Earlier today, Sound Transit announced that Saturday, April 27th will be the official start date of the 2 Line, which will preliminarily run between South Bellevue Station and Redmond Technology Station. The opening of the shortened segment, also known as the East Link Starter Line (ELSL), is the result of a push by councilmember Claudia Balducci to get some portion of East Link operational after construction mishaps delayed the opening of the full line by two years.
The ELSL will run two-car trains at 10 minute headways from 5:30am to 9:30pm every day of the week. Although there’s not much to suggest there will be blockbuster ridership until the 2 Line is connected to the main spine in 2025, this presents an opportunity to build up an Eastside Link ridership market in the interim.
We’ll be there to cover the festivities on opening day, which will commence with a ribbon cutting:
Everyone is invited to celebrate opening day with Sound Transit and its partners on Saturday, April 27. The festivities will start with a ribbon cutting ceremony at Bellevue Downtown Station at 10 a.m. Link service will begin operating after the ribbon cutting at approximately 11 a.m.
Following the ribbon cutting and throughout the day, all eight of the new stations will feature different activities, exhibits and entertainment. Anyone who participates in a Discover.Stamp.Win activity and visits all eight stations will be eligible to enter a prize drawing.
If this gets decent ridership (and I expect it to) then Balducci deserves a lot of credit. A lot of people — including people who routinely comment on this blog — thought that an East Link that never crossed the lake was a bad idea. I have no idea of the cost (of opening early or operating it) but it seems fairly cheap. I think it takes about ten minutes to run end to end. It probably cost more to be able to open earlier, but probably not that much more. I would love to see an analysis of the project, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this “starter line” is one of the more cost effective projects we have.
17 mins end to end.
Thanks. I couldn’t find the numbers and estimated. That is still not very expensive. The B takes 40 minutes and is the best performing route on the East Side (last time I checked). So if it takes half as long and gets about as many riders (as the B used to) that would be worth it.
Right now it’s doing end to end in about 20 minutes.
I don’t know how long the route is going to take end-to-end, but it’s going to be a lot longer than 10 minutes. It’s about 8 miles from South Bellevue to Redmond Technology station following a similar route on roads, plus there are 6 stations in between. I’d guess more like 20-25 minutes end-to-end.
I’m not as optimistic as you about the ridership. The park-and-rides will draw some commuters during rush hour to avoid the cost of Bellevue parking, but there aren’t a lot of great trip pairs.
I think it would be much stronger with Downtown Redmond, but my guess is it gets decent ridership.
We agree on that, downtown Redmond should be a strong station that generates a fair amount of ridership.
The good news is that the Redmond extension is on track to open around the end of 2024.
I don’t know what the current parking charges and employer provided spaces are in Downtown Bellevue. I think that unknown will be the single greatest ridership factor until the full line opens.
Can anyone comment on Downtown Bellevue parking in 2024?
Bellevue used to require a lot of on site parking for uses and buildings but there is very little public parking such as street parking downtown.
> Can anyone comment on Downtown Bellevue parking in 2024?
I mean it’s a bit odd. For retail there’s actually usually lots of free parking in the mall — albeit for retail workers that’s different as they sometimes are required need to park at a far away lot.
For offices I’m not sure. I heard that some places have free parking while others like amazon are 20ish dollars? Cursory reddit searches found:
> I started work in front of the Square and my work’s building charges $21 for daily parking. Are there alternatives to this?
Found it pretty interesting actually, some are using the south bellevue garage.
> I use the “South Bellevue Station” garage for free parking and take the 550 to work. It runs about every 15 minutes and every 30 minutes after 6 pm.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BellevueWA/comments/1581843/parking_bellevue_square_area/
Thanks for looking into it, WL!
The difference between free and $21/day is obviously huge. Within that wide range, there are also paid monthly parking rates, early-in rates and employer-paid parking. Then there are places that may be two blocks away that have much lower parking rates. I’ll observe two that a worker only arriving at the office a day or two a week won’t likely consider paying for monthly parking.
One big ELSL market are Bellevue City employees. I doubt Bellevue can justify free parking for most employees and the station is on the same block as City Hall.
That volatility in rates is why I see the Downtown Bellevue parking situation as the main variation in projected ELSL ridership. Some are paying high daily rates and are probably already thinking about switching to Link. Others pay little or nothing for parking and won’t look to switch.
There are 1500 spaces at South Bellevue. If just that garage fills up with workers avoiding high paid parking, that’s 3000 daily boardings for Link.
Sound Transit used to release Service Implementation Plans, like this one: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020-service-implementation-plan.pdf. These list the bus or train ridership per stop and per direction. So far as I can tell, Sound Transit doesn’t release that data anymore. Prior to the pandemic, less than ten people a day would take the bus from South Bellevue towards Downtown Bellevue. I’m sure parking is a lot worse, and the train will remind people of that option (which will help increase the numbers). I doubt there will be thousands, but it would not surprise me if that stop gets a few hundred. I think most of the ridership is going to be between Downtown Bellevue and Redmond.
