Metro Releases Final Network Proposal for Lynnwood Link

119 Replies to “Metro Releases Final Network Proposal for Lynnwood Link”

1. None of the outreach materials seem to make clear exactly when the 73 is getting deleted. So it leaves me wondering whether it’s going to stick around until the southern part of the 77 arrives, or whether there is going to be a year plus stretch where neither exist.

   The 73 is a great grid route (and was even better before the detour to Roosevelt Station). Back in ~2016, 15th Ave NE had the 77 peak only express to downtown, the 373 to Aurora Village, U District, and Husky Stadium, and the regular 73 from 145th to U Distict and Husky Stadium.

   During these past few years, service has been gradually cut to the point where it’s own hourly on nights and weekends. People in Pinehurst, Maple Leaf, etc. have seen a huge decrease in their overall transit experience over this time period. It will be better on the way southbound once East Link provides 4-5 minute Link transfers, but it’s still going to suck on the way home connecting to an infrequent bus.

   Until Metro can get its 10 minute bus network back on track, there is strong incentive for a lot of people to just drive. The forced Link transfer thing just doesn’t work when buses are infrequent, and it’s not what we were promised.

   1. The letter I referenced details the changes for each phase. According to it, the 73 will be eliminated with Phase 1 (this fall, as Link gets to Lynnwood).

      I agree with your other points. The 73 was often seen as just a bus serving 15th. As service on the 67 has increased, and service on the 73 has decreased, people just stopped using it. I’m sure even folks on the east side of Maple Leaf walked up to 15th, checked One Bus Away, and then just walked over to Roosevelt. The more frequent 522 also cut into its ridership as folks on that side of the hill just walked down to Lake City Way.

      But the 73 was more than that. The 73 was a great north-south bus. Maybe it shouldn’t have gone on 15th, but the bus running through Pinehurst should just go north-south, and not detour to Northgate (a minor destination compared to the UW). As service has dropped, people have switched to driving for some trips, or long detours (typically to Northgate) for others.

      I’ve argued for a while now for the 348 to be sent to the UW, replacing the 67. This would enhance the grid, while saving Metro money (which it could use to run the 348 more often). The 348 is not especially frequent. It will run every 15 minutes peak and midday, but only weekdays. On weekends it is every half hour. On all evenings and nights it is every half hour. This means that in the long run, it will lose ridership to more frequent buses.

      Consider trips to Northgate. If you are at 125th & 15th, you are better off catching the 75. If you are at 125th & Northgate Way you are better off catching the 61. At 145th & 15th you are better off catching the 72 and then riding Link.

      Then there are trips involving Link to other places. Once 130th Station is added a lot of people will take the 77 (it will be much faster than taking a bus to Northgate). At that point the 348 will mainly be used as a shuttle to 185th Station, or for travel along 15th — something it could do just as well if it was sent to the UW (a much bigger destination). A bus just going straight would connect Pinehurst, Maple Leaf, Roosevelt and the UW. If I’m in Pinehurst and I am headed to Roosevelt or the UW, I don’t want to go to Northgate. I would much prefer a straight shot to those neighborhoods. It is really kind of crazy that we have all these buses headed to Northgate instead of heading to the UW — especially when it is direct.

      It is worth noting that you can always transfer to the 67, but it is a bad transfer. The intersection is nasty, and you have to walk over 500 feet between bus stops (https://maps.app.goo.gl/mrU2RzDyiAJP99M48). Then there is the issue of turning buses. When buses turn it slows them down. The traffic lights favor vehicles going straight. I’ve sat on the 347/348 and waited two light cycles for the bus to turn from Northgate Way onto Roosevelt (while the 20 passed us on the right). This alone should be enough to favor straighter routes.

      It doesn’t have to be that way. We should send the 348 to the UW.

      1. RossB: it could be Route 348.67. A sound suggestion. It could be split at the North Shoreline station. With the deletion of Route 73, a route consolidation could help fund improved frequency on Route 348.67. For a time, Seattle funded 10-minute peak headway on Route 67. The more frequent it is, the more resistant to the gravitational pull of the Northgate station it will be.

         If Route 77 is intended to fill the hole of Route 522 shifting to South Shoreline, why does it extend south of the Roosevelt Link station? Route 522 has a nice layover and turnaround loop there.

         If routes 303 and 322 are to use the pathway of routes 63, 64, and 309 between March 2016 and fall 2021, why do the planners think they will any more attractive to riders oriented to First Hill? Will they be slower than they have been since fall 2021? In addition, Route 322 will deviate to Northgate station, making it even slower.

         Between March 2016 and fall 2021, Route 45 used the NE Pacific Place layover, so it served the UW Link station and the UWMC. Since fall 2021, it has been hooked with Route 75 and riders have had a 1,000 foot walk between Stevens Way and the UWMC or UW Link. Why use the NE Boat Street layover instead of NE Pacific Place? Are minutes that scarce? Routes to be deleted, 20 and 73, have used the NE Boat Street layover since fall 2021.

         Service was reduced at the UWMC in fall 2021. Route 45 will pull up short. With East Link Connections, Route 556 will be deleted; Route 270 will have less service than Route 271 has. Yet essential workers and patients are critical riders.

      2. If Route 77 is intended to fill the hole of Route 522 shifting to South Shoreline, why does it extend south of the Roosevelt Link station? Route 522 has a nice layover and turnaround loop there.

         I definitely see the value of extending it into the UW (for more one-seat rides) but that really only makes sense if you terminate it at the Lake City Fred Meyer. A Lake City to UW bus is a considerable improvement over a Lake City to Roosevelt bus. It also allows you to through-route with other buses (which is the Phase 2 plan of the 77). But once the 77 is extended to Bitter Lake it makes this extension dubious. This is just one of the many problems with the 77 extension. The 77 should run from Lake City to Roosevelt (or the UW). It should take over the northern tail of the 65. The 65 (or 75) should be combined with the bus heading to Bitter Lake.

         Routes 303 and 322 are yet another chapter in Metro’s ongoing attempt to leverage the express lanes at Northgate. To a certain extent I get it. It is a really nice connection, and it is ultimately why Northgate Transit Center exists in the first place. But it isn’t a great idea simply because it largely mimics Link. These types of routes are expensive, and the benefit is not great.

         Although if you are going to do it, the 322 is probably your best shot at success. Most of the people who live in Northgate do not live close to the station. They live along 5th, a long walk to the station. They take buses to get to Link. Thus the addition of a bus that provides a one-seat ride to South Lake Union or First Hill could be appealing. I wonder about the 303 though. I just don’t see that many riders from up there. The combination is interesting. I could see some two-seat riders to South Lake Union or First Hill. Take the 348 or 345/365 to Northgate and then take the bus (instead of the train). I worry that the frequency won’t be good enough to attract riders though. At some point it is just easier to take the first vehicle heading your direction, even if it means another transfer.

      3. “Route 270 will have less service than Route 271 has.”

         What?

      4. The 45 brings up an interesting issue: through-routing. Through routing is complicated and interesting. Conceptually it is just one route. There is no real difference between the 2 (which goes from Queen Anne to the Central Area) and the 1/14 (which does much the same thing, despite changing numbers). In both cases the route is routed through downtown (instead of ending there). The routes are also straightforward. The bus is always going the same general direction (it never reverses itself). As a result, every trip pair is plausible. In contrast, the 65/45 forms a large loop, which is less than ideal. There are trips that are not sensible, like Crown Hill to Northgate. But this problem is not reserved to through-routes — the 77 (as an independent route) has the same problem. It just doesn’t make sense to use the 77 to get from Bitter Lake to the UW. Not when it passes right by the Link Station. Even Bitter Lake to Roosevelt is not worth it. Pinehurst to Roosevelt is an option, but only because there is no bus that goes straight down 15th/Roosevelt. Even then, riders may choose to head west (to the 130th Station) and transfer, simply because the 77 will take a while as it makes a detour to Lake City (at least in the eyes of those riders). It is really two different routes awkwardly thrown together: Bitter Lake to Lake City and Lake City to UW.

         That is the long term plan (Phase 3). In Phase 2, the 77 will go from Lake City to the UW. At that point it is actually a solid route. There are other related changes though. The 45 will no longer be through routed with the 75, and be completely independent. Instead the 75 will be through-routed with the 77. While the 45/75 combination is not ideal, the 77/75 combination seems worse. The 45 is at least a western bus, while the 65 is at the eastern end of the city. It doesn’t work end to end, but a lot of combinations do work quite well. In contrast the 77 and 75 both lie to the east. In fact, the bus will basically form a big loop onto itself (like the first step in a bowline knot).

         When the 77 gets extended to Bitter Lake it isn’t clear what the plan is. It implies that they expect both buses to continue to be through-routed, but that seems awfully long and messy. It would make the loop even loopier. A bus would start at Bitter Lake, then go on 130th/125th, take a sharp right onto Lake City Way then Roosevelt, U-District, UW, Sand Point Way then 125th (now going the other way) before taking a left on 5th to get to Northgate. Every through-routed bus I know could easily just have one number. In this case it can’t, simply because it would be confusing for riders (they wouldn’t know if the bus heading west on 125th is going to Bitter Lake or Northgate). This is basically making a bad design (the 77 combination) worse.

         It is possible that this won’t be the case, and that I’m misinterpreting the document. Perhaps the 77 and 75 will be split once the 77 is extended to Bitter Lake. Either way there are some significant geometric failures in these routes.

         There is another long-standing issue in the U-District — lack of consolidation. This starts almost immediately south of Roosevelt Station. The 45, 67 and 73 all head south from the station towards the U-District, but they follow different pathways (initially). Thus someone who takes Link to Roosevelt Station and then wants to go about ten blocks to the south has to quickly choose one bus stop or another. The same problem exists on campus (at least eastbound). The 75 and (3)72 go on Stevens Way, but the 67/65 goes on Pacific/Montlake Boulevard. None of this is fixed with this latest restructure — it seems as messy as ever.

         Then there is the issue of route length. The longer the route, the more combinations of trips you have. That is one of the reasons why long bus routes like the RapidRide A and E have so many riders. But there is a limit to that. If the route is really long, it can cause problems. It is more likely to be delayed, and hurt people “downstream”. You run into labor problems as well. Drivers don’t like to drive a really long route. Thus if you want through-routing through the UW, it makes sense to tie together shorter routes. It also makes sense to connect east with west. That doesn’t leave many good options. I would probably do the following:

         1) Truncate the 75 in Lake City. Have a different bus cover 5th NE (one that comes from the northwest and connects to the station both directions).

         2) Connect the 75 and 45. While a bit loopy, it is still fairly east-west. Those would be the only through-routed bus in the U-District. Every other bus that heads to the U-District ends somewhere in the area.

         3) Truncate the 77 at Lake City. Extend to the 148th Station with some of the runs, via 30th.

         4) Replace the 67 with the 348 (as mentioned earlier).

         5) The 77 and 348 would continue to the U-District (via the Ave) and layover at Campus Parkway. There would be no service on Roosevelt south of Ravenna Boulevard. (At least not until the RapidRide J is extended.)

