King County Metro has announced that the 2024 season of Trailhead Direct service starts on May 25, operating weekends and federal holidays (Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day) through the summer (ending September 15) with routes serving the Issaquah Alps and the Mount Si area. Trailhead Direct is operated by Metro in partnership with King County Parks, the Seattle Department of Transportation, and with promotional support from Amazon.
Trailhead Direct will provide service every 30 minutes from the Sound Transit Capitol Hill Link station to stops at trailheads near Mount Si, Mount Teneriffe, and Little Si. Hourly trips will start at the Mount Baker Transit Center and go to Margaret’s Way, Squak Mountain, Chirico Trail-Poo Poo Point, High School Trail, and East Sunset Way.
Trailhead Direct started as a pilot project in 2017 using 19-seat transit vans in an effort to reduce overcrowding and illegal parking at trailheads in the Issaquah Alps. The service was renewed for following years, recording 20,373 boardings in 2018 and 35,838 boardings in 2019, when Metro operated four Trailhead Direct routes. The service was cancelled for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and restarted with two routes in 2021. Serviced was reduced to just the Mount Si Route for 2022 and 2023.
This year, service will be provided by a mix of vehicles ranging in capacity from 14 to 32 seats and will have a rack for either two or three bikes. Fares are the same as typical King County buses, and similarly can be paid with either by cash, ORCA, or TransitGo pass.
The Mount Si Route
Start point: Bus stop at Broadway and East Denny Way across from Sound Transit’s Capitol Hill Link light rail Station.
End point: Bus stop at East John Street and Broadway East, adjacent to Sound Transit’s Capitol Hill Link light rail station.
The bus will also stop on Fourth Avenue in downtown Seattle near the University Street Link light rail station and the North Bend Park-and-Ride. The Eastgate Park and Ride stop in Bellevue will be closed for the 2024 Trailhead Direct season.
The Issaquah Alps Route
Trailheads: Margaret’s Way, Chirico Trail-Poo Poo Point, Squak Mountain, the High School Trail, and East Sunset Way
Start and end point: Mount Baker Transit Center Bay 2 across the street from Sound Transit’s Mount Baker Link light rail station on Rainier Avenue South.
The bus will also stop at the Issaquah Transit Center. As mentioned above, the Eastgate Park and Ride stop in Bellevue will be closed for the 2024 Trailhead Direct season.
To keep up with updates, riders can sign up for email updates on the Trailhead Direct website, or simply follow their various social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
I have to wonder if skipping a 2 Line connection (South Bellevue Link station just a few blocks from I-90 with HOV access ramps) is the right decision. I understand that 2 Line gets low ridership, but these are niche services that could be more useful by such a stop that would seemingly only add 2-3 minutes to the route each way. Surely there are hiking residents across Bellevue that would utilize the opportunity if they had it by using one of the Link trains now running every 10 minutes as a quick shuttle to reach the stop.
Are there Eastsiders that have an opinion about this?
I’m not an East Sider but here is my take:
Just to back up here, the program is about dealing with the really crowded trailhead parking lots as much as it is providing a car-free alternative to get to the mountains. The loss of parking at Eastgate is a big deal, especially for that first route. If you are driving from Seattle, Eastgate is appealing as it saves about half the driving. If you are driving from various parts of the East Side, Eastgate is even more appealing. In contrast, the parking lot in North Bend really only works as overflow parking. Thus people are way more likely to drive all the way to trailhead, see if the lot is full then maybe go back and park in North Bend. Some people will do this anyway, but you want to encourage people to go directly to the park and ride, and putting the only one in North Bend makes this a lot less appealing.
The obvious solution is to just stop off at South Bellevue. The parking lot is huge and probably has a lot of space on summer weekends. It takes a little longer to serve it, but not that much longer. For the other parking lot I think the Issaquah Transit Center is fine. Eastgate (or even South Bellevue) wouldn’t save that much driving. I also think the other bus provides more in the way of loop trips.