Anyone have a link for the numbers? I grabbed the “about ten minute” estimate from this: https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Partners/erp/background/ST_ERP_ST2LinkTravelTimes_02july2015.pdf. That doesn’t include all of it though (which I guess adds to the time). Either that or the number was never accurate. I forgot I had this old link: http://stb-wp.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/14151500/Screen-Shot-2015-08-14-at-8.12.45-AM.png. This is a closer estimate.
The Urbanist has a Sound Transit sourced graphic that indicates 17 minutes: https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/02/15/abbreviated-east-link-grand-opening-set-for-april-27th/
Thanks. That is different than the old information (and the information shown on the main project page). Not a huge difference though. Prior estimates were that it would take about 15 minutes end to end (so only a two minute difference). (I put down “about ten” not realizing it would take so long to get between Downtown Bellevue and South Bellevue.)
@Daniel,
Can’t remember how I found it, but I have a copy of the ST Travel Time chart that provides travel times between all possible station pairs in the system, including East Link, Lynnwood Link, and Federal Way Link. Transfer time assumptions between East Link and all stations south of IDS are also detailed and included.
The chart indicates that travel times from Redmond TC to South Bellevue will be 16 mins. Travel time from Redmond TC to Bellevue Downtown is listed as 10 mins, and Bellevue Downtown to South Bellevue is listed as 6 mins.
So your data seems accurate.
My data is based on 2017 rail sims by the ST Ops department, so there might be small changes since then. As hey say, “trust, but verify”.
OK, now I’m even more confused. This states very clearly:
Redmond Technology to Bellevue Downtown: 10 minutes
The starter line will go from Redmond Technology Station to South Bellevue. So Downtown Bellevue to South Bellevue is 7 minutes?
The stepped table shows 5 minutes rather than 7, and 15 minutes in total for the ELSL. However we all know that ST has underestimated travel times a little bit recently. Still, 15 or 17 minutes is pretty close.
One good thing about the starter line is that the timetable can be adjusted upon opening of the full line based on months of operations. A tweak in open door time at stations or some signal responsiveness issue or a delay crossing NE 20th could be factors on a final expected travel time..
A lot of new housing near Overlake and much of the naturally occurring affordable housing stock is in Crossroads which is in walking distance of 130th street station. Spring District too has lots of new housing.
Curious about those who transfer between the 550 and the ESSL at South Bellevue. The 550 from South Bellevue to BTC takes forever so if you can hop off and time it right can be worth the transfer. Also 542/545 transfers from Seattle at Overlake Tech and backtracking to Bellevue via ESSL. I take the 271 to Downtown Bellevue from UW and it might be similar time and most of all more frequency with this option. Ironically Redmond always had better direct express bus service than Bellevue with the super fast limited stop 542/545 that take full advantage of the 520 HOV lanes.
Curious how much Downtown Redmond adds to the line too when that portion opens. Obviously Seattle is missing but so too is Downtown Redmond.
Crossroads isn’t within walking distance of any 2 Line station. Also, if someone’s in the heart of Crossroads, and wants to go to the Bellevue TC, I think most will take the B Line.
I’m not talking about Crossroads mall, I’m talking about the neighborhood of Crossroads which is south of BelRed road and its western edge is around 136th Ave…. That is walking distance to 130th St Station.
Crossroads is at 156th & NE 8th Street. The nearest Link station is Overlake Village, 1.6 miles away. RapidRide B runs between them, although it’s unclear how close the stop is to the station, or whether Metro can or will relocate it. One commentator said the stop is 200 feet away; Google Maps says a 4 minute walk. Other routes to Crossroads within 4-8 blocks are the 245, 226, and 221. The B and 245 have closer transfers at Redmond Technology Station.
I’ll be taking the 550 to South Redmond, Link to Overlake Village or Redmond Tech, and one of the 226, 245, or 221 to south of Crossroads.
I like having this new line open separate from the operator work change in March.
It would be nice to have Lynnwood open a few weeks before the next work change in the fall, but that is a wish probably in the realm of having the 2 Line only take only 10 minutes to get from South Bellevue to Redmond Technology Center.
ST could see how much new ridership would come from sources other than riders moving over from the 400-series CT commuter routes, and be able to make adjustments ahead of the more predictable migration from the 400s.
Running only until 9:30pm is a disappointment. I hope that when the full line opens it runs later.
Except for modest highlife, there isn’t much going on after 9 in Bellevue.
It does bite for restaurant employees who don’t get finished until about that time. And mall workers will need to dash tow get the last train. Even 30 minutes later would have been nice.
If nothing else it should stay open later on the weekends. All that being said the B (if not other buses) run until about midnight. It would be nice having night owl service but Bellevue doesn’t want to pay for it.