         6) Have the 45 turn at Roosevelt. That way you’ve consolidated service between Roosevelt and U-District Station, as all three buses (the 45, 77 and 348) follow Roosevelt/Ravenna/Ave down to at least Campus Parkway.

         7) Send the 65 to Bitter Lake (as proposed earlier by Metro).

         8) Extend the 72 to Shoreline Community College (via the 330 pathway). It is not through-routed, so this would not be a tough extension.

         9) End the 65 and 72 by U-District Station (or a bit farther north if there is no room there).

         10) The 65, 72 and 45-75 would all go along Stevens Way both directions.

         Thus you would have three nice spines. One from 65th NE to Campus Parkway, another through campus, and the existing 15th/Pacific combination with the 44, 48, 271 and 542. It would involve some overlap, but not a huge amount. The overlap would be in a very urban environment, and thus worth it.

      5. A through route or a U-shaped route is two or three logical routes strung together. People do make overlapping trips just past the middle. The 31/32/65/75 was a particularly strong corridor. The 75/45 may not be that strong but it has its uses to get to the middle or northern U-District or Roosevelt. I was on the 75 once intending to transfer to the 45, when I realized that I didn’t know where the 45 stops were after the 45/48 split. When I got to Campus Parkway I asked the person next to me if they knew where the 45 stop was. He said, “You’re on it.” I looked at the display and saw it was true. I said, “It was the 75 when I got on.”

      6. Yeah, it is really two different things. One is the routing numbers. Personally I am not fond of the number change. I would rather a bus keep the same number throughout. The 2 makes way more sense to me than the 1/14. I realize there are advantages to doing it with separate numbers. One is that you don’t need to change the bus stops if you move from one pairing to another. The 45 will be decoupled from the 75, but they are not going to change the bus stops in Crown Hill (although they might add a “rider alert” since it won’t go through campus anymore).

         Through-routing is more about going through the main destination and out the other side. The 2 does that. Madrona is a not a major destination. Neither is 7th & McGraw up on Queen Anne. Downtown is. Thus it would be quite reasonable to split the buses in half, and have both end somewhere downtown. But you want some overlap, which then costs money. In the case of the 2 you have to reach Uptown on one side and maybe 23rd on the other before through-routing ridership drops off. In other words, I don’t imagine very many people ride from Madrona to the top of Queen Anne, but my guess is there are plenty that ride from Uptown to 15th & Union. Thus the overlap would have to be huge (and expensive) or you force a lot of transfers. Thus for that combination, through-routing is quite reasonable.

         I’m not so sure with the U-District. First you have the looping problem. The 2 doesn’t have this problem — at all. You are never heading the wrong direction. In contrast, the 45-75 does. If you are trying to get from the U-District Station to U-Village you can take the 45-75, but it starts heading south before it starts heading north (when the main direction it needs to head is east). Not too long ago, it was the only way to connect the two places — now you have the 31/32.

         I think the problem is much worse for buses that approach from the west (i. e. go through the U-District first). Riders of the 45 won’t have their one-seat ride to the middle of campus. But if you are going the other way, it seems like ending at the U-District Station is more than adequate.

         Through routing can save money by avoiding overlap. Often the spine is adequate without it. But through-routing can also create problems as well. Really long bus routes are problematic. Imagine you get off Link at Roosevelt, and want to take the 45 home. The 45 didn’t start in the U-District, it started at Northgate, then went to Lake City, then around Sand Point and through the UW before it headed north to Roosevelt. There are plenty of places there where it could be delayed. On a mid-December evening you might wonder why the 45 is ten minutes late, only to be told it is because of shopping at Northgate.

         I think the key is the transfers. Back to the 2 example. Imagine it is split. For a lot of trips it wouldn’t be that bad. There are frequent buses heading to Uptown. For trips that direction, the key is stop consolidation (the buses that go that way should all use the same stop) as well as same-stop transfers (if possible). So if the 2 was unreliably long, it would be quite reasonable to split it.

         Likewise with the U-District. You want the buses to all run on the same street, especially southbound. That way you can get off a bus like the 45 (or 67 or 77) and easily transfer to get to the center of campus. I would group them like so:

         1) Buses from the north (45, 67, 77 ) — Run on the Ave until Campus Parkway (unless they through-route with the following buses).
         2) Buses that run through campus (45, 72, 75) — Run on the Ave and terminate at U-District Station (unless they through-route with the previous buses).
         3) Buses from UW Station (44, 48, 271, 542) — Go on 15th and terminate at the U-District Station (if there is room).

         This makes transfer fairly easy:

         1) North end to campus — Same stop transfer.
         2) North end to UW Hospital — Walk a block (from the Ave to 15th) at worst.

         Of course you could improve the second transfer (and eliminate some transfers) by sending the north end buses to the triangle. For that matter you could send the north-end buses through campus and over to Children’s Hospital. It is a trade-off. At some point it is overkill. Overlapping adds service along the shared corridor (a stronger spine) but it costs more. Through routing saves money while reducing transfers. I think it makes sense to have maybe one through-route, simply because the buses are too long otherwise. Similarly, I think the layovers as I suggested are about right.

         My main concern is consistency. Right now it is anything but. For example, from the U-District the 45, 67 and 372 all run through campus. The 45 runs on the Ave; the 67 runs on Roosevelt; the 372 runs on 15th. They need to consolidate and simplify things.

      7. Mike Orr re Route 270; Route 271 is 10/15: https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/projects/east-link-connections/routes/270.pdf?rev=0bdcf9daf51849ddb210ee5e782fd12c&hash=39859D7C2B27981807E4F044C784C5FE

      8. Great way to “get people out of their cars to use transit,” eh? Just eliminate the bus lines. How stupid.

      9. Great way to “get people out of their cars to use transit,” eh? Just eliminate the bus lines. How stupid.

         It is not that simple. Imagine three routes all going north-south, a block away from each other. They each run every half hour. Lots of people just drive, since they don’t want to wait a half hour for a bus. The area is “covered”, but ridership is terrible. If you cancel two of the routes, then the bus could run every ten minutes *at no additional cost*. Riders would be asked to walk a bit further, but overall ridership would increase. Thus fewer people would drive.

         If you want to “get people out of their cars to use transit,” then you focus on ridership. This means you focus less on coverage. As a result, low-ridership coverage routes (like the 20 through Tangletown) get eliminated. https://humantransit.org/2018/02/basics-the-ridership-coverage-tradeoff.html

         Very few people ride transit in Seattle, and the problem is not lack of coverage — it is the opposite. We have way too many buses running way too close to other buses. They are not providing that much coverage, while making ridership worse. There are trade-offs, but cancelling a low-performing bus when there is a good alternative nearby will ultimately get more people out of their cars than the opposite.

         That doesn’t mean this particular restructure is a good one. There are various choices that I believe are bad from both a ridership and coverage standpoint. In the case of the 73 the problem isn’t service the loss of service on 15th NE (on Maple Leaf) it is the lack of a grid. The 348 should go to Roosevelt, if not the UW. That would increase ridership while reducing costs.

2. I like that Northwest hospital is served by two routes.

   I still wish that Metro would scrub 3xx numbering in favor of a two digit number, or at least have 3xx numbers that all end in 0 or 1 or 5. The use of apparently random three digit numbers like 331, 333, 346 and 348 seems ridiculous. It’s such a major systems change with Link that this is the time to let go of legacy numbering.

   1. It is served by two buses now, except only one goes in the hospital grounds itself. Neither bus does especially well there (which I found fairly surprising). The stop around Four Freedoms (used by the 345) gets substantially more riders.

      As far as numbering goes, it does seem reasonable to get rid of the 300 series, since there aren’t that many. There are way more 100 and 200 series bus routes.

      1. The bus routing around the Northwest Hospital area has always bugged me, as the number of twists and turns 345 takes feels really excessive. A much quicker way to serve the hospital would have been to take Aurora from 125th to 115th, serve a bus stop on 115th, right in front of the hospital entrance (but stay on the street, no detour into the parking lot), then turn right on Meridian to NSCC and Northgate.

         The current routing acts as though Haller Lake is a must-serve destination, but it’s just low-density single family houses and even if the 345 didn’t go down Densmore, the 346 still would, and it’s not that far of a walk to either 125th/Aurora or Meridian/115th, which the more direct 345 would be serving anyway.

         Granted, the consequences of the current route aren’t as bad once 130th St. Station opens and it’s no longer the only bus route between Shoreline and Link. But, it’s still a big waste of time for almost everyone on the bus, and looks like it’s not only going to be continued, but doubled down on, by adding a similar detour to the 346. Also, the detour into the parking lot involves a parking gate, and lines of cars taking turns fumbling for their credit cards to pay for parking. Buses should never, ever have to wait behind car drivers paying for parking, and anytime they do, there is something seriously wrong with the bus route.

      2. I agree, but it is a tricky area. More than one person has suggested turning on 115th and then again on 130th. I’m not sure why Metro never seriously considered it. I’ve probably come up with a half dozen variations for serving the area, including the one you suggested. I think the hospital would make a good terminus (which would make the loop through it painless). The problem is that you do want to connect to both the 130th corridor and Northgate Way (which works against that idea). Since it parallels Link and is fairly close, there is value in doglegging. The problem is, you can’t do that at 130th. So that means running a bus like the 365, which means you are still a ways from the hospital. Laying over at 130th would probably be the best option. I would go around the other side of Haller Lake as well. That is the irony here. It still isn’t very good for getting to the hospital from Link.

   2. asdf2: yes, re Route 345 and NWH, that has been suggested. In the late 90s, there was a CMAQ-funded van route at NWH and FF; when the grant expired, Route 302 was revised to serve NSH and FF; FF was helpful in getting the stop and turning loop. In 2003, Route 345 replaced Route 302. When Home Depot went in, SDOT had them fund the signal at North 115th Street. When the hospital expanded, Seattle asked them to build a garage and the sidewalk on the north side of North 115th Street. Advantages of Route 345 using North 115th Street and Aurora between North 115th and 130th streets: faster by several minutes; a common stop transfer with the E Line at North 125th Street.

3. What is the fate of Route 20?

   1. It is replaced by the 61. Instead of going south after it reaches 85th (from Northgate) it turns west (towards Greenwood). Here is the page for it: https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/projects/lynnwood-link-connections/routes/061.pdf. You can find links to all the new routes in the link listed above (https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/programs-and-projects/lynnwood-link-connections).

      1. That’s a big hole around 80th and First NE. I just do not get why Metro continues to run the 48 along Green Lake Way. Sure, there are a LOT of people who want to go to the park. But it’s a block — a bit long, but just a block — at Wallingford and again at “downtown Green Lake”. The old 16 route up First to 80th is a good, reliable five to even ten minutes faster on a sunny Green Lake day.

         Yes, Green Lake Way needs service for people of limited mobility to get to the park. But it shouldn’t be a major corridor bus, but rather an overlay that wanders on either end.

      2. The problem with the using 80th like the 26 (and 16 before it) is the left turn from 1st on 80th. For whatever reason, SDOT never put in a signal or all-way stop there, so it could take a very long time in bad traffic, especially when traffic is heavy on I-5 as there would be a continuous stream of cars exiting the freeway. Frequently the bus driver would just give up and use a combination of size and waving to get car drivers to stop, but that could take as long as 5 minutes.

