King County Corridor 1052, a potential rapidride conversion of Route 181 currently travels from Federal Way via Auburn Station to Green River College. With the introduction of Federal Way Link extension as well as I-5 freeway access additions, Route 181 speed improvements as a RapidRide will connect Auburn and Green River College closer to Seattle and the rest of the region. In this post we’ll review the corridor, Metro’s planned improvements, expected ridership and estimated project costs.
Alignment
There are two alignment areas for the RapidRide, the first in Federal Way deciding whether to serve the Federal Way Transit Center. Currently Route 181 serves the Federal Way Transit Center by deviating off S 320th Street entering the transit center for easier transfers. The Metro Connects alignment assumes this deviation is removed staying on S 320th Street, requiring westbound riders to cross the street but expediting those continuing further east.
The second alignment decision is just east of downtown Auburn deciding which of the three alignments should be used to connect to 8th St NE. The existing alignment was identified as the representative alignment. The other two potential routes on Auburn Ave and B St SW were eliminated due to no major trip generators and the fact that the alignment would serve a different market.
Frequency
Unlike most other routes discussed earlier, Route 181 operates with a lower infrequent weekday service of 20 minutes from 6 am to 9 am and then 30 minutes from 9 am to 10pm.
To reach RapidRide standards Metro will have to add much more additional bus trips consisting of approximately 49 service hours each weekday (53% increase). If the speed and reliability improvements are not implemented more vehicles will be needed.
Speed and Reliability
Route 181 existing travel time delays are concentrated in 3 areas, 1) around Federal Way Downtown along S 320 St, 2) along 15th St SW near the Outlet Collection and 3) around Auburn Station along Main St.
Route 181 has the worst variability in travel time. Currently taking anyway from 45 minutes to up to 65 minutes. The average one way trip is 54 minutes.
To address these issues Metro has suggested
- Federal Way Downtown: add BAT lanes along S 320th St from Military Road S to 25th Ave S. Additionally add a Queue jump at S 320th St & Military Rd S.
- Outlet Collection: remove 15th St SW pullout stops and convert to in-lane stops. Convert curb lane to additional BAT lanes
- Auburn Station: add bus bulbs to Main Street, add BAT lanes through widening on M St SE and add eastbound BAT lane on 8th St NE
Federal Way’s existing City Center Access Project will add a new S 324th Street bridge across I-5 with protected bike lanes as well as eventually add curbside HOV lanes along S 320th Street with “Replacing the S 320th Street bridge over I-5 with a wider bridge and providing high occupancy vehicle lanes on S 320th Street from SR 99 to Military Road S.“
Given the above improvements, the daily ridership of 2,000 would increase by 3,300 riders (157%) to 5,300 daily riders.
Stations and Costs
Above shows the proposed station locations.
The project would cost $86 million dollars with 64% for transit speed and reliability improvements, 21% for stops and stations, 13% for charging infrastructure and finally 2% for layover and terminus facilities.
Conclusion
The new east-west RapidRide connecting Federal Way to Auburn and Green River College will expedite journeys the region. The increased frequency has potential for a lot more transit riders, plus connecting with the new Federal Way Link Station for transit riders to and from Seattle. The HOV/BAT lanes will enhance the reliability of the currently delayed bus line.
The need for new service subsidy is clear. Metro Connects is not funded. ST3 was funded in 2016.
ST3 is irrelevant to RapidRide, which is another agency’s business. Of course, it’s tax money that otherwise might have gone to Metro. But TBD’s are strictly limited to 1% of sales, and I think King County is already there.
The South King area is just really hard to serve by transit. The roads wander, there are large stretches of big box industrial stuff to which people exclusively drive, and there are a jillion culs-de-sac. It will never be a productive transit catchment zone except possibly along arterials lined with apartment buildings.
“Possibly” because those rows of apartment buildings depend on Climate refugees from Aridzona and Caloriefornia.
TT: Metro has authority of nine tenths of sales tax and uses it; the King County TBD has authority of vehicle license fee and three tenths of sales tax; it is not in use. Some of the VLF can be used councilmatically; the sales tax requires voter approval. Some of the 39 King County cities are using parts of their TBD authority; Seattle uses some of its 1.5 tenths to buy service from Metro. Shoreline uses some its TBD to build sidewalks.
Yes, ST3 is another story.
The ST network should be integrated with the local networks. The agencies assert that is among their objectives. In South King County, the ST bus network will probably be subject to change with the FWLE.
Sound Transit funded RapidRide G as well as future rapidride c/d improvements. Stride 3 is basically a “rapidride” like service.
For south king subarea, if it is unable to attain higher frequency for Sounder it wouldn’t cost much to implement these improvements. Though of course it’d be up to a board debate. Perhaps it could be funded from reallocating the suspended “Bus on Shoulder – South King improvements” ??
Perhaps this could be a larger topic, but I question the rationale / reasoning why we cannot have Sound Transit funds for these RapidRides (or avenue Stride/equivalent) — or if not legally allowed in ST3, then at least question if that was a good idea and for any ST4 that we should be funding them.
