2 Line Trip Report

48 Replies to “2 Line Trip Report”

1. Per ridership estimates, Link is running as two-car trains. So double your per car estimates to get a per train estimate.

   Also, ELSL is running every 12 mins, whereas the 245 runs every hour (IIRC). So multiply your single car estimates for the ELSL by 2 to get a per train estimate, and then by 5 to get a per hour estimate. Only this total ridership per hour estimate can be compared to the hourly 245 number (again, if I remember the frequency right).

   Also, given the routing I would expect the ELSL to have more commute type riders than the 245. So if you’re not traveling at peak commute times you won’t see peak 2-Line ridership.

   My sources tell me that ELSL ridership is hovering in the 4000 to 5000 range. That number has not been officially published yet, but I trust my sources.

   1. Frequencies:

      550: 15 minutes weekdays & Saturdays until 7pm. Otherwise 30 minutes.

      221: 30 minutes weekdays until 6pm. Otherwise hourly.

      226: 30 minutes every day until 7pm. Otherwise hourly.

      245: 15 minutes weekdays until 7pm. 30 minutes weekends and weekday evenings. 60 minutes weekend evenings.

      1. If only ST had functionally (signs and close bus stops) connected the 1 Line – 2 Line with the existing 550 bus at CID, the temporary connection would be much more effective and easy to use leading to a smooth transition to the full 2 Line operation. As it is the 2 Line segment is thinly used.

   2. ELSL has a 10-minute headway, not 12; the average wait is five minutes.

      1. Route 245 has 15/15/30 headway. See: https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/schedules-and-maps/245

      2. @eddie,

         Ya, I got the 245 mixed up with some other route. I don’t get to the Eastside very often. I’ve been told I don’t dress well enough to be on that side of the lake.

2. How does the travel time compare to taking the 545 to Redmond tech (instead of 550 + 2 line) and the 245 from there?

   These are the kinds of trips that will be interesting where traveling across SR 520 wil be faster but since the 2 line does a loop around I-90 it adds a substantial amount of time to the trip. This is amplified when considering trips from UW or farther north or from Redmond past Redmond tech. Will be interesting to compare ridership of 542 to link.

   1. Living in the area, I would rather try taking the 212 or 554 (whichever comes first) to Eastgate, and then the 221 or 245 (again, whichever comes first) from there. Get the number of connections down as much as you can. No matter what the trip planner might say, connections are unreliable here because the schedule is usually wishful thinking.

      And the 550 is just so… slow. Why does it have that long stretch down Bellevue Way? Nobody goes there. It should just get on 405 from downtown and go directly to Mercer Island.

      That all said… I understand the desire to use Link, even if it’s slower. It is so much more pleasant than the bus. Quieter and smoother.

      1. I tried the 554 twice but it’s half-hourly even peak hours. The 212 et all don’t help when they’re going the wrong way or not running at all. All the routes between Lake Hills and Eastgate are slow because they make so many turns and crawl through Bellevue College. And some of the routes only go to the Eastgate P&R, which is short of the 554 freeway stops.

      2. And the 550 is just so… slow. Why does it have that long stretch down Bellevue Way? It should just get on 405 from downtown and go directly to Mercer Island.

         It is odd, especially when you consider the primary goal of ST Express is to connect major destinations via a bus that runs, well, as an express. Of course there are advantages to the current approach. It does get some riders (or at least it did). If nothing else it covers Bellevue Way. If the bus ran express then Metro would have to send a different bus there. Still, it is weird that the 550 isn’t like the old 41; express between the two main destinations, but extended to serve additional areas beyond that. The 550 could run express to Downtown Bellevue and then go to some other area of downtown. Hell, it could loop around and continue to serve South Bellevue. That way the majority of riders (Downtown Bellevue to Downtown Seattle) would get there much faster, while riders along Bellevue Way would still get there. Of course it is too late now.

      3. It goes back to when the 550 was created. Its predecessors served Bellevue Way (although they diverged south of SE 8th Street to 108th or 104th). ST asked the public whether the 550 should be on Bellevue Way or 405, and the majority of feedback was for Bellevue Way.

         It runs pretty robustly on Bellevue Way; it’s not slow. It’s like the C or 522. It’s faster than any other bus in Bellevue.

      4. So, in East Link Connections, why is conceptual Route 554 serving Bellevue Way? Is it just inertia? Because it has had ST blue coaches from Route 550 it should ST blue coaches after the restructure? Why not have a Metro route serve Bellevue Way? It could be a revised Route 240. ELC has Route 240 on 108th Avenue SE on the back side of Bellevue High; that street now has Route 241 and speed bumps.

      5. “So, in East Link Connections, why is conceptual Route 554 serving Bellevue Way? Is it just inertia? Because it has had ST blue coaches from Route 550 it should ST blue coaches after the restructure? Why not have a Metro route serve Bellevue Way? It could be a revised Route 240. ELC has Route 240 on 108th Avenue SE on the back side of Bellevue High; that street now has Route 241 and speed bumps”.

         Rerouting the 554 from Mercer Island to S. Bellevue Park and Ride and then to Bellevue Way between Main and NE 8th was not inertia. Just the opposite. ST always intended the 554 to truncate at Mercer Island where it stops today on its way to Seattle when East Link opens across the lake.

