the state. Tell all the 18-year-olds you know that they can ride free until their 19th birthday!

11. Continuing the topic of Eastside ridership, I finally found an excuse to ride the 249 the other day and was quite surprised to see the bus hadba good 10 people in.

    Of course, the bus got constantly stuck in traffic and moved slower than a bicycle, but still.

    1. It isn’t clear to me if some are arguing Ballard should have Link because it is remote, or because ridership on that Link route will justify the costs of Link. As Cam noted yesterday, Ballard, certainly within walking distance of wherever the station would be, doesn’t have a lot of potential housing/population growth, and as I noted there is not much along Interbay all the way to Ballard to add ridership.

       Ballard has always been remote, from when I was a kid growing up on lower Capitol Hill a long time ago, which is why real estate prices were always lower than Seattle neighborhoods that were less remote. Even if you drive and leave from your garage, Ballard is a long way from I-5. Aurora and the new tunnel only get you to Denny or to Sodo and a connection to I-90. Interbay to Mercer is a nightmare, and Denny not much better.

       Today Ballard is much, much more vibrant than when I was younger, but it still has a vibe as a remote neighborhood. Real estate prices have closed the gap with other closer Seattle neighborhoods, but not all the way.

       Where Ballard really makes sense, as Mike notes, is if you don’t have to leave it every day, like for work. Work from home is often touted as an eastside phenomenon, but if I was younger and especially single and could work 3-5 days from home Ballard is one of the best Seattle neighborhoods in my opinion, with the right mix of urban and not so urban and more affordable housing. I don’t get to Ballard much these days although it has excellent restaurants, but the demographic seems very young to me.

       When it comes to Ballard Link, it is RIDERSHIP and not population that is key. They are not the same thing. Yesterday we discussed the 255. Kirkland’s and Totem Lake’s population has boomed to over 92,000 when Ballard is maybe 27,000, with some actual density on the eastside, and yet ridership on the 255 that has over 30 stops in Kirkland went from over 7000/day to around 2500 today.

       A lot of Ballard residents can now work from home, full or part time, and I think transit ridership reflects that. That makes living in Ballard much more convenient while Ballard still has that certain vibe from being remote all these decades. So I could see more people wanting to live in Ballard for the vibe, but at the same time fewer taking transit or driving outside Ballard. The real risk in my opinion for Ballard is gentrification and losing its charm.

       Metro is using ridership today to determine frequency, not population, and that ridership is changing all the time. But I don’t think it will increase much. I think ST should also use bus ridership to determine whether the huge costs of light rail are a good investment. People living in Ballard would no doubt prefer having light rail to downtown Seattle (although it won’t get them closer to UW) but they would prefer even more to not leave Ballard if they don’t have to. For the same reason, I don’t see ridership on the 255 growing when the construction on 520 and in Montlake is done.

       My basic understanding is transit first determines coverage, which is largely determined by land use patterns which are very hard to change. Even places like North Bend need buses, but frequency is 60 or 90 minutes because it is expensive to run buses there and there are not many riders. If areas have more riders you run more buses. If there are even more riders you can run more buses, dedicate bus lanes or signal priority, or in rare occasions run segregated light rail (because non-segregated light rail makes almost no sense).

       So, I would wait to see bus ridership in and out of Ballard over the next five years. If it stays the same as today, the only reason to spend billions to run Link to Ballard is because Ballard is remote, which is not a good reason, especially when work from home and more essential services in Ballard make leaving Ballard less necessary.

       1. > It isn’t clear to me if some are arguing Ballard should have Link because it is remote, or because ridership on that Link route will justify the costs of Link.

          It’s not quite a binary yes link or no link at all. No one here is debating whether Ballard deserves better transit; we are debating about what kind of transit versus the potential ridership. The current link approach of a very expensive tunnel, high elevated approach is very expensive and limits the reach even into Ballard. Currently it’s like 9 billion dollars for 6 miles.