         Other than that easily-solvable problem, I do agree that running along Woodlawn and 1st provides a much better walkshed than running adjacent to a park, however popular that park is.

      3. @Tom T,

         The real transit desert near Green Lake is south of the lake. There is no service to the playfields, post office, or apartments along Stone Way north of 45th, and there soon won’t be any bus service on Latona either when Metro eliminates the 20. And there is no significant east-west service anywhere in that zone north of 45th and south of the lake.

         It’s almost like those people are being punished.

      4. @Skylar,

         The problem at 80th and 1st is actually a hard one to solve. That intersection is very close-coupled with the collector-distributor between 85th and 80th, and that traffic often moves very fast.

         WSDOT and SDOT are both in agreement that anything that backs traffic up into the C-D could be a safety issue. Ideally you would add a center turn lane for traffic turning to/from 1st, but there just isn’t a lot of space.

      5. It isn’t about getting people close to the lake. Skylar mentioned the real issue — the turn. SDOT needs to add a turn light there. The light would probably favor east-west traffic, but if the bus could trigger the signal, that would be ideal. In other words, if a car pulls up, they might have to wait a minute to make a left. But if a bus pulls up, the light changes within a few seconds. As Lazarus mentioned, this could mess up the traffic exiting the freeway, but I don’t see this as a major issue. It is a long exit ramp, and there is a light going the other direction (east) already. There tends to be more of a backup on the freeway itself. The right lane is exit-only, but there is no incentive to move out of that lane, as the exit lane (to 80th and 85th) is generally moving much faster than the mainline. I don’t think this would have much effect at all — the main concern is just to get people to change their driving habits (and get used to there being a traffic light there).

         Going the other direction, they should carve out a BAT lane, (eastbound between Wallingford and 1st Ave. NE). Or at the very least between Corliss and 1st). At Corliss there is a crosswalk and the street narrows (https://maps.app.goo.gl/yBRwMar3uPrRvKcd9) but it widens again to the east of there. Squeezing three lanes in there would make traffic go slower. It is common for drivers (especially old timers like me) to take the freeway exit and then make the turn way too fast. There is no traffic coming from the east, so it feels like a curving freeway ramp. But at that point you are in the city. It is perfectly legal to cross 80th there at 1st (there are curb cuts and everything). The speed limit as you make the turn is 25 MPH. Yet many drivers didn’t get the memo. They take it way too fast, and cruise at 35, even 40 MPH. The fact that the street is fairly wide and stays wide contributes to the problem. They have added some parking along there (which helps narrow the street) but when cars aren’t parked there, it feels mighty wide. Making it three lanes (with an uphill lane for the buses) would make it safer.

         Until that work is done though, I think it probably makes sense to just keep the route the same. There may be improvements they can make on the current route (although that seems more challenging than fixing 1st).

      6. Even ignoring buses, a signal at 80th and 1st is needed anyway for pedestrians. Currently, it is almost impossible to cross the street there.

      7. The real transit desert near Green Lake is south of the lake. There is no service to the playfields, post office, or apartments along Stone Way north of 45th

         Yeah, but it isn’t too far of a walk for the vast majority of people. The apartments pretty much end by the time you get to 50th, which means folks can just walk to 45th. There are a handful of apartments north of there, and that is a long walk, but you can say the same thing for Sunset Hill (which lacks all day bus service). Actually, the service hole is much bigger on Sunset Hill, simply because it doesn’t end there. From 65th & 32nd you can head west (away from the nearest bus stop) and still encounter plenty of housing. If you go west from Green Lake Way or East Green Lake Way you hit a park or the lake.

         and there soon won’t be any bus service on Latona either when Metro eliminates the 20.

         Yes, because ridership on that part of the 20 was very low. It has the same issue. Not that many people, with a smattering of apartments. At the same time, the walk is never terrible, because there is an absolute limit (the freeway). Which is not to say the routing is good right now. The best solution is what Metro proposed way back with the initial planning for Northgate Link. This would have served the areas of Latona that have the most people, while then swinging west to pick up Tangletown. This is really an ideal routing from both a coverage and ridership standpoint. It runs by the bulk of the density and destinations. It mirrors the curve of the lake/park which means very few people would have a long walk to the bus. At the same time, it significantly speeds up the route. Unfortunately, SDOT didn’t allow the change (the roads needed to be hardened) and so far, there is no move to change it.

         And there is no significant east-west service anywhere in that zone north of 45th and south of the lake.

         Yes, because there is a lake in the way. The 62 (which runs by the lake) runs east-west. The 45 (which also runs by the lake) also runs east-west. It would be great to have a bus on 65th (west of the lake) but my guess is 65th is too narrow for a bus. Even if a bus did go east-west on 65th, it would probably go around the north side of the lake simply because there are a lot more people that way. That part of the lake (greater Tangletown if you will) actually has pretty good transit considering the overall density and awkward location. It is fortunate to have the 62 — a fairly frequent bus that connects riders to Link, Wallingford, Stone Way, Fremont and downtown. It is a pretty easy two-seat ride to Ballard or the UW as well. It really doesn’t need two routes. It just needs to be altered as the planners proposed way back when.

      8. Even ignoring buses, a signal at 80th and 1st is needed anyway for pedestrians. Currently, it is almost impossible to cross the street there.

         Yeah, and probably extremely dangerous. Cars come whipping around the corner (from the freeway) and head down right towards that intersection.

      9. “It is fortunate to have the 62 — a fairly frequent bus”

         “Fairly frequent?” The 62 is full-time frequent, until 10pm like RapidRide. 15 minutes is not ultra-frequent but it’s what Metro defines as frequent, and it’s better than most routes in North Seattle get after the cutbacks.

      10. Lazarus: that is a small and acceptable desert. The Aurora restructure was implemented in February 1999; routes 16 and 358 were improved to 20/20 headway; routes 6 Local and 360X were deleted. There were night shuttles for routes 16 and 28 with timed connections with routes 6 and 26, respectively. Route 16 was shifted to Stone Way North from Wallingford Avenue North. Coverage was foregone for speed and frequency. In fall 2003, the only new service subsidy in the subarea was placed in Route 358. In 2014, the E Line replaced Route 358X. The story of the H Line is similar; the Delridge consolidation was in fall 2004; Route 120 was implemented; in 2023, the H Line replaced Route 120.

      11. @eddiew,

          Ya, it certainly “is a small and acceptable desert” if you don’t live there. But if you do live there it’s a major problem.

          I don’t live there and am not impacted by the lack of service, but a friend of mine is. Both he and his wife are getting up in years and are developing mobility issues. For him the deletion of the 20 is a big deal.

          He maintains that the deletion violates equity principles, and that it is being done for a variety of reasons I won’t list here because they are basically Deep Metro conspiracy theories and I don’t believe in such things.

          But the service desert is real, and it is impacting real people. Something should be done.

      12. “Fairly frequent?” The 62 is full-time frequent, until 10pm like RapidRide. 15 minutes is not ultra-frequent but it’s what Metro defines as frequent, and it’s better than most routes in North Seattle get after the cutbacks.

          I can call myself handsome, that doesn’t mean I am ready to be a model. 15 minutes in the city is “fairly frequent” and basically standard. Anything less frequent should set off alarm bells. Should we even have that route? Should we just pay the money for decent frequency (every 15 minutes)? In the case of the 73 it is the former. In case of the 28 it is the latter.

          I would call buses every 10 minutes “frequent”, and 7.5 minutes (or better) “very frequent”. 30 minutes is “infrequent”. Things in between (12 and 20 minutes) are a tougher call. I would probably call 12 “frequent” and 20 “infrequent”.

      13. @Lazarus. The problem is that if we have buses covering every inch of town we sacrifice frequency. The system becomes unusable. This is by far the worst problem with our system right now. We favor old routes that carry a handful of people because folks complain about losing “their” bus. Of course it sucks. But what about the people that never had good bus service? What about areas with a lot more people that have very infrequent bus service?

          Trade-offs have to be made, and there is nothing special about Tangletown. It doesn’t have a lot of density nor is the walk to the bus especially bad.

      14. Folks have asked for stop signs on North 80th Street at 1st Avenue NE for decades (e.g., routes 16, 316, 26, and now 20). There could be a flashing amber light on the collector-distributor road with a yellow sign “stop ahead”. It would be good for both pedestrians and the outbound transit route.

          For the Latona Avenue NE issue, Route 62 could be revised to serve the pathway of the former Meridian Streetcar line. Inbound: NE 65th Street, Latona Avenue NE, NE 56th Street.

          Metro asked the public about the pathway in 2015 in the P2 of North Link Connections, but they cluttered it with additional routes (they may have been conceptual routes 23 and 25).

      15. There really is no excuse for not having anything to stop traffic on 80th between Wallingford Ave. and east of I-5. Refusing to put in a light is essentially SDOT doing what they claim to have moved on from, which is prioritizing car throughput over basic safety. Even for people in steel armor, the current configuration is not exactly safe, as it encourages people on 1st to stomp on the gas at the tiniest hole. For bikes and pedestrians who don’t have armor, it’s downright deadly.

          For what it’s worth, I drive this stretch of 80th once a week. I will gladly accept my trip being 30 seconds longer so people in all modes can cross the street and not die.

      16. Ya, it certainly “is a small and acceptable desert” if you don’t live there. But if you do live there it’s a major problem.

          A problem: yes. A “major” one…it depends. I live right along Latona. I personally almost never use the 20 because most of my transit trips involve Link, and it’s much faster for me to just take my scooter to Roosevelt than wait around for a slow ride to the U District on the 20.

          My wife and kids do use it though. None of them are confident using the bike infrastructure (such as it is), and so the bus is a big improvement over walking all the way to Link. Get rid of the 20 and it’s a choice between a 10-minute walk to the 62 to make the Link connection, or walking 20 minutes to the station directly. It will add real time to their transit trips, and likely result in more occasions when they choose to drive instead. The folks down the hill from us near I-5 will have it even worse.

          I think it’s a travesty that a growing city with such wealth cannot seem to find money to maintain transit on this corridor while also improving transit on previously underserved corridors. We should be able to do both.

          He maintains that the deletion violates equity principles, and that it is being done for a variety of reasons I won’t list here because they are basically Deep Metro conspiracy theories and I don’t believe in such things.

          I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a conspiracy, but the process does definitely seem to have been stacked against the 20. This was lumped in with a restructure focusing on the routes near the new Link stations. The vast majority of affected routes actually serve the area around these stations. Then they arbitrarily threw in the deletion of a route that goes nowhere near the new stations. They convened an advisory board of citizens in that area to give feedback on the route changes. When this board was asked to make suggestions on how to improve the plans, it’s utterly unsurprising that they didn’t have anything bad to say about removing the 20.

          We favor old routes that carry a handful of people because folks complain about losing “their” bus. Of course it sucks. But what about the people that never had good bus service?