         Issaquah during phase three of the eastside transit restructure decided it would rather have the 554 go to S. Bellevue and then Bellevue Way. S. Bellevue always made more sense than Mercer Island because Mercer Island required riders from Issaquah to backtrack to Bellevue on Link, and riders hate backtracking (and hate transfers).

         Bellevue agreed with the idea because it wants those workers to go to downtown Bellevue and not Seattle, and in fact we are seeing many more eastsiders working on the eastside rather than commuting into Seattle. Recent leasing data confirms that. Crosslake bus ridership is down significantly from 2018.

         ST agreed but initially balked at continuing the 554 from S. Bellevue to Bellevue Way because it duplicates East Link, but Issaquah felt its citizens would prefer a one seat ride, and in fact East Link does not go to Bellevue Way, but to 110th/112th. ST of course wanted a forced transfer at S. Bellevue despite only two stops to Bellevue from S Bellevue to goose its ridership numbers.

         Two interesting historical notes are much of the original eastside transit restructure was based on ST’s ridership estimates of 47,000 to 53,000/day. At first Metro went along which led to years of litigation with Mercer Island over the intercept, until its budget got tight, and until it realized ST was smoking crack. Instead, Metro today is eliminating peak runs into Seattle that would have truncated on Mercer Island. The second is Bellevue’s initial reluctance to having S. Bellevue serve as an intercept for some routes was because Bellevue thought the buses would come from south of I-90 (Renton et al) not Issaquah, Sammamish, North Bend, Snoqualmie. Once it realized its mistake it withdrew any objection to the 554 routing to S. Bellevue and then to Bellevue Way because Bellevue wants those workers (and why East Link doesn’t serve south of I-90 and will instead serve Issaquah one day despite very low ridership estimates for the cost).

         A third interesting question is whether the 554 would still go to Mercer Island had East Link opened in 2021. It would have been harder to change existing routes than future routes.

         The 554 never made sense truncating on Mercer Island, even pre-pandemic, but ST is very downtown Seattle oriented which made sense 10 years ago when Eastside park and rides were bursting with eastsiders commuting to Seattle. The new route is better if duplicative of East Link from S. Bellevue to Bellevue to some extent.

         Metro doesn’t have the money to add such an expensive route as the 554 will take, and the 554 was always designed and budgeted to operate after the full East Link opens, just to Mercer Island, which as I noted was poor transit designing. This is a case of the local cities understanding their citizens and transit needs better than ST.

         The eastside subarea has plenty of money for such a minor change in the route of the 554, the only additional cost being from S. Bellevue to Bellevue Way East Link does not serve. A bigger question is whether Issaquah will demand a one seat bus from Issaquah to downtown Seattle a la the 554 when East Link opens across the lake until Issaquah Link opens.

      6. Isn’t that because the conceptual 554 has a transfer at South Bellevue toward Seattle?

      7. “Issaquah during phase three of the eastside transit restructure decided it would rather have the 554 go to S. Bellevue and then Bellevue Way. S. Bellevue always made more sense than Mercer Island because Mercer Island required riders from Issaquah to backtrack to Bellevue on Link … Bellevue agreed with the idea because it wants those workers to go to downtown Bellevue and not Seattle … ST agreed but initially balked at continuing the 554 from S. Bellevue to Bellevue Way because it duplicates East Link, but Issaquah felt its citizens would prefer a one seat ride, and in fact East Link does not go to Bellevue Way, but to 110th/112th. ST of course wanted a forced transfer at S. Bellevue despite only two stops to Bellevue from S Bellevue to goose its ridership numbers …”

         This is uncannily like the argument of a certain banned commentator from Mercer Island, that Issaquah and Bellevue initiated the reroute for these reasons and prevailed on ST, and ST had this motivation. If it is the same person, I’m glad they’re being more responsible now (not hijacking a lot of threads or overwhelming articles or attacking people), so keep up the good work. If it’s a different person, it’s surprising the 554 argument is so identical, but it’s possible two people in different cities have the same view.

         I still disagree with this argument. The Bellevue Way segment backfills current 550 and 556 service that would otherwise be lost, and expands Issaquah-Bellevue express service from peak-only to all day. The latter is a longstanding goal of ST and the cities, and is sensible from a transit-network perspective. You want Walnut Creek to be well-connected to Oakland and not just San Francisco; it’s healthy if most trips are within the subarea (East Bay, Eastside). At the same time, with several hundred thousand people on both sides of the bay/lake, even if only a minority of trips are across the water, that’s still tens of thousands of people a day, and that deserves rail or comparable high-capacity transit. (ST Express is not comparable: it’s too infrequent and gets caught in highway congestion.)

      8. So, in East Link Connections, why is conceptual Route 554 serving Bellevue Way?

         One theory: To mimic Issaquah Link. Metro is basically running the express buses to Mercer Island, while ST runs the 554, which will make a lot more stops along the way. It seems backwards (shouldn’t the ST Express bus be the express) but it does follow the future Link pattern.

         Or maybe it just worked out that way. Just to back up here, consider the network (irrespective of the agencies) from Issaquah Highlands. It is quite reasonable to have buses from Issaquah serve both Downtown Bellevue and Mercer Island. Likewise, it is quite reasonable that one of the buses serves the central part of Issaquah, while the other(s) run express. It also makes sense to have the buses that keep going (e. g. to North Bend) be the express, while the bus that ends in the Highlands serve central Issaquah. So the routing seems sensible in that respect.