Hopefully they will make some exceptions, for example, for certain days like July 4th, when I’d think a mass of people would consider riding light rail for the Bellevue fireworks event.
But still, since the pandemic, too much still closes at 9pm everywhere in the region, which is a problem in itself, but at a restaurant that doesn’t mean they will kick you out at 9pm, so running until 10pm would have made it easier to get to the relatively remote location of the downtown Bellevue station.
If you work late you really would prefer to travel the same mode of transit from work as you took to get to work.
In any case, we’re transit fans. Don’t we want to ride trains and observe stations more than we care about an artificial celebration?
Yeah, I get that. I agree that 9:30 PM isn’t that late, either. But I think that it is a bit different than typical late night service. Jarrett Walker wrote about this (although I can’t find the link). Something interesting happens with the last bus of the night. Basically people avoid it, simply because they don’t want to miss it.
For example, assume that buses run every 15 minutes until midnight. The bus at 11:45 carries about 40 people. The midnight bus only carries 5. So the bus administration decides to save money, and gets rid of the midnight bus. But now the 11:30 bus carries about 40, and the 11:45 carries about 5. Riders don’t want to risk missing that last bus, so they aim for the one before.
In this case though, the overlap with the buses is huge. There may be something similar (people taking the second-to-last train so they don’t have to worry about missing the last one) but if you miss that last train you aren’t calling a cab or walking. You are just catching a bus (that probably moves fairly quickly at that hour).
It will be different when Link goes across the lake (and replaces all the buses). There is a case for later bus service now. If it costs too much for the train to provide it (and it probably does) then it makes sense to complement it with bus service. Bellevue could use some night owl service.
@Daniel,
“ Hopefully they will make some exceptions, for example, for certain days like July 4th”
I concur. That would be very nice. And maybe they can expand service hours a bit once they get past the big push of opening Lynnwood Link.
For example, the ST Travel Time data indicates it will take the ELSL 10 mins to get from Bellevue Downtown to Redmond Tech Center. Per current Metro published data the same trip on RapidRide B at ~9 pm would take 25 mins.
So the ELSL will be SIGNIFICANTLY faster than “Rapid”Ride B, traveling the same distance in roughly 40% of the time it takes RR B.
And when Redmond Link opens in less than a year the time advantage of the ELSL will be just as dramatic – 18 mins on the ELSL vs 36 mins on RR B DT Bellevue to DT Redmond.
I know what service I would choose. Hopefully they expand the hours a bit when they can.
For example, the ST Travel Time data indicates it will take the ELSL 10 mins to get from Bellevue Downtown to Redmond Tech Center. Per current Metro published data the same trip on RapidRide B at ~9 pm would take 25 mins.
Yeah but isn’t Redmond Tech Center all offices? Are there apartments around there? I suppose someone could be working late at Microsoft and want to take the train back to their apartment/condo in Downtown Bellevue, but it seems like not that many people would be going that direction on the train at that hour.
Overlake definitely has apartments nearby, although they seem to be closer to the bus stop than the train stop. The time difference at that point is not that big. With Wilburton the difference is even less.
I think the folks that would be out of luck are those near the Spring District and BelRed Stations. They are more dependent on the 226, which runs a lot less often. When Link gets to Downtown Redmond the time difference (between the bus and train) becomes a bigger issue. I see more night travel between those two places than anywhere else within the East Side. That might be a time to increase train service at night.
The northeast corner of 40th and 156th has a big apartment complex, so yes, there will be people who live within walking distance of Redmond Tech Center station. There are also more apartments to the west along 148th. I used to live in one and walked to the site of Redmond Tech Center station all the time to catch the 545. Although, now that there’s a ped bridge to Overlake Village station, it might be slightly less distance to walk there instead. There is also the option to catch the 249 towards Lake Sammamish, although the number of people that will actually use the 249’s abysmal frequency is quite low.
Also worth noting: during the summer, a good chunk of the people who do live within walking distance of Microsoft are interns, and a lot of interns don’t have cars. So, the ridership potential may be greater than what it seems, assuming Microsoft still does internships like they used to.
OK, yeah, I see it now. There are more apartments than I assumed. It still looks like overall residential density is fairly low, whereas employment density is fairly high though.
The area near Microsoft is a strategic growth area for apartments and other residential. What hasn’t been built yet is going to come soon enough. There is also the entire Spring District area between Microsoft and Downtown Bellevue, with a massive Meta/Facebook presence and more residential planned.
“There are also more apartments to the west along 148th. I used to live in one and walked to the site of Redmond Tech Center station all the time to catch the 545.”
So it’s a reasonable walk from either station to the 221 on 148th? The lack of east-west streets south of Overlake Village station alarmed me; it looks like you might have to go down to 24th to get to 148th. I’m planning to go look at the station areas soon.