“there are large stretches of big box industrial stuff to which people exclusively drive”
Some people take Metro to the north Kent industrial area. My roommate and his brother were two of them.
Southcenter (which you may not have meant because it isn’t industrial) gets so many bus riders that it seems like the majority of F riders get on/off there, and it’s no slouch with the 150 either.
““Possibly” because those rows of apartment buildings depend on Climate refugees from Aridzona and Caloriefornia.”
They only depend on the existing population growth rate.
The growth in the 2010s was so significant that people were displaced from MLK Way to Kent, then to Auburn, then to Tacoma, then to south/east Pierce County, then to Olympia, then to outside the metro area and state. While growth is slower now, it’s still on an upward trend. All those industrial jobs make South King County an attractive place to live if you work there, and that will continue to draw people.
“Sound Transit funded RapidRide G”
Sound Transit contributed to RapidRide G; it didn’t fully fund it. Its main funding came from the Move Seattle levy.
“as well as future rapidride c/d improvements.”
Well, here the distinction between contributing to and funding is meaningless, since it can be any amount of improvements, and only ones that the ST contribution can afford will be made. We still don’t know what these improvements will be. They were supposed to be an early ST3 deliverable as a stopgap until WS/BLE could open, but in the realignment they were postponed to the end of ST3. By that time the C and D may no longer exist, so would the money go to other routes? Which ones? Metro Connects and SDOT’s candidate project map have other north-south RapidRides in West Seattle instead of the C. Metro Connects envisioned a successor to the D as a “Fred Meyer to Fred Meyer line” (from Ballard to Lake City).
“For south king subarea, if it is unable to attain higher frequency for Sounder”
ST has finished negotiating with BNSF a rate for more Sounder runs, and had a public survey several months ago asking which time periods people wanted them. So it looks like they will happen unless ST3 in Pierce/South King get overextended, and at that point there wouldn’t be any money to divert to other projects.
WL: yes, under the RTA enabling legislation, it is legal for ST to fund regional express bus, Stride, and contribute to RR lines. They could do so in the future. RossB suggested that the West line funds be used for that purpose. During the ST3 discussion, I suggested a BRT network would have been a better use for South King and Pierce subarea funds than the Link spine; the ST staff and board chose the spine.
Mike, yes, I didn’t mean Southcenter, EVEN THERE is hard to serve except the Mall itself.
Eddie, thanks for the information about the TBD capacity remaining unused. That needs to be used for sure.
So far as ST’s involvement in RR G, C and D, yes, it helped (and may help in the future) with the capital costs, but it isn’t going to pay for operations is it? I would be very surprised, because if there are “local buses” anywhere in Washington State, RRG is one of them. It’s two and a half miles long.
” ST’s involvement in RR G, C and D, yes, it helped (and may help in the future)”
The RapidRide C and D money hasn’t been spent yet.
All of ST’s RapidRide contributions have been for capital upgrades, not ongoing operations.
Thanks, Mike. That is exactly appropriate and honors the enabling legislation.
And I didn’t structore my sentence well. I should have put C and D in a separate sentence with the “may at some time” qualifier.
I’m sorry, Mike, but the picture you painted of riders pushed from neighborhoods along MLK Blvd to Kent, then Auburn, then Tacoma, then SE Pierce and finally Olympia is NOT a good thing for transit. While a significant cohort of folks living along King Blvd do work at the airport and take Link to work, almost nobody who works in the big box industrial sprawl south of Tukwila Sounder Station takes the bus to work, your school buddies notwithstanding. The bus lines are winding and slow and too widely spaced to serve anything other than skinny strips of the Green River Valley. People deive to those jobs now and will do so as long as private vehicles are affordable. And anyway, lots of the jobs there are hoing to be automated away in the next decade.
The only reason that people will continue to come to the expensive Puget-Willamette Lowland is as climate refugees. Without continued large tech employment growth, the jobs available won’t support more population. And AI is going to blow that tech employment growth right out of the water.
Generative AI can cut pedestrian code directly from business process requirements already. Sure you need the theoreticians to weight the models, but I bet that the models will be weighting themselves in a couple of years.
Training is much cheaper in Asia than King County so look for in-migration to take a noticeable “pause” soon, but pick up again when temperatures and lack of water start to run people frantically out of Arizona and the Central Valley of California.
The people forced out of the Desert Southwest will not bring large bankrolls as previous waves of Californians have, so their housing choices will be severely constrained so they eill pribably be grateful to end up in a mid-rise standing somewhere within a six-block wide strip along a frequent Rapid Rude line in East Kent.
But they won’t be big shoppers.
“Southcenter, EVEN THERE is hard to serve except the Mall itself.”
There’s an entire “retail city” south of the mall. It’s big box central. The 150 goes through the middle of it. I went to Toys R Us to get a certain Christmas present (stuffed animal) that wasn’t available in Seattle or closer. It was at the far west of the area so a bit of a walk from the 150 (there was a closer coverage route, which I might have taken). But other stores are closer to the 150.
