On May 13, King County Metro will restore 79 weekday trips to 6 Dial-A-Ride Transit (DART) service routes. DART routes provide a combination of a fixed scheduled and reservation-based on-demand service along an optional route. There are currently 14 DART routes, which are operated by Hopelink, a non-profit partner of Metro. Services were significantly cut in response to lost ridership and reduced funding during the pandemic, and have slowly been returning. Some services, like Route 630, have been funded by the local municipality to provide supplemental service. When asked, King County Public Relations indicated that increased DART service was made possible by increased availability of drivers.
Routes and additional weekday trips are as follows:
Route 204 (Mercer Island): 10 more trips, starting earlier in the morning and running later in the evening. Frequency will improve to half-hourly during peak periods.
Route 630 (Mercer Island – Downtown – First Hill): 4 more trips, doubling service each direction to four trips each way.
Route 901 (Federal Way – Mirror Lake): 26 more trips, improving service to half-hourly for most of the day.
Route 903 (Federal Way – Twin Lakes): 13 more trips, improving service to half-hourly for most of the day.
Route 906 (Tukwila – Fairwood): 22 more trips, improving service to 20-30 minute headways for most of the day.
Route 915 (Auburn – Enumclaw): 4 more trips, improving service during peak periods.
On route 915, does anybody ride the bus all the way to Enumclaw? Or, is the bulk of the ridership just short trips within the part of the route that goes through Auburn? If the latter, should the route be shortened?
A shockingly large amount of people ride all the way to Enumclaw.
Had a classmate when I was studying at Highline College who commuted all the way from Enumclaw to Des Moines for classes. They also have a peak bus iirc that goes to Auburn to connect with morning and evening Sounder.
@Zach B, unfortunately they don’t have that peak bus anymore. I’m pretty sure it went away during COVID.
Yeah, the 186 was axed in the 2020 South KC restructure
Finally. As a Mercer Islander (cue laughter), the fact that we are only served by Hopelink routes south of I-90 is part of the reason why many don’t use transit. Hopelink’s buses don’t track, can be a little unreliable at times, and don’t leave much room for extra capacity. Plus, despite all these changes, Sunday service won’t come until the 1-Line opens across Lake Washington. We all know how well that’s going.
Is there any good reason why HopeLink buses can’t track? I have always found this annoying with Trailhead Direct, which also uses HopeLink buses and doesn’t track.
I think since they can go off route it might mess with the trackers and show the buses in other places. It would be nice to have a regular bus running on busier DART corridors like Willows Road, SR 164/169, and S 180th, all of which have been proposed in the long range plan to have more service.