          What about them? I find that the people who don’t care much about transit access tend to sort themselves pretty well into the places that don’t have much of it. Meanwhile shouldn’t those of us who live on a street that has had transit service for the past century be able to expect to keep some service? The planet is burning. Reducing transit service anywhere should be completely off the table, but it’s hardly a surprise given how unserious our elected officials seem to be about climate action.

          For the Latona Avenue NE issue, Route 62 could be revised to serve the pathway of the former Meridian Streetcar line. Inbound: NE 65th Street, Latona Avenue NE, NE 56th Street.

          Yes I would be happy to see this change as well, but apparently SDOT would need to upgrade the three blocks of 56th St west of Latona to handle the weight of regular bus traffic, and they are in no hurry to do so.

      17. The issue is Latona’s low density and lack of non-residential destinations. If it had more of those, it would be higher priority.

      18. “I would call buses every 10 minutes “frequent”, and 7.5 minutes (or better) “very frequent”. 30 minutes is “infrequent”. Things in between (12 and 20 minutes) are a tougher call. I would probably call 12 “frequent” and 20 “infrequent”.”

          10 minutes is a good idea and we should have that on all core routes like Chicago does. But you can’t ride ideals; you can only ride service that exists. There’s only about one route that runs every 10 minutes midday now (the E). In that environment, defining 15 minutes as frequent is useful: it tells where you can live or go to without dealing with 30-minute buses. If you say 10 minutes is the frequent threshold, well, few people can live within walking distance of Aurora.

      19. @Mike Orr,

          “ The issue is Latona’s low density and lack of non-residential destinations”

          Ya! Because without non-residential destinations there are only people, and why should transit actually serve people? Is that what you are saying?

          Those people served by buses on Latona might be residential, but they are going somewhere. Link, the U, the U-Dist, and sometimes even to points north. And it’s not like they are asking for anything close to frequent transit, they just want something that gives them some access to transit.

          Doesn’t seem like that is so hard to provide.

      20. Doesn’t seem like that is so hard to provide.

          OK, what buses would you cut? I’ll give you some ideas:

          28 — Only problem is, way more people would have to walk much further to their bus.

          17 — Cut already. Way more people have to walk much further to their bus as a result.

          37 — Cut already. Way more people now have to walk a lot further to their bus as a result.

          57 — Not much left to cut — it only runs a half dozen times a day.

          73 — About to be cut.

          Here is a map showing apartments in Seattle: https://jeffreylinn.carto.com/viz/681ff218-0a5d-11e6-8f50-0ea31932ec1d/embed_map. Notice how few there are in Tangletown. It is actually extremely luck to have the 62. It just happens to be on the way between far more densely populated areas.

          Just look at the 37 for a minute. Notice how it covers a big swath of West Seattle. Except it doesn’t any more. It doesn’t run at all. This includes a large apartment complex along Beach Drive (that shows up on that apartment map). To get anywhere they need to walk 15 minutes. The bus they would catch runs every 20 minutes and doesn’t go downtown. So basically they have to walk 15 minutes, wait for a bus that runs every 20 minutes and then transfer to another bus just to get downtown ( https://maps.app.goo.gl/wQ7r4HLKqPHZYvxh9). Why then, shouldn’t we resurrect this bus instead of the 20?

          Look, we all want the bus to be moved (as Metro planned). If you want to contact your city council member (especially if you live in the area) then please do. Rally the folks in your neighborhood to get them to do it. I’m actually surprised there hasn’t been more noise about it. When I mentioned it to Spotts (head of SDOT) he said he hadn’t heard of it.

          But that doesn’t mean we will cover the entire area. We simply can’t. Again, there is nothing special about Tangletown. It isn’t particularly dense, nor do the people have a particularly long walk to a bus. In terms of ridership or coverage, it is way down the list.

      21. Meanwhile shouldn’t those of us who live on a street that has had transit service for the past century be able to expect to keep some service?

          And you do! Tangletown has bus service. The 62 is not going anywhere. But bus routes move. Hell, we all want the 62 to move. If the 62 moves than some people will have to walk farther to catch a bus. But overall you have higher ridership and more people have a short walk to the bus. This is fundamentally no different, it is just that the improvement is being shifted to a different neighborhood.

          The planet is burning. Reducing transit service anywhere should be completely off the table, but it’s hardly a surprise given how unserious our elected officials seem to be about climate action.

          Wait, what??? This is not a service reduction. That is not why the 20 is going away. It is going away because of low ridership. Thus service will be shifted to places that have higher ridership. This means more people will use transit. This in turn is better for the planet.

          This is just a classic ridership/coverage trade-off, and you are complaining because you want better coverage. That’s fine. But don’t pretend that shifting towards more coverage is better for the environment — it is the opposite.

          Oh, and as far as the route is concerned, it was probably the best possible for the area. You had a one-seat ride to the UW (and thus Link) as well as a one-seat ride up to the college and Northgate. The problem is, there just aren’t that many people that live along that pathway.

      22. ‘Because without non-residential destinations there are only people, and why should transit actually serve people?”

          The point is that in residential-only areas the only riders are the residents, and they tend to leave in the morning and come back in the afternoon. Add several businesses and you also get people coming into the neighborhood, so it’s higher ridership and more bidirectional. And the residents have more destinations they can walk to.

      23. There’s only about one route that runs every 10 minutes midday now (the E).

          The 7 runs every ten minutes, and that is after the driver shortage cutback (it used to run every 7.5 minutes). The 36 runs every ten minutes. The 3/4 runs every 7.5 minutes to the CD. There are several corridors where buses combine for ten minute or better frequency. Of course Link runs every ten minutes.

          15 minutes is just normal; it is average (for Seattle). It is basically a Grade C. If you call a 15-minute bus “frequent” than you are implying that we have a lot of frequent buses (a frequent network covering most of the city) or that the bus is better than average. I would say neither is true.

      24. I read the desert comment to be about the area south of the lake that was changed in February 1999. Others seem to be discussing the Latona Avenue NE area. That is solved by shifting Route 62 to the Meridian Streetcar pathway; from the north: NE 65th Street, Latona Avenue NE, and NE 56th Street. Yes, SDOT is concerned about pavement management. Please look at the entire route; it seems to be failing on North 35th Street, Stone Way NE, North 45th Street, Meridian Avenue North, and North 55th Street. Why is NE 56th Street different. It appears Seattle took the streetcar tracks from the center of many streets in 1940 and just but asphalt down. Are North 55th Street and NE 56th Street any different? The outside is concrete on NE 56th Street; how about running the buses next to the curb and placing the parking in the center on the asphalt? SDOT did this on NE 34th Street west of Fremont Avenue North to install PBL. The changed pathway saves several minutes of running time so the pavement management has a high return for SDOT, riders, and Transit.

          The “desert” could have frequent service on a streamlined Route 62 with routes 44 and 45 nearby. All reach Link.

4. RossB: you have discussed the NE 130th Street station. In the Metro map and descriptions, several routes approach the station but turn as if to avoid it. I expect some riders will resent such merry-go-round approaches. The northbound Route 345 is at North 130th Street and then turns west away from the station. The northbound Route 365 is at North 130th Street and then proceeds north to North 145th Street. The westbound Route 75 approaches the station on NE 125th Street and then turns south. One would think the pull of the station would be greater than this. What does this say about network design and directness? Link is a big deal; this restructure is to integrate with Link.

   In a similar manner, in the fall 2021, the southbound Route 20 was nearing the Roosevelt Link station but went south on Latona Avenue NE. Route 20 performed so well it was partially suspended in fall 2023 and is proposed for deletion in this network. Route 20 was serving the pathway of former Route 316; its riders would probably have appreciated a trip to the Roosevelt Link station.

   Looking at the map again, if routes 75 and 77 are paired and cross in Lake City along NE 125th Street, are the start of fishing knot?

   1. Yeah, the knot of the 75 and 77 is at Lake City.

      I agree about 130th. I think the 75 is a mistake. It makes more sense to me to serve 5th NE via a bus that arrives from the northwest. For example, take a bus that goes down Meridian and then over on 130th, and then south again to Northgate. Maybe it branches with a bus that goes to Four Freedoms and then SCC. That way folks have a much faster connection to Link, while 5th gets frequent service.

5. RossB: back to the NE 130th Street station. See the map inset: routes per station. The NE 130th Street station has only Route 77, 15/15. The South Shoreline station has SEVEN routes and the I-5 freeway interchange congestion.

   See Swift line. You commented on its pathway in 2020. If it served Aurora Avenue North, it would have one turn; using Meridian Avenue North, it has three turns. There are BAT lanes on Aurora; it would have common stop transfers with the E Line at North 192nd Street; it could serve the Shoreline P&R. This network seems to have no direct connection between those 400 stalls and Link.

   1. “ The South Shoreline station has SEVEN routes and the I-5 freeway interchange congestion.”

      Three comments:

      Shoreline South will have space for what appears to be 7 buses laying over and 4 “live zone” loading/ unloading stops. It can handle 7 routes. 130th appears to only be able to accommodate a bus on the street so it would be a problem to have more than 2 routes. I’m not too keen on the time consuming cul de sac for buses and the fact that exiting buses mix with the other traffic leaving the station at Shoreline South — but it is what it is. It’s just too bad that no one pitched having a bus loop over I-5 so exiting buses would merge with the southbound I-5 exiting traffic to get back to 145th.

      Construction is beginning soon on major changes to the 145th interchange. It won’t be done until 2025. Time will tell if traffic congestion gets better or worse. Details are here:

      https://www.shorelinewa.gov/our-city/145th-street-corridor/sr-523-n-ne-145th-street-i-5-interchange-project/-selectview-1

      I can’t find the actual rule, but I’m pretty sure CT is not allowed to let anyone in Shoreline not close to the county line get into a bus (and vice versa). So those Shoreline park and ride lot boarders/ riders could not legally get on a Swift bus. (If anyone can find the source it’d be much appreciated.) along with that, the BAT lane is on the right and a left turn would be needed; some signal override could be devised but it would require all other intersection movements to freeze.

      1. The problem has little to do with layover space. There are way too many buses laying over at 145th. Several people — independently — have suggested that the 522 be extended to Shoreline Community College (SCC). Several other people — including the planners making the long range map — have suggested sending the 72 across to SCC. An east-west bus should not layover there. A north-south bus could, which is why having the 346 layover there is quite reasonable. But there should only be a handful of those. I get what eddie is getting at. 148th is being treated as a hub, and it should not be a hub.

         Serving the stations is different issue. Part of the reason there are so many routes serving it is because there are so many routes ending there. For example, consider the 333. Think of the route from Mountlake Terrace to SCC. It is fairly straightforward (south, then west). It should end there. Shoreline Community College should be the terminus. First, because it is an excellent anchor (probably the biggest destination in Shoreline) and second because it is the westernmost point of the route. You gain little by extending the route. Hardly anyone will ride through the college. Everyone will get off, and then a new group will get on. In contrast, you gain a lot from extending the 72 to the college. A lot of people avoid a transfer to the college. A lot of people avoid a transfer from the north end of Aurora to the north end of Lake City (or east end of 145th). Thus it would be best if the 72 takes over the tail of the 333, which means that the 333 doesn’t serve the station. That means one less route service the station.