          There are other alternatives whether shorter train cars (saving money on the underground stations), at-grade or drawbridge etc… I mean if they went with the original plan (2 billion dollars) they’d have enough money to reach all the way up to crown hill based on what they’re spending now.

    2. Every urban village should have transit appropriate to its size, density, and variety of destinations. The goal is to serve the largest total number of trips in the region and the largest cross-section of demographic/trip types. (The latter is to avoid situations where only one demographic is served; e.g., 9-5 office workers. It’s better if the network serves a large diversity of people, trip types, and destination types.)

       Where we differ is the level of service appropriate to each village size. (I’m using size as a shorthand for all these factors.) A city with real comprehensive transit would have 10-minute buses all day between all urban villages, and a multi-line metro to the higher-volume corridors. Exactly what kind of metro — or how much BRT could take on some of that role — is an open issue and reasonable people will differ. But we’re far behind what Vancouver, San Francisco, Chicago, and DC have. And they are behind what much of the industrialized world has. So there’s our standard, or what I think our standard should be.

       So Ballard should have 10-minute service all day and evening, and a 10-15 minute travel time to downtown or the U-District. If buses can do it, great, but it’s easier to get a rail tunnel approved than to repurpose a GP or parking lane in this town. That’s ultimately why I thought Link was needed.

       “Where Ballard really makes sense, as Mike notes, is if you don’t have to leave it every day, like for work.”

       All urban villages are like that. That’s one thing I loved about the U-District; I only had to leave the neighborhood once a month. Or maybe I left five days a week for work, but my other needs could still be fulfilled in the neighborhood. But even with that, I’d sometimes go to Ballard for a show, or Northgate for towels or clothes, or Bellevue to see relatives, or Capitol Hill for a meetup, or West Seattle for recreation (Alki, Lincoln Park, the Junction), or downtown and First Hill for medical appointments, or Rainier Valley for Asian groceries. Every village has people doing that. When you’re in a city of seven hundred thousand people, in a county of two million, even those few trips add up. Plus there are the hordes commuting to UW, and people commuting to Ballard like I did.

       Ballard is “remote” psychologically and in transportation infrastructure, but that’s a problem to be solved, not an inevitability. Ballard could thrive just as well with greater connectivity. It could thrive better, in fact, as cities around the world have shown.

       The low-density Interbay segment, and the Holman Road corridor, are only 2-3 miles long. We shouldn’t worry about overserving that area, because of the strong anchors close by. In contrast, the area straight north of 85th & 15th NW has only large-lot houses, so there’s no anchor that direction, and thus no reason to extend light rail or BRT north of 85th.

       That doesn’t exclude LR/BRT turning northeast to Greenwood and Northgate. Those are anchors that should have comprehensive service. It’s just that they’re not as large as the 45th corridor, and a viable alternative would be to take a 45th Link line to U-District and transfer to Northgate. That’s if we had a 45th line, which we don’t. So then the Holman Road corridor has to be weighed against Seattle’s other transit needs. Two of those are getting from Lake City to the 1/2 Lines, and an Uptown-First Hill line. Those are higher priorities than Ballard-Northgate in my opinion. And I think we’ll have enough difficulty getting those done, which makes Ballard-Northgate even less likely.

       Kirkland has a growing downtown, and some like asdf2 can walk in it the way I walked in Ballard and downtown Bellevue. But Kirkland just has a more car-oriented culture, and the lots along 108th aren’t just large but gigantic. So I think even with the same density, an area like Kirkland will have less transit trips than Ballard per capita. Still, Kirkland and the northwest Eastside is large enough that it should have robust transit to UW. That means, again, 10-minute frequency all day and evening. If that’s too much of a stretch, start with 15. The reason to go to UW is it’s the closest urban center to Kirkland, and a large destination in its own right. And if Seattle fixes its problem with vagrants and druggies and criminal salesmen on the street, it would become an even bigger destination.

       I’m not saying we have the budget to go from here to there right now. But that should be our goal, and we should take incremental steps toward it.