My understanding is that, due to work shift lengths, keeping the line open later would require additional drivers and impact the ability to run test trains on the Lynnwood extension. But, once the full line opens in a couple years, it should run later.
I guess I would have shifted the morning start time by 10-15 minutes.
What really matters is what time the train leaves in different directions from Downtown Bellevue. If the last trains depart their origins at 9:30, the Downtown Bellevue last train would be 9:35 or 9:40.
@Daniel,
“ Running only until 9:30pm is a disappointment”
That still isn’t that bad for a Starter Line. But compare and contrast with the initial “bus tunnel” in Seattle.
It’s sometimes hard to beleive now that we have gotten used to Link, but prior to Link entering operation the Metro Bus Tunnel only operated from 5:00 am to 7:00 pm on weekdays and 10:00 am to 6:00 pm on Saturdays, with no Sunday service at all.. So very limited hours in bus only mode.
Of course that didn’t mean zero bus service, it just meant Metro was kicking whatever buses were operating later than 7 pm back out onto the surface. Being a commuter oriented service, the number of buses in the tunnel dropped off pretty quickly after 7 pm. Metro just found it easier and cheaper to move the remaining buses to the surface and let SPD pay for security.
But it will be nice to get the ELSL in operation. It will be the first big service expansion on the Eastside in decades. A major milestone.
And then it is on to the much more significant opening of LLE.
It’s going to be a busy year.
Of course that didn’t mean zero bus service
Which is why it is a silly comparison. When they closed the bus tunnel, riders would simply catch the exact same bus on the surface. It might be a bit confusing the first time this happened, but pretty simple. That isn’t the case here. When the train doesn’t run, people have to figure out another way home. There will be no “East Link Starter Line” bus running on the surface. Fortunately it is a fairly easy task to figure out how best to get anywhere (using the buses) if you have a phone.
Referring to this desperate stopgap as “the 2 line” seems like a sound transit delusion but ok.
Slightly off-topic… There are festivities planned for the Starter Line. Great! That’s the way it should be.
But there were surprisingly (and disappointingly) no festivities for Northgate and service began as if it was a routine service change -at 5am on a Saturday. I hope there will be big festivities when Lynnwood Link opens later this year…
There were festivals just at Roosevelt and U District
> U District Station Opening Festival & Food Walk
OCTOBER 2, 2021
From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., the University District Partnership is putting on the U District Station Opening Festival & $3 Food Walk. It will be a full day event around the new station, including a street closure for an outdoor festival on Brooklyn Ave and University Way. Live music and performances by local bands and cultural groups, outdoor seating
> Roosevelt Station Opening Celebration
OCTOBER 2, 2021
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association (RNA) is organizing a fun program of music and entertainment at Roosevelt Station. Look for the RNA Stage at 12th Avenue NE and NE 66th Street
https://www.northgatelink.com/
Unfortunately northgate mall was kinda and still under construction
Northgate had speakers at the college, and spooky art installations on the ped bridge. One of the installations was a steampunk phone that when you picked it up had a Halloween message if I recall. ST has been criticized for spending too much on opening extravaganzas, so it’s probably trying different levels. I didn’t miss a lack of bands at Northgate that I wouldn’t have listened to anyway. The pedestrian bridge was full of people trying it out, and when I was there that was the most crowded area besides the large group watching the speakers.
This was announced with the opening date two months before opening. Lynnwood doesn’t have an opening date yet and is more than two months away, so it might still have a celebration of some kind.
In any case, we’re transit fans. Don’t we want to ride trains and observe stations more than we care about an artificial celebration?
In any case, we’re transit fans. Don’t we want to ride trains and observe stations more than we care about an artificial celebration?
Yes, but I think it also depends on the politics. If you are excited about the starter line — and aware of what it took to get it — you want to go. You want cheer the ribbon cutting, and especially applaud Balducci for making it happen. Same goes for other extensions. I’ll definitely be at the one for 130th Station (in a couple years) and shake hands with (or are least wave to ) the folks who made it happen.
The starter line will not just improve Link-only trips, but also Link-bus trips. Several stations have multiple bus routes at proximate stops. Metro will revise Route 221 to serve the OV station. Too bad Metro did not also revise routes 226, 249, and 250 to serve one or all of the three stations in Bel-Red. ST could also have truncated Route 566 at BTC; it will duplicate Link between BTC and RTS.
In about 2006, ST was debating the mode for the East corridor. Most favored Link; it has high cost and is taking a long time. The board vote was 16-1-1. Some favored a bus network. The notion of an intra East rail line complemented by frequent bus lines on both SR-520 and I-90 improved through variable tolling arose. ST did not study it. ST studied an over-the-top bus network that included freeway-to-freeway interchanges; cynically, they seemed aimed at making the bus options less cost-effective.