         185th has a much better setup. Swift ends there. That is reasonable since it is coming from the north (way north). So does the 365 (from the south). The 348 serves it, but keeps on going. Notice that it doesn’t just end there (while a second bus goes from Richmond Beach to the station). By going *through* the station you benefit a lot more riders. The same thing should happen with 148th.

         I also think some of the service should shift from 148th to 130th. I mentioned this up above. The 346 starts up Aurora Village and runs down Meridian. Then it turns on 155th to serve 148th. Why turn there? If it kept going, it could turn on 30th, and then turn again to go down 5th NE. That would give those riders a one-seat ride to Northgate. Split that route with a route covering SCC and Four Freedoms. For 148th Station that would leave the 65, the 72 (through routed to SCC via 330 pathway) the 365 and 522. So four buses. I’ve come up with several different proposals and I think they all had four buses to the station. Metro is treating 148th as a major hub and they shouldn’t.

   2. Fyi the ne 130th station isn’t opening with lynnwood link this fall. It’s not opening till 2026.

      https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/ne-130th-st-infill-station

      1. but this restructure ordinance is meant to cover all three stages; RossB explained that. The mystery is the ST timing around Route 522.

      2. My bad I didn’t see that section. Mhmm well in that case this is generally pretty poor use of the station then. Especially when combined with the mild rather than at least moderate upzoning around it

   3. @Al S,

      Yesterday I walked from Roosevelt Station up to 155th St and the crossed under the freeway and walked back on the other side.

      The 148th St Station is impressive. Lots of bus infrastructure there, in addition to parking. The 130th St Station has very little. I believe there will only be one bus stop in each direction at 130th. The difference is like night and day. Ditto for TOD.

      In regards to Swift, CT, and Metro. I believe anyone can board any bus in any county as long as they pay. However CT is usually not allowed to operate in KC and Metro is usually not allowed to operate in SnoCo. I say “usually” because exceptions are made in certain key circumstances.

      For example, Swift Blue currently serves the Aurora Village TC in KC, and passengers can both board and get off at that station. And nobody is checking county residency.

      Swift Blue will also be extended to the 185th St Station when it opens. And clearly it wouldn’t make any sense to do that if passengers couldn’t board there.

      1. Additionally. Obviously CT operates in KC because they run the 400 and 800 series buses into Seattle.

         The standard for allowing this is effectively “does it serve the needs of the residents of SnoCo”. Clearly the 400 and 800 series CT buses satisfy that standard, as does Blue Swift going to Aurora Village TC.

      2. Og course it makes sense to extend Swift Blue to Shoreline North, because it connects it to Link.

         But does a King County rider who boards at AVTC and rides to Shoreline North “serve the needs of yhe residents SnoCo”. The Magic Eight Ball says “Who do you think you’re fooling?”

         THAT’S the situation we’ve been wondering about. Will Swift Blue be allowed to board passengers at AVTC? Really, why wouldn’t it? It’s a little revenue and the quickest way between the two points. But Rules are Rules.

      3. I can’t find a reference online to verify this but I believe that the rule is that an operator is allowed to either drop off or pick up riders outside of a transit district, but they can’t carry a full trip outside of their district. That’s why I don’t think you can hop a CT bus to get around inside Downtown Seattle, for example.

         The other part of the rule that I thought existed was that it can be ignored for a certain distance from the edge of the district (like 1/4 or 1/2 mile outside of a district). So Aurora Vilkage is “in” but a stop at N 192nd St is “out.

      4. I’m sure the station looks impressive, Lazarus. ST designs expensive stations.

         And just because a station looks impressive doesn’t mean that it will work well. In this specific example, the parking garage and drop off/ pick up zone traffic both exit at the same signal as the buses will. In the afternoons, I would expect at least 2-3 vehicles picking up Link riders and another 10-15 vehicles driving away with every Link train. So a bus may end up waiting behind exiting cars at the light — and sometimes may have to wait through another light.

      5. CT needs to get rid of that policy if it exists. PT 500 has several King County stops on the way to Federal Way Transit Center. This issue isn’t whether one trip by one King County resident benefits CT taxpayers, but whether the route as a whole does. Swift Blue’s Aurora Village station clearly benefits CT taxpayers because when CT considered eliminating it, lower-income Edmonds residents came out of the woodwork and said they shop at Aurora Village and would be harmed by the move. If Swift were rerouted south on Aurora with a station at 192nd, then turned east on 185th to the station, that would benefit CT taxpayers too. One, it would allow Snohomans to continue south on the E without a detour. Two, it would allow them to get to the ice rink at 185th, Fred Meyer at 185th (for those lower-income shoppers), and to whatever TOD replaces the Shoreline P&R at 192nd.

      6. @Al S,

         I’m not sure what would stop a person from paying to get on a CT bus downtown and then getting off at the next stop. I can’t imagine that they have guards, or lock the doors or something. I think there just isn’t much demand for such a thing, just like there isn’t much demand to pay to go 2 blocks on a Metro bus downtown. So it is considered OK.

         As per Blue Swift, I know for a fact that the in-laws are planning to board it at the 185th St Station and deboard at AVTC to go to Costco. I sincerely hope I don’t need to tell them they can’t do that because of “rules”, or that they might get a ticket of something.

         But hey, maybe Metro makes them lock the doors or something because they expect such riders to take a two seat ride on Metro instead. Nothing surprises me anymore.

      7. @Al S,

         Stations are expensive. Last I heard the 130th St Station was costing ST $240 million. And that station is bare bones. Small footprint. No bus layover, no bus loop, no parking, and not even center platform.

         148th St Station has all those things, and is much better layed out. The bus layover space is of particular importance since it makes timed transfers Link-to-bus possible.

         There is also a huge amount of TOD going in around the 148th St Station. I didn’t realize how big those apartments are on the west side of I-5, and there are several new apartments north of the station on the east side too, with more about to start construction.

         “ I would expect at least 2-3 vehicles picking up Link riders and another 10-15 vehicles driving away with every Link train. So a bus may end up waiting behind exiting cars at the light — and sometimes may have to wait through another light.”

         Congratulations, you just described Buses Stuck In Traffic (“BSIT”) to a T. But it is not just a problem at the station, BSIT occurs everywhere with buses.

         But removing the lights on 145th and replacing them with roundabouts will certainly help. We need more of that in Seattle.

      8. I don’t know CT’s current policy. But pre-Northgate Link, CT’s 800-series buses ran from UW campus to 45th St before getting on I-5 to Snohomish County. A decent number of people got on at campus and got off on 45th.

      9. @Larry,

         Thanks for the first hand report. That is good to know.

         And what you say makes perfect sense since 45th and I-5 was a major bus stop with multiple transfer possibilities.

         How the fare allocation was handled pre-ORCA is a bit of a mystery to me. But if they could do it then, then I’m sure similar things are possible now.

      10. Lazarus:
          Aurora Village is considered in Snohomish County and CT buses stop there. Once it crosses the border and enters King County, the current policy is they can’t stop anywhere until they get to the 185th station.

          It’s the same with Skagit Transit in Everett: the 99 only lets people off in Snohomish County stops, except at Everett Station. Pull the cord to get off? You’re out of luck until Mt Vernon.

      11. “ CT needs to get rid of that policy if it exists. ”

          If I remember correctly, the rule goes back to the time when transit was more privatized and operators didn’t want competition — as well as how the Federal government doled out operating subsidies and didn’t want to subsidize trips not part of a district.

          I am not sure of the current restriction but I’m thinking that CT can’t lift it by itself.

      12. @Glenn,

          Aurora Village is 100% within King County, and AVTC is actually on the southern edge of Aurora Village.

          Every CT bus that serves Aurora Village or AVTC has to cross into King County to do it. It’s true.

          So whatever the policy is, obviously CT can serve destinations inside King County, at least when it primarily serves the interests of SnoCo residents, and CT can do so with multiple stops. Just look at all the stops the 400 series makes in downtown Seattle.

      13. I doubt there is such a rule. CT has covered the King County portion of Bothell for decades. Between 1997 and 2003, Metro routes 317 and 377 extended to Edmonds and the Lynnwood Transit Center respectively. The 377 extension partly explains the odd shape of Route 347. CT commuter Route 424 probably carried intra King County riders. The pennies can be sorted in the ORCA backroom.

          The RossB suggested Blue line pathway via Aurora is better for almost all: for Blue line riders oriented to Link, Aurora should be faster and more reliable; it has BAT lanes and one turn rather than three turns; for auto oriented Link riders, it would be the best connection between the Shoreline P&R and Link; the proposed network has no such direct connection. CT would get more fare revenue. CT could have Route 101 terminate at Shoreline.

      14. The King-Snohomish County border is at N 205th Street/244th Street SW. Aurora Village is between 200th and 205th. The transit center is at 200th.

      15. The 148th St Station is impressive. Lots of bus infrastructure there, in addition to parking. The 130th St Station has very little. I believe there will only be one bus stop in each direction at 130th. The difference is like night and day.

          Yeah, obviously they did it right with 130th. It is like subway stations in New York. Not grand, nothing special, but tens of thousands of people use them. You really don’t need “bus infrastructure” for a station. You need a bus stop. That’s it. I think people get really confused when it comes to bus/train interaction. They think the bus has to pull off the road and go through a bunch of twists and turns to get to the station. That shouldn’t be the case — not if you do it right. Consider Vancouver, which is probably the best city in North America as far as bus/rail integration. This is what their “bus infrastructure” looks like: https://maps.app.goo.gl/WF4fJRbXUyyvAAnq6. Basically a bus stop, close to the subway entrance. The only thing it is missing is red paint. By the way, the bus that is served by that stop carried 57,000 riders before the pandemic. That is obviously a major interchange, with probably tens of thousands of people going from the bus to the train (or vice versa) and it consists of a bus stop, and a simple entrance.

          Speaking of red paint, what does 145th look like? Have they added bus lanes there yet? Unlike 130th that station is going to open soon.

      16. Aurora Village is considered in Snohomish County

          Since when? I just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing. The mall extends to the county border. But the transit center is off of 200th, well withing King County (https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZGu6x2mLtx2pJawG9). The border is 205th, which is quite a ways to the north. (The border is known as 244th in Snohomish County).

          I don’t know why people think this is some bizarre policy of Snohomish County. They could run on Aurora with stops along the way if they wanted to. They just don’t want to. It really isn’t that complicated. Metro made a dozen mistakes with this restructure. Why is is to implausible that Community Transit made a mistake with Swift?

          Making matters more difficult is the fact that it required cooperation between the agencies. If Metro makes this many mistakes on a restructure like this, is it really that surprising that they couldn’t convince a different agency to do the sensible thing?

      17. “ I don’t know why people think this is some bizarre policy of Snohomish County. They could run on Aurora with stops along the way if they wanted to. ”

          I pretty sure that King County Council (because of Metro) and maybe Shoreline (approving the bus stop signs et al) would have to approve it too. Metro in particular would lose riders if those riders got on a Swift bus. Metro could ask for Swift to compensate Metro for losing those riders, for example. Conversely, Metro could subsidize CT for providing the connection.