    3. “Metro is using ridership today to determine frequency”

       Metro is trying to stretch an insufficient number of drivers across the network. That forces it to make tradeoffs and weigh each corridor relative to the others. In many cases it’s a judgment call whether to weigh one service higher than another. People will disagree on the judgments, but Metro is the one we’ve vested to make those decisions. The current frequency has no relationship to the ideal frequency or justified frequency, it’s just what Metro can fit into the existing resources, and following the inertia of past decisions (which is hard for an agency to break, because people will complain, and politicians will support the complainers).

       So if the 255 has low frequency in some periods, that’s not because Metro thinks higher frequency is unjustified, it just means that that’s all it can provide given the limited resources.

       Likewise, I can’t imagine that Metro would have suspensions that cause overcrowding on other routes by choice. It’s just the most Metro can do with the limited number of drivers. That’s a problem to be solved, not an indication that frequency and speed should be so low.

12. Here’s a story about Ballard. I spent 12 years in Bellevue, 14 years in the U-District, and 9 months in Ballard. I had been working in Ballard for four years when I moved to it in 2003. I had a missing-middle apartment at 65th & 15th in the northern periphery. I could walk to work, and Ballard is a pretty complete urban village (more now than it was then). Ballard has “the most bars per square mile in Seattle” so I could walk to occasional band shows. It was low-key, low-stress, and quieter than some other villages, so I thought I might come back to it when I got older.

    But the reason I left was that, after I got laid off from that job, I found that most of what I did was outside the neighborhood. My gym was at 100th & Aurora. Some activities were in the U-District or Capitol Hill, and my relatives were in Bellevue. So I had to go out of the neighborhood to all those. That’s nothing about Ballard; it’s about me. It’s possible to do more of your things in Ballard if you’re so inclined. But leaving the neighborhood almost every day made me realize that there’s a half-hour overhead to get to Ballard from the closest regional transfer points (downtown or U-District). That’s half an hour for every trip, or an hour for a round trip. That adds up. It makes people reluctant to live or work in Ballard, or to take transit if they live there. Not completely — some people still do — but it prevents Ballard from reaching its potential.

    The 15 was half-hourly evenings and Sundays. The 18 alternated, but its stops were nine blocks away, so really you had to chose one or the other ahead of time, because if you missed one or it was late you wouldn’t have time to walk to the other. Half-hourly buses were OK, but I saw that they weren’t ideal, especially for a village like Ballard.

    I’d been to cities with multi-line subways connecting all urban villages, including those like Ballard. Cities where Ballard would be 10 minutes away rather than 30. I thought that would be a good thing.

    So Ballard should have a metro line. It’s large enough and dense enough. It would have one in Europe or Asia. Link was going to be it. But ST has so mishandled the Ballard line that it threatens to not be effective, due to long transfers downtown and the possibility of a 14th station. That makes me think that maybe we should just ditch Ballard and West Seattle Link and make the best BRT we can. It wouldn’t completely fufill my vision, and it would prevent Ballard from reaching its full potential of usefulness and transit ridership. But Link is threatening to do that too. And some faster buses would be better than no faster buses.

    1. Yeah, Ballard has some substantial geographic barriers. Phinney Ridge. The ship canal. QA hill. There is a reason why it was just a cheap sleepy little town full of retirees of Norwegian heritage for so long. Boeing field is closer to 3rd and Pine than Ballard, both by time and distance. You can often get to Tukwilla faster than Ballard. Even if you are bombing it in a car down 15th and Elliot, it’s 20 minutes if you are really lucky.

       It’s far.

13. Maybe a stupid question, but a recurring theme in these discussions is that ridership is down due to the pandemic resulting in a lot more work-from-home. If that’s true, shouldn’t we also expect a similar drop in car “ridership”? Does that data exist? i.e. can we distinguish between fewer trips being taken and a change in mode-share from transit to cars?