         So why is ST running one bus and not the other? I think that may just be arbitrary. For the most part, ST service on the East Side is just the same as Metro service. Different colored buses, but the same basic routes. But there are only so many ST buses. They want to match up the routes with the number of buses they have. Maybe they ended up with this pattern because having ST run the 215 and 269 was just too much.

         In general it is clear that the Highlands are getting premium service when East Link is finished. They get buses every fifteen minutes to Mercer Island and buses every fifteen minutes to Downtown Bellevue.

      9. OK, in reading some of the other comments I realize I may have misinterpreted the question. I suppose it can be considered a followup. Should the bus from Issaquah to Bellevue make any stops along Bellevue Way or should it just run via the freeway to the station?

         I think there are issues with skipping Bellevue Way:

         1) It requires extra service (someone has to backfill Bellevue Way).
         2) It is very challenging (if not illegal) to go from the Eastgate freeway station to northbound 405. This means you either take the slow way to Bellevue anyway, or you skip Eastgate. Even if you skip Eastgate there are no HOV lanes the bus can use to go from Issaquah to Bellevue (or back).
         3) There aren’t that many people going from Issaquah to Bellevue.

         In contrast the case for an express from Seattle to Downtown Bellevue is much stronger:

         1) Yes, it requires extra service, but that is the only real drawback.
         2) It can take advantage of the HOV lanes the entire way.
         3) There are a lot of people going from Downtown Seattle to Downtown Bellevue. Not only is it the overwhelming pattern for the existing bus, but it has high numbers overall (especially compared to everything else on the East Side).

      10. If you are referring to Daniel Thompson Mike, I am not Daniel Thompson, although I have wondered whether some of the newer posters that seem to mimic the attacks on Lazarus by some administrators are not pseudonyms for an administrator or two.

          Yes, I remember Daniel explaining this history of phase three of the transit restructure on this blog. You didn’t even know it was phase three IIRC, and thought the decision to truncate the 554 at S. Bellevue was temporary and would change back in phase three.

          If two people tell you England declared war on Germany on Sept. 3, 1939 after Germany invaded Poland it doesn’t mean they are the same person. It simply means that is the correct history.

          ST did not get to phase three of the eastside transit restructure, when ST was still claiming East Link would carry 47,000 to 53,000 riders/day mostly to downtown Seattle, and decide to switch the 554 from Mercer Island to S. Bellevue, and then continue it on to Bellevue Way. When was the last time ST and Metro spent years implementing a major transit restructure for the opening of a major part of Link only to change probably the most important feeder bus route in phase three?

          Do you really think ST did this on its own, or wanted to? ST just did not understand the work and commuting patterns on the eastside post pandemic.

          I understand you,

          “still disagree with this argument. The Bellevue Way segment backfills current 550 and 556 service that would otherwise be lost, and expands Issaquah-Bellevue express service from peak-only to all day. The latter is a longstanding goal of ST and the cities, and is sensible from a transit-network perspective”

          but you don’t supply any facts or data for your opinion, and your opinion doesn’t explain why ST originally routed the 554 to Mercer Island if it is a “long standing goal” to backfill the 550 and 556.

          For over six years, from 2017 when the intercept was first proposed at Mercer Island, ST has insisted the 554 truncate on Mercer Island, including six years of litigation it won. ST believes East Link backfills the 550 which is why it is eliminating it after East Link opens.

          Truncating the 554 on Mercer Island never made good transit sense (we agree on that, you belatedly). Forcing riders from Issaquah to backtrack on East Link to S. Bellevue and then to 110th and 112th made no transit sense, but ST insisted during six years of litigation it did. How many times on this blog have we bemoaned the fact East Link does not serve Bellevue Way between Main and NE 8th? When was the last time you walked up 6th from the east side of 110th to Bellevue Way?

          Please focus your comments on the argument and discussion rather than attacking those who post. Recently it is the blog’s administrators’ who are the biggest violators of the blog’s rules of conduct and you are driving away those who might want to post. It is rare for editors or administrators to submit content, so please be more careful of your dual role.

      11. Half the 550 riders get on/off at Bellevue Way & NE 4th (Bellevue Square). A smaller chunk get on/off at Bellevue Way & Main. SE 3rd is Bellevue High School. While most of these people are going to Seattle — or just within downtown Bellevue — and not to Issaquah — it still complements service to Link. Even if one-seat Issaquah ridership can’t reach one-seat Seattle ridership, there’s still some sense in having an ST Express “complement” on Bellevue Way.

          It’s a bit like the D and 40 in Ballard. Travel patterns are in a “Y” shape going up both 15th and 24th. Many transit fans think RapidRide D should have been on Leary/24th, and many think East Link should have been on Bellevue Way. Metro belatedly responded by upgrading the 40 to RapidRide too, and now the 554-Bellevue Way is doing a similar thing.

          We’ll argue forever about whether Link, the 554, and 550 should or should not be on Bellevue Way. That’s one of the perennial discussions STB exists for.

          My approach is pragmatic: Bellevue Way at NE 4th and Main are where a lot of regional trips are to, and SE 3rd and maybe SE 8th have secondary merit. The 550/554 on Bellevue Way is not just blue buses, it’s limited-stop compared to the coverage shadow. So it’s faster than if it made all the stops. There’s a reasonable argument that serving Bellevue Way is valuable enough to not bypass it on 405 or run nonstop. At minimum it should stop at NE 4th and Main. But I don’t expect all commentators to agree.