ST studied an over-the-top bus network that included freeway-to-freeway interchanges; cynically, they seemed aimed at making the bus options less cost-effective.
They did the opposite with West Seattle. The “BRT” option had the bus in traffic, which meant that it was slow. They never actually studied a bus tunnel.
Anyway, I think this starter line is a test of sorts. There are two types of trips with East Link:
1) Trips across the lake.
2) Trips within the East Side.
This starter line covers most of the second group, although Downtown Redmond is a big station as far as those trips go. The point being that if ridership is really low on this line, then it means it will be heavily dependent on service across the lake. This is not good, as it means that a bus alternative probably would have worked out just as well. It is like Northgate Link. If you are just looking at Northgate to Downtown, you really can’t beat the old 41. But if you are looking at a combination of Northgate to the UW, Northgate to Roosevelt, Northgate to Capitol Hill, Roosevelt to Capitol Hill (etc.) then a train makes sense. It is the difference between a corridor (with a bunch of popular trip pairs) and a hub-and-spoke pattern (with everyone going downtown). East Link creates a fast corridor. If not that many people use it, then an alternative (using buses) would probably have been a better value.
I don’t want to argue, Ross, because I largely agree with the whole post, especially about express buses. But, your specific example of the 41 is really only true in the peak direction. It was always GREAT in the peak direction! But, especially in the afternoon, the out-of-peak direction on the freeway is “Arrggghhhh, gag me with a spoon!”
Link is much more reliable and usually considerably faster southbound in the afternoon.
Oh, I get that. It was always frustrating. I didn’t want to mention that because it was a side issue. I’ve been known to think in parentheticals (as my brother put it) and address counter-arguments as I make my main one.
Anyway, yes, the 41 sucked in reverse peak direction. But again, if the goal was improving *only* the connection from Northgate to downtown, there was a simple solution: Make the bus route not suck. Make the express lanes bidirectional. Of course it would be expensive. But it would be peanuts compared to the train. The *only* reason Northgate Link makes sense is because it offers a lot more than that — even if they shortchanged the stops within the city.
It reminds me of West Seattle Link, although the timing is reversed. Folks are quick to point out that traffic is bad during peak, and the bus will get delayed a bit (just like the 41 did in reverse-peak direction). But I will respond my mentioning that while that is true, there are two considerations:
1) This only happens for a short period of the day, which means it effects a small portion of the ridership.
2) Fixing this would be massively cheaper than building a new, grade separated parallel line with no additional stops along the way.
I’ve actually written about this before, in an essay that is unfortunately out of date (as the diagrams are lost). But the general idea is to add to existing infrastructure to eliminate the tiny bottlenecks that exist now. Outside of downtown we are talking about a bit of work expanding the Alaska Way Viaduct. My estimate was about 100 million at the time (given what WSDOT did on the same road) but the price has gone up a bit by now. The big project would be the downtown bus tunnel, but that would serve many more riders than the new trains will, because it would benefit riders from the Aurora and Ballard corridor.
West Seattle Link is a classic hub-and-spoke environment, and the really sad part is that West Seattle Link accepts that, and does not actually provide an improved corridor. There are no stops along the way. It is horribly expensive, and yet will either be ignored or worse for the vast majority of riders.
If all the limited access highways were tolled ala SR-520, the bus options would be better than they are sitting in congestion. Note that Route 545 sits in congestion in BOTH directions as it uses the general-purpose lanes in both direction. It could have been absorbed into a very frequent Route 542 at any time since March 2016.
> I don’t want to argue, Ross, because I largely agree with the whole post, especially about express buses. But, your specific example of the 41 is really only true in the peak direction
For both the route 545 and other express buses there were originally plans to improve them on i-5 (AM) off peak north bound using right side bus-on-shoulder lanes. it was from olive way to some street north I forget exactly. I kinda wrote a long comment almost to an article length about combining it with other i-5 tolling stuff, maybe I’ll find it in my google drive if y’all are curious.
But it overall didn’t seem that useful anymore at least the right side bus on shoulder with all the st express buses from everett truncating at northgate/lynnwood now and for seattle to redmond being faster to take the east link. And the other problem is that north of northgate all the hov/tolling would be in the center so it’d be on the wrong side.
Note that Route 545 sits in congestion in BOTH directions as it uses the general-purpose lanes in both direction.
WSDOT will fix improve peak-direction travel in a few years with a connection from the 520 HOV lanes to the I-5 HOV Express Lanes. By then it is unlikely that buses will run between those locations outside of peak direction. The East Link plans call for the 544 and 256 as the only buses going along 520 and I-5 (to downtown). Both are peak-only.
Personally, I wouldn’t have either one, and just run all the 520 buses to the UW. By then the Montlake mess will be fixed and Link will run twice as often, making the transfer a lot less painful (while giving riders a lot more options). The savings would be substantial and could go into providing better all-day service.