    1. Yeah there’s traffic reports every year

       Specifically back in 2018 the traffic count was a million and now in 2021 the traffic count is around 700k. Spot checking on the traffic flow map, in 2018 for westlake it was 29k while in 2021 it was 21k. 15th Ave S has the same in both around 15k, Eastlake went from 25k to 21k. Rainier Ave increased from 35k to 38k, but also it went from an estimation to an actually recorded value so not quite 1 to 1 comparison. Aurora Avenue decreased a lot from 50/40k to 35/30k Many other roads seem to have the same car counts as before like lake city way.

       Though, I think it’s a bit unfair as 2021 didn’t quite have all the RTO yet. Unforutately, there is no data I can find for 2022 yet. I guess there’s the freeway counts WSDOT has.

       > If that’s true, shouldn’t we also expect a similar drop in car “ridership”?

       Honestly it’s a bit hard to tell as some of these traffic counts were earlier in 2021 versus later in 2021 as well. I’m not sure I would take any solid conclusions until we have the next traffic counts for 2022.

       (The report called 2022 is actually for the time period of jan 2021 to dec 2021)
       https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/About/DocumentLibrary/Reports/2022_Traffic_Report.pdf
       https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/document-library/reports-and-studies#traffic-reports

       For WSDOT (Freeway) traffic counts. https://wsdot.public.ms2soft.com/tcds/tsearch.asp?loc=Wsdot&mod=TCDS

       It seems total car count is completely the same as before covid with the 2022 traffic counts the same as 2018/2019.

    2. Maybe. The thing is that working from may reduce a person’s trips but it also changes what kinds of trips they make. People are more likely to take transit to a crowded area (a workplace in a large downtown, a ballgame, a festival) than for random trips to non-crowded areas (a supermarket plaza). And the drop in traffic and less competition for parking might also make people drive more, and make more trips. In addition to the aggregate number of car trips, you’d also want to know what those trips are for, how crowded the destinations are, and whether the same people are making the trips or more people are. The aggregate number could remain the same but a wider number of people are driving. These stats are probably harder to obtain than the aggregate numbers, but the thing to look for is how they’ve changed.

    3. There’s a lot more induced demand with driving than there is with transit (or, maybe more precisely, we would need much more frequent transit to induce the demand that driving generates). During the actual lockdowns in spring 2020, traffic did drop considerably: I even managed to cross 15th Ave in Ballard a couple times on a bike at a non-signaled intersection! When drivers got the OK for non-essential trips but transit riders did not, even drivers who were working from home figured out they had all this time to toodle around like they did before. Even now, WFHers that don’t have a commute generate about as many trips as they did before, just of a different nature, for instance they’re just not trip-chaining as effectively as they did before, and as transit riders still have to.

       WSDOT is finally catching up to this, and proposing to boost tolls on I-405 and SR-167 to dampen that induced demand. Other agencies like SDOT would be wise to follow suit with more blanket congestion charges, to sharpen the cost/convenience calculus of driving vs transit.

       1. I am always confused when people write about “induced demand”. Do they mean:

          1. Inducing someone to take a trip on transit or in a car they otherwise would not take?

          2. Inducing someone to switch from transit to a car to take an essential trip?

          3. Inducing someone to switch from a car to transit to take an essential trip?

          4. Inducing someone to take a trip at a less congested time?

          My job requires me to drive around King Co. a lot although work from home for other parts of my job has been fantastic, and I wish I could work from home all the time. My experience is similar to the data WL posts. Peak traffic congestion is down, and so is peak transit ridership. This is probably due to working from home. Since 95% of traffic congestion was during peak hours this has helped reduce peak congestion, which is good because most roads have the capacity for non-peak hours, but reduced transit ridership and farebox recovery which is not good for transit as Metro cuts routes or frequency.