      12. > And the 550 is just so… slow. Why does it have that long stretch down Bellevue Way? Nobody goes there. It should just get on 405 from downtown and go directly to Mercer Island.

          Lots of people use the section on bellevue way as mike noted.

          In general a complete freeway only alignment might be fast but also garners a lot less ridership, you’d need all of our riders to be next to the freeway stop or drive and park there.

      13. “And the 550 is just so… slow.”

          For slow, see the 226 meandering from 148th & Bel-Red to Eastlake P&R, the 62 meandering from Fremont to Roosevelt, the 545 in I-5 congestion, the 67 between Roosevelt Station and Northgate Station, Montlake Blvd congestion, and I’m sure I could find more. The 550 on Bellevue Way is not slow. It’s not freeway speed (uncongested), but It’s above average for bus routes, like the C.

      14. [Editor’s note: Somehow the last comment by “Rail Skeptic” triggered the spam filter. It sat in the queue for a while until I just noticed it and approved it. I have no idea why — I don’t see anything the least bit “spammy” (spammish?). The comment looks good. Anyway, if RS is wondering why the comment took so long to get onto the blog, that is why. We try to catch these as soon as they happen, but it happens so rarely it sometimes takes a while. ]

      15. When was the last time ST and Metro spent years implementing a major transit restructure for the opening of a major part of Link only to change probably the most important feeder bus route in phase three?

          Um, Lynnwood Link? In other words, the last time they had a Link-based restructure. It was bizarre, really. In the second round they had the 65 going to Bitter Lake. There was wide consensus that this was a good choice. It wasn’t necessarily what I would have picked (I liked the idea of sending the 75 there, that way you avoid a turn) but it works and I really warmed to the idea. I told several people and no one (not in person, not on the blog) seemed to object. Obviously someone did, because instead they came up with a brand new route with the final revision. It likely had something to do with the fact that in phase 2 they forgot to cover Lake City Way (something that lots of people did object to).

          I’ll admit I haven’t paid nearly as much attention to the East Side restructures. It takes a lot more work (for me anyway). I always remember Issaquah Highlands (and Eastgate) having frequent service to both Mercer Island and Downtown Bellevue. I don’t remember it being different at previous stages, but I trust your memory. Do you have a link to previous restructures? Sometimes the link doesn’t work but you can find it on the Wayback machine. For example here is an old proposal for the 62 (that is a really a good idea so I saved it) — https://web.archive.org/web/20200415091817/https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/transportation/metro/programs-projects/link-connections/north-link/route-info/en/route062.pdf.

          There is a tendency to look at the changes compared to now, not the evolution of changes that occur with each proposal. I’ll admit that lately there has been a lot more of that. With the U-Link restructure they did have a technical difficulty (a turn wasn’t possible) but otherwise it was pretty consistent. In my opinion — and I don’t want to be rude here — I think some of the planning is not nearly as good as it was in the past. For example in one of the revisions for Northgate they had buses running on 85th and 80th. Why would you do that? That violates one of the key concepts (consolidation). Fortunately that got fixed in the next round, but it was bizarre that it occurred in the first place. The same is true with the lack of service on Lake City Way. Were they just completely unaware that ST was moving the 522? Anyway, when you make mistakes like that, you end up with way more churn than you would otherwise.

      16. For what it is worth, here is the data for the 550 from before the pandemic*: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020-service-implementation-plan.pdf#page=138. Mike is right, a lot of riders used the stops on Bellevue Way. I’m still not convinced it was the correct approach though. This is always a judgment call. Should the 41 get off at 65th instead and go up 5th? I’m sure they would have got a lot of riders along that section. On the other hand, it would have been much slower to go from Northgate to downtown.

          It is a similar situation here. Bellevue Way has riders, but most were pretty close to downtown. South of Main the numbers dropped off considerably. I could easily see a bus that did something like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/xgSFPXFq5DZbUjN59 or this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/xgSFPXFq5DZbUjN59. That gets you pretty darn close to every skyscraper or high-density housing development in Downtown Bellevue without making people at the end of the line detour too much. Mainly it speeds up the essential connection — Downtown Bellevue to Downtown Seattle. It is just kind of bizarre that the state invested so much in first-class transit infrastructure (HOV lanes from I-90 to 405 along with HOV ramps on I-405 connected to Downtown Bellevue) and buses never used them for that connection. Oh well.

          *By then the ridership from the South Bellevue Park and Ride was very low (due to construction). Previous annual reports showed more riders from there.

      17. “When was the last time ST and Metro spent years implementing a major transit restructure for the opening of a major part of Link only to change probably the most important feeder bus route in phase three? Do you really think ST did this on its own, or wanted to?”

          That’s the purpose of the feedback rounds, to get input from the public and officials, which can lead ST to confirm or adjust the proposal in the next round. There are many factors and tradeoffs, and it’s impossible to believe all the feedback went one way. You’re assuming Bellevue and Issaquah officials asked ST to route the 554 to Bellevue Way for Bellevue jobs and because Issaquahites want to go to Bellevue, and ST obeyed because Bellevue and Issaquah have some kind of power over it. The cities may have asked for this but we don’t know. ST probably got a variety of different viewpoints, and it may have started thinking on its own about doing this, and maybe the totality tipped from 49% to 51% so ST did it.

