Month: July 2024

Under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the Federal Transit Administration has awarded a third round of funding for bus transit totaling $1.5B nationwide. A total of approximately $47.2M was awarded to transit operators in Washington state, mostly to fund purchases of electric buses and to complete maintenance facility renovations.

Here’s the list of recipients in our state, per the FTA announcement: Pierce Transit, King County Metro, Link Transit in Chelan County, and WSDOT on behalf of Grays Harbor, Clallam Transit, and Island Transit.

Several Eastside transit projects will open over the next six years and converge in Bellevue for transfers between them:

• The full 2 Line (2025): Lynnwood, downtown Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond
• bus restructure (2025): Metro and ST Express (STB routes list)
• Stride S1 (2027/2028): Lynnwood, Bothell, Kirkland, Bellevue
• Stride S2 (2027/2028): Burien, Renton
• RapidRide K (2030): Totem Lake, Kirkland, Bellevue, Bellevue College, Eastgate

What will each neighborhood have access to with a one- or two-seat ride? How good will their transfers be? This determines how many choices they have for work, errands, shopping, and recreation within a reasonable travel time. That set of choices is the their freedom to get around without a car. This is the core of why I participate in STB: to ensure that the most people have the most choices in their convenient transit circle. Factors include where the routes go, how frequent they are, and how long the transfer walk is between them. It’s worth measuring what the 2030 network’s impact will be to the people living in it: how many areas have good transit freedom, and what lower-income areas will have.

This article focuses on the transfers, because that’s one of those emergent phenomena that can’t be seen in the individual routes so it can easily be missed. I’m defining a “good” transfer walk as less than 2 minutes, a “mediocre” walk as 2-5 minutes, and a “bad” walk as more than 5 minutes. Below are my initial impressions of the total 2030 network. Let’s crowdsource this in the comments to make any corrections or add details I missed. This will also help identify issues for feedback on the RapidRide K open house and its alternatives.

This is an open thread.

After pausing work on RapidRide K (Totem Lake to Eastgate via Kirkland and Bellevue) in 2020, King County Metro has restarted planning and design of the project. Building on the planning effort started in 2019, Metro is seeking community input on various aspects of project design, including walking/rolling access and the siting of a few specific stations. The route is currently expected to start service in 2030.

RapidRide K will replace portions of current routes 239, 250, 255, and 271, and include new features familiar to other recently-opened and upcoming RapidRide lines such as upgrades for reliability, improved bus stations, and increased frequencies.

The survey first asks how the respondent is related to the route, what types of transportation they use most often, how they might be drawn to use public transportation more often, and a few questions about how they would get to and from stations on the route.

Then, it asks for input on routing and station locations, which we discuss here.

Following the COVID lockdowns, many transit agencies had to contend not only with recovering lost riders but also ensuring service reliability and delivery. In addition to the pandemic itself, subsequent crises in staffing and supply chains hit transit systems hard. Drivers and maintenance staff were hard to find and spare parts needed for vehicle maintenance were often held up in other parts of the world.

Even as riders were slowly returning to transit, this double whammy meant that bus trips were often getting cancelled either due to a lack of an operator or lack of a bus. Anecdotally, I experienced this a lot myself throughout 2021-2023. Early on, it was hard to find information about what was cancelled and it wasn’t uncommon to find a scheduled trip never end up going “live” on real-time apps like OneBusAway.

Countdowns: Lynnwood Link (August 30); RapidRide G (September 14)

Transit Updates:

King County Metro Charts Slow RapidRide Expansion in new project prioritization report.

The Gig Harbor Trolley is running now until August 31.

Pierce Transit is seeking input on its long range plan, Destination 2045.

A couple Link 1 Line downtown tunnel station entrance closures:
– The Pioneer Square Station entrance on 3rd Avenue and Yesler Way (Exit C) will be fully closed until August 9 for maintenance and repair.
– The University Street Station (soon to be Symphony Station) entrance on 3rd Avenue and Seneca Street (Exit C) be fully closed until July 17 for installation of a new electronic messaging sign.