          At the same time, we see WSDOT looking at increasing tolls on 405 HOT lanes, 520 and the new Alaska Way tunnel because usage is less than the bonding anticipated. The unintended consequence of this “congestion pricing” is it often drives traffic to alternative roads like Alaska Way, I-90, and so on. Congestion pricing almost always has to do with generating revenue, not reducing trips, and is very regressive.

          Our regional planning models starting around 20 years ago started with a county (King) that is very large but not very populous for the size, but fully zoned so way too much housing and retail was dispersed creating too many trips and trips that were too long, with the one driving constant for those trips being downtown Seattle as a jobs hub, but with the most expensive housing surrounding it. The biggest problem with regional planning and urban villages was all the jobs were in downtown Seattle but few could or wanted to live there. So everyone had to commute, often a long ways which explains Link.

          The real regional goal is to reduce ALL trips, and make essential trips shorter by creating urban villages that are self-contained, which is why the GMPC also requires cities to meet job growth targets.

          Personally I think there are too many factors determining whether someone uses transit or drives for a trip for numbers 2 and 3 above to make much difference. I also think trying to force someone from making an essential trip by making it too difficult or expensive is not productive.

          What we want to “induce”, which is a positive and not negative, is for people to make fewer or no trips by car or transit. The best way to accomplish that is to eliminate the need for the trip, like work from home or working closer to work. That is why when I look at the 255 I see a failure of regional planning, although the zoning was done long ago before efforts to remedy it got going. But why should people from Kirkland have to commute to Seattle?

          We are making some progress on reducing trips, on transit and by car, mostly due to work from home which is the best thing to happen for regional planning although the planners are not so sure because they think it is anti-urban in many ways, when like Ballard it is just the opposite.

          There are still some dysfunctional major roads like I-5 south which is just horribly designed, and 405 south that just doesn’t have to capacity to handle the population growth south of 405 who can’t work from home, but at least there is progress in reducing trips. If there is one thing we want to induce it is fewer trips across the board if we can make those trips unnecessary without affecting quality of life.

       2. Induced demand can be found in both highways and transit, though it is more common in the former. When a roadway is congested, auto trips are foregone or shifted to off-peak times; when capacity appears through an added lane or a shift to transit, there is latent demand for auto trips to fill the new or added capacity.

          In transit, when lines are at capacity, when headway and waits are reduced, the ridership, or quantity demanded, may increase.

          Both are shifts along an existing demand curve responding to an increase in supply.

          In transit, speed, shorter waits, and reliability attract ridership. Capacity does not really attract ridership, but a lack of capacity may repel ridership. Think of routes 3 and 4 when they were jammed full in both peak periods before Covid, or the E Line in both peak periods in the peak direction. Intending riders were left at the curb due to a lack of capacity.

    4. During the early pandemic period, car trips were way down, but they’ve generally rebounded faster than transit. I think almost all roads are back to prepandemic traffic volumes, with the possibility exception of downtown Seattle, due to so many of the office jobs being work-from-home.

    5. Traffic came back in 2021. There were news reports of it returning to 90% of normal, and speculation on whether it was more shopping trips.

       I see the I-5 congestion between Northgate and downtown because I’m often within view of the freeway. Southbound congestion is from 1pm to 7pm, just like before. Even on Saturday and Sunday. Northbound I don’t know the time periods as well but it’s something similar..

       And I get caught in I-90 and I-5 congestion on the 550 and 512.

       1. Yes. There may also be more off-peak auto trips and east-west auto trips. The congestion on the I-5 general purpose lanes slow bus routes that use them (e.g., routes 545, 252, 257, 268, and 311; some South King County routes weave in and out of I-5; see routes 574, 190, 193, and 197; South Sounder is faster than South I-5 bus routes; one-way peak-only routes have dead head trips on the general purpose lanes; see routes 64, 302, 303, 320, 322; several routes are suspended). In north Seattle, there is southbound traffic spilling off I-5 to Roosevelt Way NE and Aurora Avenue North via North 80th and 85th streets. One of the purposes of Link was to get transit off the congested general-purpose lanes.

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