          Another explanation is that ST looked more closely at the corridor and realized that rerouting the 554 was a win-win. Bellevue and Issaquah may have concurred. I don’t believe Bellevue and Issaquah can just say “Jump” and ST just rolls over and says “How high?”

          “Truncating the 554 on Mercer Island never made good transit sense (we agree on that, you belatedly).”

          It does make some sense. The issue of Mercer Island vs South Bellevue isn’t good vs bad, it’s a tradeoff between serving Seattle or Bellevue more directly — you can’t do both if those are the station locations. It’s possible and likely that ST and the cities hadn’t looked at Bellevue Way closely until then. The 554 was going to terminate at either Mercer Island or South Bellevue station. But when they looked more closely at Bellevue Way, the possiblity of extending the 554 on it, and mitigating the loss of the 556 which is already on Bellevue Way, the win-win jumped out.

      18. I don’t think doing the opposite is that much better. If you had the 550 go directly to Bellevue transit center first via 405 and then do a loop. For people from bellevue square or from main street to seattle it’d have to travel backwards first to BTC.

          And then if it did a loop you’d then have the second question does it layover after doing the loop or before hand.

          Anyways if anything I feel the current Stride 1 which is virtually a freeway only alignment highlights the downside of sticking to such a route. It misses out on every good destination to where one must transfer everytime to reach anything useful.

      19. “but you don’t supply any facts or data for your opinion, and your opinion doesn’t explain why ST originally routed the 554 to Mercer Island if it is a “long standing goal” to backfill the 550 and 556.”

          My evidence for why ST is backfilling Bellevue Way service is many ST and Metro restructures before this that backfilled other segments. For instance, ST has mused about extending the 574 to Westwood Village to backfill the part of the 560 that Stride 1 will abandon. I didn’t keep a list of all the other cases as I saw them because I never thought this would be questioned.

          As to why ST didn’t route the 554 to Bellevue Way in earlier proposals, it may be that it hadn’t thought of it. Or when the balance tipped in favor of South Bellevue station instead of Mercer Island station, ST started looking more closely at Bellevue Way. Or maybe the cities asked for it then but didn’t ask for it earlier.

      20. > It is rare for editors or administrators to submit content, so please be more careful of your dual role.

          It’s never been rare on this blog. In fact, the majority of STB content over the last 18 years has been generated by its editors and admins.

3. Interesting. So including the 2 Line starter in the journey is better than using only bus routes. One reason I was skeptical Link would help with that trip is ST Trip Planner, in all three of their options, doesn’t suggest using the 2 Line at all from downtown Seattle to east Bellevue (I put in 156th and Main). Trip Planner also doesn’t suggest using the 2 Line to go from Bellevue Downtown Station to 156th and Main. Every option is various bus routes. But your experience is proof the 2 Line not only should be an option, but is preferable.

   I notice in every case you use the route 550. I’m curious why the route 545, from downtown Seattle to RTS or OVS, isn’t used by you? Would that be slower?

   1. The 545 doesn’t go to Overlake Village. I’ve always wanted an ST Express route that did but there wasn’t one.

      I’ve only done 245+545 at Redmond Tech once westbound. The 545 stop is across the NE 40th Street bridge on the west side of 520. The ped bridge doesn’t go there; it goes to further south, and it wasn’t open yet when I rode earlier this year. I don’t know where the eastbound 545 stop is.

      The 245 northbound stop is inside the station. The southbound stop is on 156th at a Link station. Walking between the 245 and 545 may take three minutes I’d guess.

      1. The 541 briefly went to Overlake Village, but it got cancelled for COVID.

         At Redmond Tech, the ped bridge connects just a touch south of the 545 stop on the west side of 520; I’ve used it a couple times, though coming from the train station the 40th St bridge is probably faster. On the east side, the 545 stop is right next to the train; the transfer is almost as easy as possible.

   2. I don’t use the 545 to Redmond Tech more because it doesn’t have 15-minute Saturdays, a freeway stop is an unpleasant place to transfer, I-5 congestion backing up to 520 is worse than I-90, and I backed into transferring at Redmond Tech so I’m still new at it.

      I envisioned myself transferring at Overlake Village when Link stated, but the 221’s stop location and no bench to sit on makes it not work very well unless the 221 is coming in five minutes. You were the first to spot that the “Overlake Village Station bus stop” should be further south. That’s all eastbound when I don’t have control over the transfer wait. Westbound I can time when I leave the house, and walking to the train is better than standing at a bus stop.