          So it isn’t a unilateral CT thing.

      18. @Al S,

          What is the number? Buses have somewhere between 10 and 15% farebox recovery? The rest being made up by government subsidies, which ultimately means local taxes paid by local taxpayers.

          So if SnoCo residents want to subsidize transit service in King County, and they are willing to subsidize that service with SnoCo tax dollars, shouldn’t that be encouraged?

          I’m all for more transit paid for by other people! Isn’t that a good thing?

      19. “What is the number? ”

          Who knows? I’m not a fortune teller. I’m just stating the agencies that would need to weigh in.

          There are FTA rules that accompany vehicle purchase and OMF construction grants too. If there wasn’t, agencies could do all sorts of things like sell buses to private entities and keep the profit or run charter buses for hire or turn around and sell a facility to a charter bus company.

      20. “Metro in particular would lose riders if those riders got on a Swift bus. Metro could ask for Swift to compensate Metro for losing those riders, for example”

          That’s the weakest argument I’ve heard in a long time. The reason to reroute Swift to 185th & Aurora is it would generate more total riders for both agencies, because it would serve more trip pairs more conveniently than the current system or CT’s plan. Fares only cover 20% of Metro’s operating costs, so it’s not like Metro would get a lot of money from a few defectors anyway.

      21. Last I heard the 130th St Station was costing ST $240 million.

          Yes, Sound Transit spends way too much money to build things. You should talk to the folks you know at Sound Transit and tell them to try and keep prices down. I know this is America, but the spending is ridiculous. It would have been much better to build the station so that it straddled 130th, but they didn’t, which I’m sure saved some money. But that also means everyone comes from the south. Why then, are there big escalators on both sides of the platform for the trains? I get why you want redundancy, but you really only need extra elevators. If the escalator breaks, you can use the stairs (or elevator). The station is built as if lots of people live to the north and they simply don’t.

      22. Overlapping the two for a short distance also really helps with Shoreline riders that want to go north rather than south.
          Aurora is really one long corridor, with plenty of people traveling across 200th by means other than transit, The artificial break at 200th makes the E ridership a bit lower at its north end than it would be if it continued, due to the inconvenience of transferring.

      23. There is no such rule, or if did exist it definitely isn’t being applied now. The closest thing I can think of for “rule is that an operator is allowed to either drop off or pick up riders outside of a transit district” is more around funding. After all the money from the transit district is supposed to be spent within the transit district. But I doubt other agencies typically care if an outside agency wants to subsidize their service.

          > That’s why I don’t think you can hop a CT bus to get around inside Downtown Seattle, for example.

          You can, I’ve done it multiple times — however they don’t have to make it easy. The CT express busses cost 4.50 rather than the local bus price. (There’s a bit complicated local/express fare overrides as well, I’ve never used them https://seattletransitblog.com/2017/08/18/community-transit-proposes-simpler-fare-for-some-commuter-routes/)

          Also some of them use the coach bus type which isn’t really well suited for quick trips/deboarding with the staircase.

          > It’s the same with Skagit Transit in Everett: the 99 only lets people off in Snohomish County stops, except at Everett Station. Pull the cord to get off? You’re out of luck until Mt Vernon.

          That wasn’t Skagit that applied the rule. It was the other way around Everett Transit didn’t want it.

          “RIDER ALERT- At the request of our transit partners operating in the City of Everett, please be aware that the Route 90X functions differently along Broadway inside the city limits.”

          I’d imagine it was more around operational confusion for riders. Southbound they’d end up having to transfer to the 7 at everett station and pay for the bus again if they got on the 90x. Northbound there’d be the fare difference of the 90x being cheaper than everett transit bus routes

          https://www.skagittransit.org/90x/

          WSDOT has a study compiling all the out-of-boundary transit routes
          https://app.leg.wa.gov/ReportsToTheLegislature/Home/GetPDF?fileName=OutOfBoundaryTransitStudy_1a154eb3-03a6-484a-a90e-4db3731f29ef.pdf

          >> “ I don’t know why people think this is some bizarre policy of Snohomish County. They could run on Aurora with stops along the way if they wanted to. ”
          > I pretty sure that King County Council (because of Metro) and maybe Shoreline (approving the bus stop signs et al) would have to approve it too. Metro in particular would lose riders if those riders got on a Swift bus. Metro could ask for Swift to compensate Metro for losing those riders, for example. Conversely, Metro could subsidize CT for providing the connection.

          I think you’re kinda overstating the power of king county/shoreline here. Additionally it’s a state route 99 not a local road. Perhaps shoreline could pull some legal shenanigans (not approving new bus stops) to prevent the bus from running there, but WSDOT/federal government would not look kindly after they spent a hundred million improving aurora avenue for the city to stop transit. I’m sure the two agencies would coordinate together to avoid duplicating service, but I highly doubt Metro can or would stop Community Transit from running buses on Aurora Avenue if they insisted on it.

      24. Didn’t CT have two alternatives for Swift Blue, the one we wanted with a station at 192nd & Aurora and then going on 185th to the station, and the other the current one? And CT chose the current one partly because of those people in Edmonds who said it would be a hardship for them if they couldn’t take it to shop at Aurora Village anymore? So it was internal Snohomish issues that caused it to be extended on Meridian, not that CT couldn’t put it on Aurora or that Metro or Shoreline would oppose it. Or am I imagining the other alternative?

      25. “the money from the transit district is supposed to be spent within the transit district”

          “spent within” means benefiting the district, not that it can’t have stops outside the district. The marginal cost to CT of King County riders riding Swift between two King County stops is practically zero, and the number of people who would do so is tiny compared to the total riders on Swift Blue. The same or more Snohomish riders would benefit from the station, so there’s your justification.

      26. @Mike Orr,

          “ Didn’t CT have two alternatives for Swift Blue”

          No, they had three options. The one that is now baseline via 200th, one utilizing Aurora then 185th to the Link station, and one using Aurora then 175th and then approaching the Link station from the south on 5th.

          All options originally had multiple intermediate stops in King County, however these stops proved unpopular with the public. The preference was for fast, efficient access to Link, so most intermediate stops were eliminated.

          Eventually it came down to the current baseline that has a stop at AVTC, and the other two options that had a stop at the Shoreline PAR.

          Obviously stopping at the Shoreline PAR wasn’t very enticing to SnoCo residents, and the bus-bus transfer opportunities aren’t much different there than at AVTC. So the extension via 200th won out.

          I don’t know if it was discussed, but Metro could have made the same extension of RR E to 185th St Station. It seems like at least some of the RR E riders from north Aurora would appreciate an opportunity to transfer to Link instead of taking the long, slow, slog down Aurora.

          But hey, Metro!

          At least CT has committed to provide the connection.

      27. I think Al may be confusing it with rules about transit to events. Congress has gone back on forth on that. If you run public transit to a football game, for example, it makes it tough for private companies that want to do the same thing. So Congress passed some sort of law about preventing public agencies from running transit that isn’t regularly scheduled. Republicans tend to like that rule, while Democrats oppose it. But there are no rules about agencies running service in other area — it happens all the time.

      28. Lazarus is right about the options Community Transit considered. We covered it in the blog. There was also a follow up article as well as a proposal that mentioned that survey. What I can’t find is the actual survey findings. I can only find comments by Community Transit. This is the announcement for the change:

          “We appreciate the valuable feedback we received from this process,” said Community Transit Director of Planning and Development Roland Behee. “We heard that maintaining bus-to-bus connections at Aurora Village Transit Center was a key priority, and also gained insight into rider preferences for future transit upgrades along the Highway 99 corridor.”

          Of course the irony is, this will be worse for those making a bus-to-bus transfer. It would be one thing if people preferred going to Aurora Village over making a transfer, but it turns out their first priority was bus-to-bus connections, and this will make them worse. The main bus-to-bus connection is along Aurora, from Swift to RapidRide. This trip currently involves a big delay, and that delay will continue.

          There are other connections. I can go into them if anyone wants (or you can look them up). But these transfers are not made by better by this decision — they are made worse. Instead of working together to enhance those connections, Community Transit made their changes, and then Metro responded with their changes. It should have been very easy for CT to ask Metro what route is best from a transfer standpoint. Metro would have answered quite emphatically:

          Run the bus on Aurora, with stops at 200th and 185th.

          That’s it. Do that and several things fall in place. Metro would run even more buses on 185th, knowing it will pick up riders from Snohomish County. It is worth noting that despite the attraction of Aurora Village (due almost entirely to Community Transit’s decision to send Swift there) Metro still won’t run frequent buses there. Every bus (other than Swift and RapidRide) will run every half hour, at best. In contrast, 185th, 145th and 130th will have buses running every 15 minutes. Even 175th will have a bus running every 15 minutes — even though there is no Link Station at 175th! The network is bad, and CT made it worse.

          For example, look at the map again, and ask yourself how someone from the south end of Snohomish County — living right next to a Swift bus stop — is supposed to get to Shoreline Community College. Their only option is go to Aurora Village and then transfer to the 331. So they go south, then east to the transit center. Then they wait up to a half hour for a bus only to have the bus go back west again then weave its way around slow curvy streets until they finally get to the school. It would make way more sense to have a frequent bus go across 185th and run down to the college (via Aurora and 160th). This would not only make this connection much faster (saving riders a good half hour) but it would also connect other parts of Aurora directly with the college. Those parts of Aurora would also be connected directly to Link. Not in the best possible way (riders would have to go north even though most Link destinations are to the south) but it would save some time for a lot of trips. Such a route would also connect the area around 185th (that has the kind of TOD that makes Lazarus giddy) with the college.

          If Swift kept going on Aurora and made a stop at 185th & Aurora, then that intersection is your Transit Center. It would have more buses going more places than Aurora Village TC ever will. Buses going east-west (like the 333) bend to not only serve the 185th Station, but also make that important connection. But without the connection to Swift, such a route loses a key part of their ridership. Metro was stretched too thin, and basically gave up. I would still send the 333 up to 185th (while making a more direct path to the college) but just imagine if they did that. That would make the decision by Community Transit to bypass 185th & Aurora all the more baffling.

          This is a classic case of two agencies failing to cooperate to build a good network even though the riders made it clear that was their first priority. Not one-seat rides to the shops around Aurora Village, but “bus-to-bus connections”.

      29. Oh, and take a look at the survey again: https://i0.wp.com/seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/swift_blue_expansion_map-web.jpg?w=960&ssl=1

          Notice anything? There is no stop on 185th! It is a BS survey. It forces every transfer to either be at the station or at Aurora Village, and then turns around and asks whether you want to go to Aurora Village. Of course people do! It is the only way to transfer. From a transfer standpoint, Option A adds no additional transfers. Some transfers would be better, but no new ones. In contrast, Option A with a stop on 185th offers more transfers. At a minimum there is Richmond Beach, but there is the potential for a faster, more frequent connection to Shoreline Community College.

          The survey provided a limited set of options, while ignoring the best one. They should have simply asked what was important to people. In other words, why do you use the Aurora Village Transit Center. Is it to get to the shops around there or is it to transfer other buses. It was clearly the latter, and they refused to look at the big picture and propose a set of stops that would improve bus-to-bus transfers.