Why doesn’t someone make a list of some popular trips where ELSL+bus trips are preferable to bus-only trips?
Since it doesn’t serve Downtown Redmond, there are basically two significant destinations — Microsoft and Downtown Bellevue. Other destinations will pick up some riders, but they aren’t big destinations.
The line basically goes north from South Bellevue, then northeast to Redmond. For Downtown Bellevue the main bus to rail riders will therefore come from the north on buses like the 221, 225 and 245. These buses do not go downtown, so riders — for at least some trips — have to make a transfer anyway. Right now they transfer to the B. This will be faster and more frequent. The same thing is true of the 249 (to the East) although it won’t account for a lot of riders.
It is worth noting that Microsoft jobs are spread out, and include the Overlake Village area. This helps in that regard. For example the 545 runs express from Downtown Seattle to Redmond. But it skips the Overlake Village area. I could see someone take that bus and then backtracking on Link (or taking the 550 and transferring in Downtown Bellevue). There are several places on the East Side where you have to go to Downtown Bellevue if you want to head out to Redmond, and this will help speed that up. The 250, 271 and 550 all have sections that feed into Downtown Bellevue, which means getting to Microsoft (as well as the other destinations) will be a lot easier.
Then there people who live on the East Side. If you are around Spring or Bel-Red Station, then the train is much better than the alternatives for getting to Downtown Bellevue. This means a two-seat ride is much faster as well. So if you are headed to Seattle or Bellevue College this would save a fair amount of time.
I wouldn’t say the bus is huge from a bus-train standpoint (especially without service across the lake) but it will probably add up to a significant amount of ridership.
The lack of major trip pairs is why Metro and ST aren’t restructuring around it. It’s just an extra pilot service that may serve a few people. The corridor and most of the anticipated trips are predicated on the full Line 2. This will take you from downtown Bellevue to Microsoft or Overlake Village, but it won’t take you from downtown Bellevue to downtown Redmond or Seattle, or from any of the intermediate stations to Seattle. If you have to transfer to the 550 anyway, it may not be worth taking the starter line one or two stations to it. The value of the starter line is more if you’re going several stations. That would most likely be Microsoft or Overlake to downtown Bellevue, or eastern Bellevue to Seattle (where the B is not particularly fast).
When I was going to 124th until the end of 2022, I could transfer from the 550 at Bellevue TC to the B or 226 and travel just three B stops and have a short walk, or (if Link existed) transfer to Link and get off at Spring District and have a long walk. I might take the starter line for that trip since I’m a transit fan, but most people probably wouldn’t.
In contrast, now that I’m going to eastern Bellevue, the starter line will maybe save time, but more importantly it will eliminate long frustrating bus meanders. It will be a speedy 17 minutes from South Bellevue to Overlake Village or Redmond Tech. Going by bus, it’s somewhat slower on Bellevue Way, and then the B takes 20 minutes to Crossroads and the 226 takes 40 minutes. I’ll still have to transfer to the 226 or 221 or 245, but at least it will be a much shorter bus ride and I won’t get frustrated at its slowness.
Comment section, let’s say the starter line is up and running, and every weekday you have to make a trip from the Bellevue TC to the Redmond TC in the morning, then back to the Bellevue TC in the PM. How would you make the trip? The B Line the entire way, or the starter line from the BTC to Redmond Technology Station, then transfer to the B Line to go the rest of the way to the Redmond TC?
let’s say the starter line is up and running, and every weekday you have to make a trip from the Bellevue TC to the Redmond TC in the morning, then back to the Bellevue TC in the PM. How would you make the trip? The B Line the entire way, or the starter line from the BTC to Redmond Technology Station, then transfer to the B Line to go the rest of the way to the Redmond TC?
I would take whatever comes first. Partly it is just because I don’t like waiting. But I also think this is a good approach. Assume for a second that I let a bus go by, and then a train comes by a little while later. Will I catch up to the previous bus? I don’t think so*. I will end up catching that same bus after the transfer. That being the case, might as well get on the bus if it arrives first.
Now assume the opposite. I let a train go by and wait for the bus. In the case, it is possible that the train will catch up to the previous bus, since the previous bus may have a couple minutes ago.
Either way it makes sense to catch whatever leaves first.
* The B is not that frequent — it runs every 15 minutes. So the train would have to save at least 15 minutes (plus transfer time) for this scenario to work out. The train is faster, but not that much faster.
I guess during rush hour it is more frequent. So in that case it might save you some time to let a bus go by and wait for the train, then transfer. I probably wouldn’t bother though.
That makes sense, Ross. I tend to be a one-seat ride type of rider. The less transfers, the better. I suppose different riders have different priorities. Some are in the whatever-comes-first camp. For others, it’s whatever’s quickest from end to end. Others, like myself, tend to prefer one-seat rides over two-seat rides, even if the two-seat ride is quicker. Still others may even go a little bit out of their way to take a train because they prefer them to buses.