4. At least you have a bus. I face a 2.5 mile walk with about 500 feet of vertical relief. About an hour each way. I live in a densely-build master-planned and built-out 1990s subdivisions. You’d think we’d have bus service by now.
   Once I make that walk, it’s a stinky local bus that winds through every corner of Auburn, stopping at seemingly every 3rd apartment building, taking the tightest corners that Metro’s trip planners could find.
   It’s a 20 minute trip on 30 minute headways.
   Only then can I catch a bus to any sort of destination. Metro and ST have dictated that we can only use the train during “rush hour,” so if you travel outside of the “peak” you must only go to Federal Way or Seattle, or Sumner. Otherwise it’s another transfer. Ultimately it takes 3 to 4 hours door to door to get to Tacoma. I live about 4 blocks from the Pierce County line, so it is logical that there might be service to the nearest city.
   Meanwhile, I continue subsidizing this bus service that you whine about. At least you have options. We have a single bus route to get to the transit center, then another single express route that operates to very limited destinations.
   We bought what and where we bought because there was a recession (hence a major discount – we had to act during the recession or miss our chance at homeownership), and it is what we could afford at the time. Home prices have since outpaced both of our salaries, so we are basically stuck here – or take our equity and move further out into the exurbs in south or far-east Pierce, or Gig Harbor. Again, at least you have the bus service that you pay taxes for. We have: walk an hour in the sun/rain/snow up a steep hill.
   And you wonder why people won’t get out of their cars or vote for more transit subsidies. I voted for all of the previous ST measures. Metro promised my neighborhood a full time bus route in 2010. It still hasn’t happened. I’m done.

   1. My friend in north Lynnwood lives two miles northwest of Ash Way P&R and doesn’t have a car. She can either walk two miles to her relative’s house where she lives, or take the hourly CT 119 halfway and walk the other half.

   2. That sounds like Lakeland Hills, which notoriously has no/little transit. I want good transit everywhere, throughout King, Snohomish, and Pierce Counties. The outer suburbs are the areas that most vote against transit levies that could provide that service. The last countywide Metro levy in the early 2010s failed; that’s why Seattle created the TBD to fund more service on its own.

      I feel lucky that when I was 6 my parents chose a house a 5-minute walk from the biggest bus route on the Eastside. The old 226 was hourly but it went to Crossroads, downtown Bellevue, and downtown Seattle. My parents weren’t thinking of transit, but the location is what made it possible for me to get around without a car like the people I read about in books, and allowed me to transition from skeletal transit to urban villages. If I’d grown up in Somerset, south Kirkland, Newport Hills, Issaquah, etc, I would have been more isolated and would probably have had to start driving at 16 or 18 whether I wanted to or not.

   3. I was going to say more about AFHs but I took it out to focus on the bus trip. Adult family homes are usually deep in single-family areas with only a coverage route or no transit. Lakeland Hills or eastern Auburn is typical where most of them are, and I had to turn them down because I couldn’t get to them to visit or when i was needed. The other ones I considered were in northern Burien (too unsafe to cross 1st Ave S), Magnolia (on a coverage route), and two in Skyway (one was on the frequent 106, the other wasn’t). DSHS offered other suggestions like Monroe but I had to turn them down due to no transit. There’s a cluster of homes right near this one in Lake Hills, and a couple others in more remote parts of Bellevue.

      The homes locate there because they’re low-budget operations and that’s where the lowest-cost houses are, and they need a house large enough for 6 residents + staff.

   4. Pierce isn’t any better tbh, still have a lot of routes that end around 9 or 10 PM on weekdays and weekends it can be 8 or 9 on Saturdays and 7 or 8 on Sundays which makes no godamm sense when we have ST express routes running till past midnight to even 1 or 2 in the morning. Which I’m just baffled by and keep giving the “driver shortage” excuse whenever someone points out to them KCM is still able to provide late night service no problem. Like I wish Pierce Transit and the cities of Tacoma, Lakewood, and Puyallup were actually more serious about better transit instead of sitting on their hands about the problem. Because more people are moving to Pierce in the coming decade and PT is still stuck in the 80s about bus frequency and route planning.

   5. At the risk of oversimplifying, I think it all comes to down to land use. You may live an area of relatively high density, but most of Auburn (and the surrounding areas) are not. Auburn has about 85,000 people. So does Toledo, Spain. This is Auburn: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GW9buyPaKrwg3av67. This is Toledo: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7kYFvwP9K9QzkT5t8. Both pictures were taken about a mile and a half from the center of town, and both are typical. Auburn is basically a small town (of roughly a couple thousand people) surrounded by about forty other small towns. There is nothing wrong with that (those houses look nice) but it lacks density. Not only are the various neighborhoods not very dense, but Downtown Auburn is not very dense. I’m not talking about just housing density, but things like jobs, education, retail — places where people go. Auburn is a city of 80,000 but the downtown area is nowhere near as urban as Ballard (let alone Toledo Spain).

      With that in mind, consider the four keys to ridership: density, walkability, linearity and proximity. It fails on density (as mentioned). Same goes for proximity. The pockets of density are rather spread out. Not only that, but it is not close to other, bigger cities. An area like West Magnolia can at least piggyback on the fact that they are pretty close to much denser areas. But Auburn is ten miles away from downtown Tacoma (not a short distance). Never mind the other issues, it fails miserably when it comes to density and proximity. The problem is land use.

      This creates a cascade of other problems. Service to the area will get very few riders for the cost. This means it is squarely in the “coverage” part of the coverage/ridership trade-off. But it has competition. A huge part of the county is similar. So if Metro applies a reasonable set of metrics and eliminates buses that underperform when it comes to ridership (which it does) then it won’t make the cut. If it puts this in the “coverage bucket”, it may still not make the cut because there are so many similar places spread out across the county.