But that isn’t the only way to access the shuttles of course. Not everyone is going to drive to a park and ride. Again, the case for stopping at South Bellevue is strong. There is some population density along East Link. For riders from Downtown Bellevue, it is a pretty easy and quick connection. Several buses also serve the station. From what I can tell, South Bellevue is also not that hard to reach by bike (from say, Factoria). You could make a similar case for having the other line stop at South Bellevue but at least it stops at Issaquah Transit Center (which is served by several East Side buses).
Long story short: I would definitely have the first route (the one to North Bend) stop there, but I’m not so sure about the other bus (to Issaquah).
Long term, both trailhead direct routes should simply be truncated at South Bellevue and not even go to Seattle at all. It would both save operating costs and make the service more reliable.
In the short term, though, I don’t think this is feasible until the 2 line is running across the lake – the extra connection to the 550 would lose too many Seattle riders. For the short term, the only two reasonable options are to either stop at Eastgate freeway station or stop at South Bellevue. South Bellevue is generally better for eastsiders, but takes more time for people already on the bus, so there’s a tradeoff.
Speaking of which, is there any reason why trailhead direct can’t stop at Eastgate this year? What has changed, given that it serves that stop every prior year?
There is some construction going on on I-90 around the Eastgate freeway station area (they’re building a fish culvert). If the construction really requires closing Eastgate freeway station for a few months, then having Trailhead Direct serve south Bellevue station should be a no-brainer. RossB makes a good point that for people living along the Link line, it would make trailhead direct much more accessible.
yes, South Bellevue in long term. today, why serve Capitol Hill? why not use Mt. Baker for both?
Mt. Baker is a pain to reach from anywhere other than SE Seattle. You have to sit through the slowest part of Link to get to the bus stop, on top of the bus getting stuck in traffic on Rainier between the transit center and the freeway.
Capitol Hill and downtown are much more easily accessible from a much larger swath of the city.
Mt Baker is a significant overhead to get to, as I saw when I rode it once. Service hours spent on slow streets. Capitol Hill and North Seattle have the largest concentration of non-driving hikers, and Capitol Hill is the closest point. Once the full 2 Link opens, it makes sense to move the transfer point to the Eastside.
It is weird that they serve two different places in Seattle. Mount Baker is good, but downtown is better. Why not have both serve downtown?
Also, just noticed that the Issaquah Alps route is reduced to just once per hour. This is very unattractive for return trips, which are harder to time, and at High School/East Sunset Way trailheads, people will likely get home much more quickly by riding ST 554 instead.
If forced to choose, I think a shuttle from Issaquah transit center that runs every 30 minutes is still better than a bus to Mt. Baker that runs only every hour…but the connections with the 554 must be well timed and, in the morning, the trailhead shuttle must offer a promise to wait if the incoming 554 is late.
The long-term speculation is where Trailhead Direct will terminate when the full 2 Line starts. The most convenient freeway-wise is South Bellevue, and it has a P&R. Other possible locations are Bellevue Downtown or one of the Redmond stations. Eastgate is unlikely because it’s not on Link, so only a few areas have a one-seat ride to it. Redmond is unlikely because of the overhead of going south to I-90 on 148th. Seattle is unlikely because it would overlap with Link too much. Mercer Island is unlikely because Eastsiders would have to backtrack to it. Bellevue Downtown has some merit, since more bus routes transfer there and it’s more of a pedestrian area, but it doesn’t have a P&R for carpools or those not on a bus route.
South Bellevue is a slam dunk for this service, I’d be shocked if they do anything else. Connects to Link for riders from Seattle, the TC makes the operations easy, and the P&R is large and has easy freeway access from N & S.
Routes will connect to Eastgate via the freeway stop, so little value in truncating there and missing Link. MI & Bellevue
I could see Downtown Bellevue if it also stopped at Eastgate. That way people can park and ride while it also connects to the main transit center on the East Side (and gets a lot more one-seat riders).
Coming from Seattle, needing to backtrack on Link to downtown Bellevue or ride an additional bus from South Bellevue to Eastgate to get to the trailhead bus would be very annoying. It needs to stop at South Bellevue. It’s the only station that’s a one-seat ride from every Link station in Seattle and eastside, with no backtracking.
Not “every Link station in Seattle”, “every Link station on Line 2 in Seattle”.
Grant, that’s most Link stations in Seattle, it’s not nearly “all”.