“Metro will revise Route 221 to serve the OV station.”
Is that in April or when the full Line 2 starts?
March 2024 service change. Expect many more changes with full line.
I’m trying to get to 164th & Main. Will the 221 and 226 do their current thing south of 8th Street in March? The East Link restructure moves the 226 there, and I think the 221 will be moved much further west.
Folks are gonna sneer, but I bet that within a few years (say ten tops) there will be east side-only turnbacks running from South Bellevue to Redmond between the cross-lake trains. Call it Line 4, because the ST3 version of Line 4 will never be built.
I am not going to predict anything until trains are running across Lake Washington for at least a year. Although it’s not expected to be a problem, there remains a slight risk that four car trains on the bridge will create unsustainable impacts to the structure.
Generally, I think that as long as there are train drivers, there eventually will be turnbacks. The long distances to Everett and Tacoma Dome using the relatively slower vehicles with only a small number of riders is just too big of a budget component to ignore. Add to that possible overcrowding in and near Downtown Seattle and the signs all seem to end up with public pressure for ST to create turnbacks — at least during peak times.
That’s what I’m concerned about, too. ST may indeed discover that only one train can be on the bridge at a time, and it has to travel at 40 mph because of vibrations. That would not allow adequate frequency on the East Side. It might even give rise to turnbacks on both sides of the lake.
@Al S,
I’m not worried about the bridge at all. ST has done the simulations, and actually ran simulated service across the bridge using weighted trucks, and everything is fine. I know DT used to spread disinformation on this site about the bridge, but what he posted was actually pure nonsense.
As per running a turnback to meet peak demand, it is basically a resource allocation problem. Just blindly turning up frequency systemwide to meet a peak demand issue that only occurs between CHS and UWS is wasteful both in LRV’s and in operator hours.
It’s much better to use an overlay to satisfy peak demand just in the urban core without wasting LRV and operator hours on the lightly used tails of the system. It’s just another way to tailor delivered capacity to specific demand along a long line.
Dow Constantine is a reasonably intelligent, sentient being (a huge compliment coming from me). He understood the core of this issue many years ago and started asking questions of ST staff. Unfortunately the ST response seemed unnecessarily complicated and expensive to me. So maybe I’m missing something, or maybe ST Ops just didn’t want to deal with it.
I don’t know which way it is, but it sounds like ST Ops is dead set against running scheduled overlays — even for standalone LLE. They seem to prefer gap trains, which in my mind is more of a bus type solution that injects chaos and unpredictability into what should be a highly reliable, and predictable, rail system.
But we will see. We can always go to a scheduled overlay later once we gain experience with the system.
I certainly hope that you are right about the bridge, Lazarus.
It’s one thing to run simulations or weighted truck tests. It’s another to actually run across a bridge 200+ times (both directions combined) every day with a four car train at different speeds. That includes all types of precipitation, wind speed/ direction and temperature. Then there is the issue of having multiple trains stuck on the bridge due to occasional service disruptions. Plus, I’m sure the rails will take a beating when waves and spray hit them.
The plinth replacement delay is an example of how everything seemed ok until suddenly it wasn’t. Or the unexpected landslide problem on FWLE. Or the unexpected problems that delayed the Hilltop extension. ST wisely delayed things to get these right. However, the repeated delays do illustrate how it just takes one or two sudden and unexpected problems to stop trains from running.
@Al S,
The plinth problem was a construction problem, not a design problem. The contractor didn’t build to the specified design.
And I wouldn’t worry about the rails rusting to dust or suffering from wind or torsional fatigue. Rails are extremely stout, and train loads are much higher than typical dynamic loads. Rail lifespan on the bridge is unlikely to be any different than anywhere else in the system.
As far as the simulations go, they are used to both validate the design and to calibrate the modeling. Both the design load of the bridge and the static and dynamic loads caused by LR are now well understood.
Also, rail systems don’t operate like freeways or roads. When a freeway system encounters an accident all the cars, buses, and trucks drive right up to the blockage and then stop like a pile of chord wood. When a rail system encounters a blockage all vehicles stop in place.
The result being that in non-normal operation the weight from an accident induced traffic jam in the adjacent traffic lanes is actually likely to be higher than the weight you would see on the adjacent rail system where there might be at max only two stopped LRV’s.
Note: ST probably did validate the bridge design assuming more stopped LRV’s on the bridge than just two, but a situation like that is unlikely to ever occur in real operation. Trains just don’t go charging up to another stopped train for obvious reasons of safety.
@ Lazarus
I think the risk is probably more of gradual failure than a blockbuster movie disaster failure. I could see some disaster movie maker devising a sudden failure though.