          It is also odd that they list 192nd as a park and ride stop. Why would Snohomish County riders want to take a bus to a park and ride in Shoreline? That makes no sense. They didn’t list the biggest destination in the area, which is the YMCA. They could have simply put the stop down (as 192nd). The survey was BS.

          Now if you were asking Shoreline residents what they wanted, then by all means, mention that the park and ride is there. That would have made sense if Shoreline/Metro was trying to get Community Transit to build something that benefited both counties. Unfortunately, no one made an effort (or their effort failed) and riders will have bad in that area, just as they have bad transit in a lot of places.

      30. “It is also odd that they list 192nd as a park and ride stop. Why would Snohomish County riders want to take a bus to a park and ride in Shoreline?”

          Shoreline P&R is slated for redevelopment. It would have been a Link station if the Aurora alternative had been chosen. Its value as a P&R has diminished over the years. So it will probably become a mixed-use development. Depending on what retail/services it offers, it may attract Snohomish residents.

   4. Oh, and I agree about Swift. It is a major failure. It is a classic case of not wanting to upset existing riders, instead of trying to attract new ones. Swift would definitely attract riders with stops along Aurora. That route would be a “win-win” for everyone:

      1) Faster travel.
      2) More riders per mile.
      3) Better transfers from Swift to RapidRide E.

      The county borders make things worse. Metro didn’t push Community Transit hard enough, and CT is basically screwing over the users that just want to stay on SR 99.

      These weird theories about “not picking up people in the other county” are absurd. Aurora Village is in King County. So is 185th Station. That means that if someone wants to go from Link to Aurora Village they will ride Swift, even though they never leave King County. Are you saying they won’t allow riders to do the reverse?

      1. Currently, CT and Metro seem to treat 200th as an artificial barrier. CT, Everett Transit and Skagit Transit all seem to operate with weird Balkanization operation in Everett as well.

         If CT and Metro could be more cooperative across the county line, this could be such a different map! Eg: I think the primary bus to Edmonds would wind up being an Edmonds – Aurora – 185 station – Lake City bus, or something.

      2. RossB: Swift should also serve the stop pair at North 192nd Street. That pair would allow common stop transfers between the E Line and Swift. CT Route 101 could lay inside the Shoreline lot.

         Yes, riders oriented to the big box would be worse off; riders oriented to the E Line and Link would be better off. I expect there are many more of the latter.

      3. Currently, CT and Metro seem to treat 200th as an artificial barrier.

         I agree, but Metro seems to be more willing to extend into Snohomish County than the other way around. The 347 goes to Mountlake Terrace Transit Center. But it goes way out of its way to provide coverage on 48th in Snohomish County. There are no destinations there — it is nothing but houses. It is quite possible that there are plenty of riders in Snohomish County that ride nothing but a Metro bus (or buses). So not only do you have a Metro bus that is designed to connect to Community Transit buses, you have extra coverage service just for Snohomish County.

         I don’t think the reverse exists. You can take one of the express buses from one end of downtown to the other (peak direction — the only time the buses are running) but that is largely just an artifact of the design. The commuter bus stops in various places downtown, so if you want to pay, they can’t stop you. It is hardly the same.

         I have no idea how Snohomish County convinced Metro to send the 347 up 48th, but I have to assume it was some sort of cooperative agreement between the two agencies. It is this type of cooperation that is clearly missing with this restructure.

         Which brings me to eddie’s point. Yes, if the bus stopped at 192nd it would make for great same direction transfers. But the same is true of 200th. That is the beauty of that stop. You enable same stop transfers (saving riders a considerable amount of time over the Aurora Village detour) while still providing riders a chance to access the various places in the area. It is a bit more of a walk, but not that much. Many would come out ahead (if they are headed west).

         While 192nd has places that are attractive to Snohomish County residents (like the YMCA) It’s main benefit is for King County residents. This is one of those classic cases where the agencies should work together and negotiate a good solution. Maybe Metro pays for the new (fancy) Swift bus stop. Maybe Metro pays for some of the service. Maybe Metro responds in kind by adding serving in Snohomish County. It already does some of that, but Metro could take it to another level — see the 331 on my previous proposal. It is such a simple concept — you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Instead these agencies are just itchy.

         Ultimately, this is just another fuck-up. Excuse the language, but it just pisses me off that agencies can’t step back and look at the big picture and figure out a way to solve the problem.

6. From a grid perspective, it would have been really nice if the 522 continued westward one more mile to Shoreline, thereby allowing the corridors of Aurora and Bothell Way to connect with each other. As shown, trips between these corridors are mostly 3 seat rides – 522 to Link to some east/west bus.

   Crosstown routes work best when they hit as many connection points as possible. Unfortunately, it looks like Sound Transit has tunnel vision, and is focused solely on the Link connection in Seattle, while ignoring the bus connections. Speaking of which, missing bus connections in Lake City by one mile is not particularly good either.

   Imagine if the 522 continued to Lake City, then followed the path of the 77 to Shoreline, triggering ripple effects as the resources for the now redundant part of the 77 getting redeployed to other routes. Would have been nice.

   1. What would you think about cancelling the 333 between the 145th station and Shoreline CC and instead have Metro pay ST to extend the 522 to Shoreline CC? Maybe extend the 77 to 145th for local coverage rather than end it on the middle of nowhere?

      1. There are several points here.

         1) Pay ST to extend the 522 to Shoreline Community College (SCC)? Yes, absolutely. But it shouldn’t go on 145th. It should follow the 330 pathway (https://maps.app.goo.gl/95utAJKxaxtKjnRo6). That is much faster and serves a lot more people.

         If we can’t do that, I would extend the 72 to SCC using the same pathway. That provides much of the benefit, while also providing a one-seat ride from Lake City to the college.

         2) The 77 does not end in the middle of nowhere. It ends where the people are. There are very few people on 145th between the Aurora and Meridian. There are way more people on Linden (where the 77 ends). There are also people close to the freeway, but they will simply walk to the station (or walk the other way to the 72 to catch it if they are headed to Lake City). A looping 77 would add very little — the end is better as proposed.

         Now if you sent the bus to SCC, that would be a different story. I think you can make a strong case for that. I’ve personally warmed to the tail though — I think it will do well.

      2. One aspect of branded routes is that the agency adds a coach constraint; with Metro, are there enough red buses? with ST3, the Stride3 buses will be BEB and branded. The capital and service subsidy for Stride3 comes from the East King County subarea. Would they want to spend hours and buses on a direct SCC connection? Stride decisions have already been made even though implementation is several years away. I would like Stride3 to extend east to Woodinville, a real place in East King County with other transit connections; it could still serve the transit point under I-405. That is a lousy terminal. Many of the ST3 decisions disappoint.

      3. Stride 522 is supposed to be BRT and fairly frequent. The 333 is supposed to be frequent as well.

         That’s why I propose deleting the 333 between SCC and Link and replacing it with Stride, and having Metro pay for it from money that would have gone to the 333. The service cost should be about the same as they are supposed to both be frequent, and are traveling the same distance. The difference is only who gets a one seat ride to where.

         Extending the 333 through SCC only serves those wanting to go from one spot in SFH sprawl to another using the slowest bus route possible.

   2. Yes, absolutely (on both points). The 522 should go all the way across. That would connect to Aurora and Greenwood Avenue. It could end at Shoreline Community College (an excellent anchor). Likewise, it would make restructures much easier if the 522 ran through Lake City and across.

7. I’m confused by what headway means. Is this the frequency at which a route runs? Also what do the numbers mean. This is very unclear.

   1. Headway is minutes between buses. Basically “bus will come every X minutes”

   2. Yes, the terms headway and frequency are casually used interchangeably.

      Many purists say that “headway” means every 10 minutes (time between buses) but the same “frequency” is 6 buses an hour. Over time, I’ve started calling both terms “frequency” as “headway” is a bit jargon-ish.

      1. It definitely gets into definition, but strictly speaking frequency always needs a time component. Eg, 60 cycles per second is a frequency. A frequency of 10 could mean 10 buses per hour, or 10 buses per day.

         Headway really isn’t that commonly used, and most people are unfamiliar with the word. It’s what every other business would call “period.”

         It would have been better for Metro to say “Frequency” (because that’s the word people know) and “buses run every X minutes” or maybe just say “Minutes between buses” or something.

      2. According to Wikipedia:

         Headway is the distance or duration between vehicles in a transit system measured in space or time. The minimum headway is the shortest such distance or time achievable by a system without a reduction in the speed of vehicles.

         Frequency wouldn’t make any sense from a distance standpoint. In this sense, headways are a bigger issue with trains. You can’t have trains too close to each other if they are moving really fast. Same thing is true of buses or cars of course it is just that they tend to be a lot closer (so it is less of an issue). In trains it is common to say things like “we can’t run them that frequently because the minimum headways is bigger than that”.

         Now we are getting way off topic though. I generally just use “frequency” unless I am combining routes and then I tend to use “headways”. So I’ll write something like “the 347 and 348 each run every half hour, for combined 15 minute headways”.

   3. The right column of every blog page has a Definitions link. This is the one for headway:

      Headway: The time between scheduled transit vehicle departures. Routes typically operate on 30, 20, 15 or 10 minute headways.

      So yeah, in this case it is synonymous with frequency.

   4. Headway and frequency are the same (“15 minute frequency/headway”), but when you add more bus runs, frequency goes up (more frequent) but headway goes down (shorter headways). So you have to be careful with “higher” and “lower because people may interpret it the opposite of what you mean. The public is only aware of “frequency”. “Headway” is Metro’s driver/planner jargon.

      There’s a scheduling system called “managed headways”, which means that instead of running to a schedule, each bus/train runs N minutes after the last one. When a bus is late in a schedule system, the bus after it leaves on time, and may catch up to the first one. When a bus is late in a managed headway system, the bus after it waits N minutes before leaving (so it’s also late). The difference is between sending the buses as soon as possible after the scheduled time (and having large and small gaps between them) vs keeping the cadence even (which avoids bunching but keeps people waiting longer now).

      Link has managed headways daytime at times. RapidRide started with managed headways daytime, but there was a huge uproar saying managed headways are only usable if frequency is 10 minutes or better, and the actual frequency was 15 minutes. So Metro finally published a complete schedule for all RapidRide routes.

8. I am going to lament again about the 270’s weekend frequency. With the 271’s Issaquah trail jettisoned, 30-60 minutes is simply pathetic.

   I’m guessing Metro is imaging this route to get low ridership because people will ride the train around I-90 instead. Except, the Link route from Bellevue to U district is 25 minutes longer than a bus down 520 would be, especially once the transit priority Montlake exit ramp is added.

   Normally, the bus should be much faster, but when the bus is running only once an hour, compared to a train running every 10 minutes, that time advantage is wiped out, so people will end up either sucking it up and riding the train all the way around or calling an Uber, leaving the bus with nobody except for a couple people living along Bellevue Way.