      Then there is the politics. King County rejected a measure to spend extra money on transit. Part of the reason is that so many people in the county live in areas where they can’t reasonably expect good transit, unless they spend a huge amount of money on it (and they don’t want to do that). Seattle, on the other hand, passed a measure providing extra funding. So Seattle is spending more on transit than the rest of the county. Because it more dense, Seattle is actually getting more for their dollar as well. Auburn — since it is a city — could do something similar. They could fund service within Auburn. It wouldn’t be cheap. It wouldn’t get a lot of riders. But it would provide coverage for much of the city.

      1. “Auburn … They could fund service within Auburn. … It wouldn’t get a lot of riders”

         It would get a respectable number of riders, maybe twice as much as it’s getting now. All cities need to be internally well-connected with service between the neighborhoods at least every 15 minutes full time. That includes 132nd as in the RapidRide proposal, and Lakeland Hills. It may not be able to reach every single house in Auburn, but it should at least serve the center of all the neighborhoods. That’s what you need for transit to be a viable and attractive alternative to driving. It’s why ridership is so high in other countries, even in neighborhoods/suburbs with similar lowish densities. I don’t know enough about Auburn to say where additional routes should be to strike a balance between access and cost-efficiency, but at minimum the 165 and 181 need RapidRide frequency, and something similar to southeast Auburn and through Lakeland Hills. That’s where Auburn could step up with its own TBD to supplement service until such a time that a Metro-funded expansion could take over it.

         And don’t get distracted with Flex-like service. It must have a schedule and a base alignment with stops, even if it’s semi-flexible to deviate from the alignment at the ends.

5. Pre ELSL
   Want to minimize waiting.

   Consider Route 554 between Seattle and Eastgate; then taking the first to come of routes 221, 226, and 245 and then walking. In the p.m. peak, the Metro peak outbound routes would cut your wait time on 2nd Avenue; Route 212 has the advantage of serving the Eastgate local bays.

   By using Route 226 between BTC and Lake Hills, you are using its long arching segment.

   Another pre ELSL option: routes 550 and B Line to Crossroads and first to come between routes 221 and 226 for last leg.

   Note that East Link Connections conceptual Route 226 has issues. It misses the several Bel-Red Link stations; it misses the Crosroads Mall and the B line at NE 8th Street. ELC Route 226 should be revised to serve Link better.

6. This post is a reminder that different people value different things when it comes to why a particular mode or trip is favored over something else. For some riders, the only thing that matters is the total time it takes to get from the start of a trip to the final destination. Others have a mode bias, so they might go a little bit out of their way to take a train. For others, like myself, my bias is toward a one-seat ride, if possible, no matter the mode. Some, like Mike, I believe, try to avoid less frequent routes. If I had to do Mike’s trip, I’d probably think about taking the 554 to Eastgate, then the route 221 the rest of the way. Why? I find the 554 to be a little less crowded and more pleasant than the 550. I also would prefer a two-seat ride over a three-seat ride, even if it’s slower. But Mike’s trip is an interesting one, because there are so many different ways it can be done.

   1. I also can’t walk as far as I could before 2022, otherwise I’d just walk to the B or 156th and forget about the 164th bus. I can only walk a mile or two a day now before it starts getting tiring to do more, so on the days I do this trip, I don’t do any other substantial walking.

   2. This post is a reminder that different people value different things when it comes to why a particular mode or trip is favored over something else.

      I agree. For me, personally, I’m not consistent either. Some times I don’t mind waiting, other times I get tired of it. For example I sometimes go from Roosevelt to Pinehurst. The 73 is ideal. It is not only a one-seat ride, but it is the quickest option. But it only runs every half hour. In contrast I can always take Link to Northgate and then take the 347/348 or 75 home (they run every fifteen minutes). So I typically check One Bus Away and see if the 73 is coming. But I’m not consistent. I don’t have a set time for how long I’ll wait. At least once I’ve used the Link option, even though it seemed likely that the fastest way home would be to just wait until the 73 gets there. Sure enough, I could track the bus (on my phone) and it went by the bus stop a couple minutes before the two-seat ride I ended up taking.

      My attitude it not unique. People hate waiting. They hate making transfers. They really hate a transfer that involves a lot of waiting. They will sometimes pay a time penalty to avoid a transfer (a slow one-seat ride instead of a fast two-seat one). But it varies quite a bit.

      1. Waiting does suck no matter if it’s the first boarding or transferring!

         Real time arrival info certainly helps — whether on a realtime sign or a phone app.

         Waiting environment can however make it unpleasant. Whether is wind, rain, traffic noise, loiterers (especially ones that smell from lack of cleanliness), darkness (bad lighting) and other factors can make waiting five minutes feel like 15.

         And that’s just the stops. The challenge of transferring can require changing elevation (stairs, escalators , elevators), crossing busy streets (additional waiting for signals to change) or walking a fair distance. Missing a transfer connection because I can’t cross a street against traffic is a very frustrating experience!

      2. To a point Sam raised: for me whether to take the bus comes down to: 1. Safety; 2. whether the DESTINATION is walkable; 3. whether I will have to transfer; and 4. parking.

         I already know I will have to drive to a park and ride to catch the bus, which I don’t mind because that means the walk is almost zero and I prefer to live in a house not near the bus stop/park and ride, I have a car afterwards to do errands or whatever, and my exposure to weather is minimal. But it also means I already own a car. That is pretty much the eastside in a nutshell.