And I’m not a physicist but I think slower train speeds on the bridge would reduce wear. That’s probably the first mitigation. Then I would think that either shorter trains or only one train at a time would be the next mitigation considered. Following that, single tracking may be the next mitigation. Of course, we all just saw what happened with the West Seattle bridge: we woke up one morning to find the bridge closed!
The fact that there is officially stated concern about anyone crossing the bridge during high winds does suggest that there is some risk about Link running on the bridge. It’s more than mere speculation in my part.
The third track west of Judkins Park is particularly long. This too suggests that some contingency scenario about possible bridge failure or something similar has already been considered by ST.
It’s not entirely conjecture by me or Tom.
ST was also worried about the Ship Canal crossing and the Beacon Hill tunnel but both of those turned out all right.
I think a closure due to high winds is quite plausible, but that can happen now (to the buses and cars). A slow down seems possible, but not likely. Even if the trains ran across at slower speeds I don’t see it as causing less frequency. It isn’t that far. So even if there was an issue with two trains on the bridge (and there isn’t) the first train will be in Mercer Island before the other one arrives at Judkins Park even if the first one is going 40 MPH. Of course there could be problems with running trains over the bridge, but that is true with any bridge or any large engineering project. The new 520 bridge might sink. Somehow I doubt that will happen any time soon. Likewise there may be a problem with the tracks somewhere, but that could happen in anywhere (Bellevue, Redmond, Federal Way).
I get that this is special, but this isn’t like digging a hole. With any dig there a host of unknowns — you only have a rough idea of what is in there. This is just normal engineering.
@Al S,
Things start to deteriorate and move towards failure as soon as they are built. It is the way of the world. And it is true of humans too. Mortality is still running at 100%.
But when it comes to LR on the I-90 FB it isn’t so much the wind that matters as it is the waves, which is why a north wind is of more concern than a south wind because a north wind has more fetch. A south wind has effectively zero fetch for the bridge LR runs on because the other floating bridge effectively shields it.
At one point WSDOT moved to a policy of shutting down the bridge for road traffic when a north wind exceeded 26 mph, whereas ST was planning on limiting the bridge to one train at a time when a north wind was in the 30 to 40 mph range, and fully shutting down the bridge to LR when the wind exceeded 40 mph. Meaning ST was planning to use the bridge in higher winds than WSDOT was.
However, WSDOT has undoubtably increased their wind threshold because of all the additional post tensioning ST has since added to the bridge. I do not know if the ST values have changed.
The concern with the north wind is not the vehicles operating on the bridge, or cumulative wear, but rather the torsional capability of the structure.
How often does I-90 close due to high winds? Once or twice a year is all I hear about it.
I don’t think they’ll turn back with such an odd pattern.
The most likely candidate for turnbacks at east link is turning back at just east of wilburton and heading back to Bellevue. In the 2012 service pattern study it suggested turning back just north of Redmond technology center; though when I emailed them it seems that turnback track was never built so the earliest real point would be at the east OMF.
I guess alternatively there’s Judkins park but I don’t think even the most resource starved sound transit would be opting to turnback there rather than at least reaching bellevue
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/projects/OMSF/OMSF_Task_2.3B_Core_Light_Rail_System_Plan_Review.pdf#page=9
I don’t think they’ll turn back with such an odd pattern. The most likely candidate for turnbacks at east link is turning back at just east of wilburton and heading back to Bellevue.
I was thinking the same thing. Most of the ridership on East Link will be between Downtown Bellevue and Downtown Seattle. Not only that, but a lot of buses were truncated at South Bellevue or Mercer Island, making the frequency across the lake all the more important. I doubt there will be turnbacks with East Link (the line isn’t that long) but there are, they will happen east of Downtown Bellevue.
In contrast, trains north of Lynnwood or south of Federal Way aren’t likely to get a lot of midday riders. Even just to Federal Way it is pretty far, and unlikely to get a lot of riders outside of rush hour. I doubt they will turn back between SeaTac and Federal Way simply because they don’t want to cut the connection between Federal Way (a major bus intercept) and SeaTac (a good destination) especially since it isn’t that far. But south of there I could definitely see it.
To the north it depends on how many trains are sent that way. If it is only two lines (as planned) than I don’t see any turnbacks south of Lynnwood. If we send three (as folks have suggested) than it is likely one will turn back at either Northgate or the UW (where there are existing turnbacks). Ideally there would be turnbacks north of U-District and 148th (where I expect significant drops in midday ridership) but there aren’t, so that isn’t an option.
I can only think of three big reasons to have a turnback line overlay:
1. Low productivity of a long segment of an overall line with strong demand.
2. Relief to overcrowding on a longer segment.
3. A physical constraint like a single track segment or grade crossings (like MLK with Link).
Is there another reason? Why do you expect this on the Eastside?
Tom: yes, turnbacks on both the east and south lines. The intra subarea tracks can handle more service than core. The Link network will very long.
Since the announcement, the new 2 Line stations are now showing up in Google/Apple maps