   Also, I realize Metro will never do this, but I do wish the 270 would through route with some local route in the U district, allowing more parts of Seattle to the connected to Bellevue with a one seat ride (ideally, east/west to complement Link running north/south). Downtown Bellevue is becoming an increasingly big job center, and I could see a combo like 31/32->270 being quite popular if the mandatory transfer were removed.

   1. The 271 is near the top of Metro’s list of routes needing the most additional runs to fix underservice. 60-minute evenings between downtown Bellevue and the U-District is ridiculous. That’s like the bad old days in the 1980s. If Metro isn’t fixing it in the East Link restructure, then either it’s severely short drivers or hours, or something wacko is going on in the administration.

      1. I agree, but ironically they may be using East Link itself as an excuse to not doing anything about that connection. In other words, riders will be expected to go around if they can’t time the bus.

      2. It may be like the Lynnwood restructure. This was written in the depths of the recession and driver shortage. When I talked with Metro about the 10’s and 12’s frequency in the G restructure, they said they only wanted to promise what they were sure they could guarantee. So when the economy gets better or the driver shortage is lessened or Seattle’s TBD is renewed or gets larger, then it might have more frequency than specified. That happened with the Lynnwood restructure where Metro now has more hours available than it did in the last round. It probably happened in the G restructure, although it’s difficult to tell because the TBD shifted its supplemental funding from the 10 and 11 to the 49 and 60, so the hours went with it. It may happen in the Eastside restructure too. Metro seems to have reached the bottom of its hole and is gradually digging out.

   2. > Also, I realize Metro will never do this, but I do wish the 270 would through route with some local route in the U district, allowing more parts of Seattle to the connected to Bellevue with a one seat ride

      I’ve seen two different ideas for modifying the 270 (uw to Bellevue section) The east hct study (focused on lrt) kinda accidentally investigated brt options mainly for Ballard to uw and then on to Redmond. Though I guess that is more adjusting the 545.

      The other more recent idea is combing the 270 with the east-west portion of the B line for uw to Bellevue to crossroads mall.

      But anyways I guess a lot of it depends on how east link goes when it opens. King county metro seems a bit confused (not obvious to me either) as to what to do with many of the 520 bus routes

      1. “I do wish the 270 would through route with some local route in the U district, allowing more parts of Seattle to the connected to Bellevue with a one seat ride”

         It’s a first step. Get a stronger Bellevue service by speeding it up and serving more apartments, prove that 520/Montlake won’t be a bottleneck when the 520 construction is finished, and then later Metro may get better at interlining it with a Seattle east-west route. I think the suggestion was to pair it with the 45. Then you’d have a roughly diagonal Seattle route paired with its continuation in Bellevue, and it would serve popular places like Roosevelt, Greenlake, and Greenwood, and transfer to many of the North Seattle routes.

         When I lived in Bellevue I went to Greenlake for the park, Roosevelt for the stereo shops, and Greenwood for events, as much as I went to Ballard or Fremont.

      2. “The east hct study (focused on lrt) kinda accidentally investigated brt options mainly for Ballard to uw and then on to Redmond. Though I guess that is more adjusting the 545.”

         I don’t recall any BRT options in the Ballard-UW-Redmond study. The result of that study was that the UW-Redmond portion was too close to East Link: it would cannibalize more riders from it than it would generate new riders. The BRT solution is the 542, which ST did create and has been beefing up, and will beef up more when the 545 is deleted with the full Line 2.

         But extending Redmond-UW BRT to Ballard or having UW-Ballard express buses has never been suggested that I’ve heard. And for ST, it would change the 542 from an East King route into an East King/North King route, and then North King would have to come up with the money for it, and weigh where it fits in North King’s priorities. A 45th Link line is pretty high. A 45th BRT/limited-stop line hasn’t been considered. There’s the RapidRide 44 concept, but that’s a different thing, incompatible with the 542 or Stride.

         Oh, but Metro’s long-range plan has both RapidRide 270 and RapidRide 44. So it could theoretically interline them. Although that would dash the 44 serving U Village and Children’s, or keeping the 44 a trolleybus.

         That brings us back to the 45. The 45 and 271 both go north-south in the U-District. The 45 has no aspirations of serving U Village or Children’s. The 45 is a good candidate for RapidRide. In the 45/48 split, Metro chose to elevate the 48 to a RapidRide candidate, but when people voted with their feet they rode the 45 more. (Probably because it goes on University Way to the northern U-District and Roosevelt, which has more density and commercial destinations than 23rd.) So Metro could shift the candidacy to the 45, and pair it with the 270.

      3. > But extending Redmond-UW BRT to Ballard or having UW-Ballard express buses has never been suggested that I’ve heard. And for ST, it would change the 542 from an East King route into an East King/North King route, and then North King would have to come up with the money for it, and weigh where it fits in North King’s priorities.

         To clarify, the ‘central and east study’ was focused on light rail, it just studied the brt options as an alternative. That’s why I called it “accidentally investigated it”

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

         I guess technically one could interpret as two separate lines from ballard to uw and then from uw to the east side; but the lrt options are obviously meant to through run at U district so I interpreted the BRT options as through running as well.

         (As an aside, did they ever release the detailed study for this, rather than just the briefing/summary?)

      4. >A 45th Link line is pretty high. A 45th BRT/limited-stop line hasn’t been considered. There’s the RapidRide 44 concept, but that’s a different thing, incompatible with the 542 or Stride.

         It’s kinda interesting the study. It proposed running the ‘brt’ along 50th instead. I’m not quite sure why.

         UD to Ballard via Wallingford option A1 “BRT in a combination of arterial mixed traffic and exclusive busway along N 50th St.”

         I guess maybe it thought it’s easier to get BAT/bus lanes on that stretch?

      5. Mike Orr: in March 2016, routes 71, 73, and 74 might have been paired with a Route 271 turnback, to and from BTC only. Instead, routes 71 and 73 were live-looped.

      6. “I guess technically one could interpret as two separate lines from ballard to uw and then from uw to the east side”

         They’re two separate projects; they were just combined for the study. ST could approve one or the other or both. I think UW-Redmond has lost favor now that the results have come out. So ST might still elevate Ballard-UW someday. After that it could just stop, or extend it to South Kirkland P&R (to become part of the Issaquah line), or send it north to downtown Kirkland.

      7. “It proposed running the ‘brt’ along 50th instead. I’m not quite sure why.”

         I haven’t seen that option, but probably to avoid traffic congestion on 45th.

      8. @Mike

         > They’re two separate projects; they were just combined for the study. ST could approve one or the other or both.
         > So ST might still elevate Ballard-UW someday

         It’s not really quite that separate. If you look at the alignments in the document it connects with each other. I understand you and others like the ballard to uw light rail stub idea; but generally all of ST documents almost always connect/ suggest them together either to the ballard line or to a suggested 520 line.

         > After that it could just stop, or extend it to South Kirkland P&R (to become part of the Issaquah line), or send it north to downtown Kirkland.

         Kinda interesting idea, I guess the issaquah line then becomes somewhat useful

   3. Also, I realize Metro will never do this, but I do wish the 270 would through route with some local route in the U district, allowing more parts of Seattle to the connected to Bellevue with a one seat ride (ideally, east/west to complement Link running north/south).

      With a shorter 270 that sounds intriguing but I don’t think you can pull it off. The 31/32 wouldn’t work for several reasons. The geography is good now — it is east-west and connects Fremont with the U-District, U-Village and Children’s. The other issue is that the buses would cross the bridge twice (making it especially unreliable).

      It doesn’t make sense to combine it with a bus that goes to the northeast. You would want to combine it with something like the 45 or the future 77. Of course then you are definitely going by Link stations. The 44 is really the only one that would make sense from a geographic standpoint, but I fear that would be too long.

9. I feel like I’m tilting at windmills, but I’m unhappy with Metro and ST’s plan for Bothell Way. Both the 372/72 and 522/S3 will turn to go down 145th. There are several consequences.

   Weekday frequency north of 130th will be cut from the current 8 buses/hour to 6 buses/hour.

   Because the S3 is an express BRT, several local stops will be closed such as 145th and 170th. 145th is my main gripe because from that intersection it’s a 5-8 block walk in any direction to reach a remaining stop.

   Transit between Lake City and the Northshore is cut. And since the logical transfer stop at 145th will be closed, there’s no convemient transfer between the 72 and S3.

   I live in the area, so it impacts me directly. But am I making too big a deal about this?

   1. If Lake City to Kenmore really does require a detour all the way to I-5/145th, on top of a transfer, that would seem quite bad.

10. When SE Seattle routes were redesigned a decade ago, Route 50 was supposed to run every 15 or 20 minutes all day. That promise went away due to low ridership. Today it’s every 30 minutes most of the day.

    Which ones of these promised 15 minute day-long routes will see service cut because of low ridership?

    1. It’s the driver shortage that’s hindering bus service now. King County is now in an equity emphasis (for traditionally lower-income/minority communities), and the 50 is one of the beneficiaries of that. But it can’t increase service now due to limited drivers. “Low ridership” is just relative to other routes. E.g., Metro boosted the 7, 36, and H, and I’ve heard mixed reports about the C. The 50 had extra service during the bridge closure, and it kept it for a while after that. Any increases to the 50 would probably be in the western half first, I would guess. Which part of the 50 do you think 15-minute service is most important? Or do you think the need is the same across all of it?

       1. I’m not faulting Metro for low ridership on Route 50. I’m merely pointing out that if a route doesn’t have robust ridership, its frequency will get cut back by Metro. That corridor in SE Seattle lost its direct bus to Downtown with a promise of better frequency with the restructure, and after the restructure that promise was quickly abandoned.

          I see so many 15 minute routes proposed here. It’s ideal! However, I just don’t see all of them being maintained at that higher frequency. Some will get cut back to 20 or 30 minute frequency as low ridership routes get cut back when budget and/or staffing issues arise. It’s just what transit agencies do. Transit agencies set performance standards are reduce service if a route doesn’t meet them, particularly in times of fiscal austerity.

          So any guess which routes are most likely to get cut back due to low ridership?

       2. > . Any increases to the 50 would probably be in the western half first, I would guess.

          The 50 is just generally flawed. I’d revert it to being split and heading back downtown and reach at least cid for transfers. sodo station just isn’t strong enough of an anchor.

          > Which part of the 50 do you think 15-minute service is most important?

          I think 15 minute frequency is just too much of a stretch for the route given past attempts at it, and aim for 20 minute frequency first. For connecting to SE Seattle I’d just have the western half head up sodo bus way so one could transfer to the eastern 50 (aka old 39) or use the link light rail at sodo station.

          Whenever I try to use the 50 right now, I end up having to transfer twice. From ballard to alki if I take the D then have to transfer to the C or link and then transfer to the 50. There just aren’t that many opportunities in general for people going directly from west seattle to se seattle that are next to this bus line. Even in se seattle from say othello it’s the same amount of time to take the link instead.

    2. I guess in a similar vein, the new 61 is probably one of the weaker ones (relative to it’s 15 minute frequency). Though I guess it’s short length means it doesn’t cost that much.

       The 333 has pretty circuitous routing and also 15 minute frequency but it connects to the shoreline community center so I think it’ll be fine.

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