         If I have to transfer then I will drive or not take the trip, at least if a bus is involved. I could see taking Link from Issaquah to S. Bellevue to transfer to downtown Seattle if the frequency is good, but that is a very long time away and I hardly need to go into Seattle anymore. So when I say whether the destination is walkable that means at the end of my first transit trip because I am not taking another. I don’t take transit because I love transit or hate cars. I take it because it is better than driving, which means something about the trip makes driving suck. .

         When I commuted to downtown Seattle all four factors supported taking the bus because back then it was safe because there were so many other commuters at the stops or on Seattle streets when I was getting off or on the bus. And it was free with the employer paid ORCA card. Plus I didn’t have to drive in traffic and the ride was pretty quick from Issaquah.

         Very few of my trips today meet all four factors because I rarely go into downtown Seattle, and since I now mostly work from home I take many fewer trips anywhere. If I do go downtown I will usually take the bus if it is during the day and my destination is right downtown. We never go downtown at night anymore, and haven’t since Covid.

         For my wife it doesn’t matter, even though she can’t work from home. She doesn’t think transit is safe, or 100% safe, even in Issaquah. So she doesn’t care about the other factors. To solve this problem she changed jobs from Pill Hill to Issaquah. If she is going somewhere, and she only goes somewhere on the eastside, it is in a car, especially if she is alone. If she plans to drink it means she is going with her girlfriends so they split an Uber.

         I think some on this blog think they can change my wife or how others decide to get around. Eliminate parking, make folks live in TOD, make parking too expensive, but I don’t think you can, whether it is expensive parking or HOV lanes or whatever. All you do is make downtown Seattle less popular for people who want to spend money.

         I don’t think some on this blog understand women very well, or suburbanites, and to be fair transit is about urban areas. I do think one seat rides help, of course safety, frequency, and at least one place that is truly urban you want to go so transit is the better choice. There is nowhere in this region for that unless maybe you are a student at UW. Certainly none on the eastside because just about no destination is walkable unless you get a bus that goes along Bellevue Way which is hard from Issaquah, and if you plan to spend money parking is free along Bellevue Way.

         First there are very few areas with walkability at the destination of a one seat transit ride, and that is downtown Seattle, but instead the market opted for work from home and more trips on the eastside because downtown Seattle isn’t attractive enough to offset the sense of increased danger. I could argue with my wife all day long that downtown Seattle is not dangerous – or at least most (half) of it – but her argument is there are alternatives on the eastside that are not dangerous at all. Even then if we did go downtown it would be at night (which ain’t happening) and she and I would want to drive. Now that our Nextdoor feed includes Seattle all we ever read about from Seattle ND members are shootings on Capitol Hill, stolen cars, drugs, homeless, usually with photos, and the posters themselves often seem unhinged. Seattle posters are very sophisticated with posting videos, charts, photos, etc. whereas our ND feed from Issaquah is 90% missing pets (ND now allows you to opt for the entire feed which is from Issaquah to Bellevue to Renton to Seattle or just the local feed from Issaquah. I must admit the dystopia of the Seattle feed for someone working at home is addictive).

         So this is just an eastside suburban view of transit from someone who once took the bus twice/day M-F and paid full fare both ways, and maybe why eastside transit ridership fell off a cliff with work from home and the decline of downtown Seattle (according to us).

         I personally don’t think going from a bus to Seattle to a train will change those fundamental factors why ridership is down, although it could make intra-eastside trips better depending on the transfer or park and ride.

      3. @Al S,

         Waiting certainly sucks, but the unreliability of transfers just makes things worse.

         We took Link a few months back and transferred to a bus. Unfortunately the first was a minute early and left right before we could get there. Then OBA told us the next bus was running late and wouldn’t arrive for 28 minutes. This on a route that was supposedly running at 10 min frequency at that time of day.

         We were coming from Europe, so had luggage and didn’t want to just walk the last little bit. So we waited.

         28 minutes later 2 buses arrived check to jowl. Classic bus bunching, and annoying as heck.

         Transfers like this hurt transit ridership.

      4. @Issaquah Resident

         Making it difficult to travel downtown is not the goal; it’s about concentrating more people, retail, and jobs in the same space. That is only possible if housing and office space is built instead of parking spaces and decent transit service is provided throughout the city. Land use and transit are inextricably tied together.

         In some respects that is a bit exclusionary: restricting parking is painful if you need to drive in, and it’s difficult to deal with all the restricted turns and bus lanes. But at the end of the day, the city is growing, and building upward and providing good transit service is going to include more people than building outward and forcing people to drive. Restricting growth isn’t really possible either, unless we want to see the cost of living trend even further toward cities like Boston or San Francisco.

         And of course people value different things. Some people will never be convinced to take transit, and that is fine. Some people value the peace and quiet of the suburbs over the liveliness of the city, and that is fine. Some people will never think that the tradeoffs of travelling into downtown are worth it, and that is fine. Ideally there are plenty of options for people do not want to travel into the city, and plenty of options for people who do.

7. This is the kind of trip where e-bikes can really shine. I think an e-bike could do this trip in under an hour reliably, following the I-90 trail and Bellevue streets with bike lanes.

   Or course, when winter comes, the bus will keep you out of the cold and rain in ways that a bike won’t, but at least in the summer, the speed and low cost offered by the bike option, I can see being compelling.

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