“riders pushed from neighborhoods along MLK Blvd”
To clarify, I meant the Renton part of MLK on the 101, since we were discussing South King County. There are mid 20th century apartments there. In the early 2010s I noted it was a relatively convenient place for lower-income people to live (convenient on a South King County scale), and a place I might go to if I were priced out of Seattle. But by the mid 2010s there were reports of people getting displaced from there to Kent, and then it just kept marching south.
People were pushed from the Seattle part of MLK too. That’s where it originated. But that was earlier in the 1990s, when people started getting displaced to Skyway, Renton, and Tukwila.
“the picture you painted of riders pushed from neighborhoods along MLK Blvd [the Renton part!] to Kent, then Auburn, then Tacoma, then SE Pierce and finally Olympia is NOT a good thing for transit.”
That’s exactly my larger point! We either need to bring prices down in the walkable areas, or make the areas they’re getting displaced to more walkable and with better transit. There’s no reason Renton MLK, eastern Renton, southern Renton, Kent East Hill, the 99 corridor, more of Auburn, and commercial centers in the non-downtown parts of Tacoma AND Piece County can’t be walkable; it’s just city policies that are hindering it.
Really, we shouldn’t have made them unwalkable in the first place. But that’s how they grew in the 20th century, so now they have to be retrofitted. Refusing to do that is just causing more suffering.
I’m just going to throw this out there:
Should Muckleshoot Casino be on this (or maybe another) RapidRide route? The times that I’ve been to the casino, I’ve seen several pedestrians walking SR 164 and sidewalks were added on both sides in the past decade. It’s reported to have 2-3,000 employees. The route there also passes by both low income housing and both Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity stores — and also Auburn Library. There are other things on the roadway too like the FAA office.
I could see there being issues about operating service on tribal land. Still, it’s remarkable thing to me how transit unfriendly the casino area is.
Muckleshoot is currently served by the 915 DART which connects Auburn with Enumclaw via SR 164. There used to be a peak only bus along the same route, but that went away with covid.
Thurston County has a Rural Transit agency that serves the Chehalis Reservation just fine. It used to have a route that served the Nisqually reservation too, but it must not have gotten good ridership.
The Tulalip casino has Community Transit 209 and 222.
Skagit Transit 615 serves the Swinish Casino and the village just west of La Conner.
So, serving reservation land doesn’t seem to be a problem.
The Snoqualmie Valley Shuttle serves Snoqualmie casino.
The layout of casino buildings and lots around here is very car oriented, even if there’s some kind of transit to them or a private shuttle. The Valley Shuttle (a transit line throughout Snoqualmie Valley) has to detour to reach Snoqualmie Casino. That may be necessitated by tribal land boundaries; the Snoqualmie Reservation seems to be little more than the casino complex, all alone a bit west of the town. The tribal offices and services seem to be in the town outside the reservation.
Should the Muckleshoot Casino be on this (the future RapidRide version of the route 181) route? No. The casino would be a 2+ mile detour, and would make the route much more unreliable.
Should the Muckleshoot Casino be a part of another RapidRide route? No. The current DART route 915 from Auburn to Enumclaw via Muckleshoot has under 200 riders per day.
At most I think people could say that Muckleshoot could be part of a South Auburn route that runs half hourly and serves SE Auburn and swings back over to the Albertsons on A & 41st and honestly either it or the 184 could go down to Lakeland Hills to serve as the all day variant of the 497.
This is where transit gets intertwined with other values. Do we really want to orient our bus system around making it easier to gamble?
“This is where transit gets intertwined with other values. Do we really want to orient our bus system around making it easier to gamble?”
Cough …. East Tacoma Stetion ….
Muckleshoot Casino isn’t the only thing going on in that corridor. There is also low income housing, a library, other employment sites, second hand retail, a new 199 foot tall hotel and other things.
Route 915 is service but it’s not direct service and it’s not frequent.
Certainly a lack of riders is a good reason. Certainly it could be served by another route that goes to other places in Auburn beyond Downtown. Certainly the Tribe could have shuttle running from Federal Way Link.
But denying transit service to an entire neighborhood and other things because there is a casino nearby isn’t being fair. And the casino is a major employer.
No to the Muckleshoot Reservation.
No. Do not divert a future LLH route out to the Muckleshoot. That’s WAY too far of a detour. If anything, improve frequency on the 915 for better service to and from Enumclaw AND the Muckleshoot; or provide interim trips that only serve the first 2 miles of the 915 (kinda like how the 577 & 578 are the same route, except 577 stops short).
There was a problem at MLK can u eliminate Route 106 and revise Route 8 to Rainier Beach route 106 takes me 15- 30 minutes and Route 8 used to be 8 – 10 minutes and I used to ride Route 42 to Rainier Valley and Route 8 needs bring to MLK in future
“can u eliminate Route 106 and revise Route 8”
No.
Nobody related to this web site can actually do anything. You’ll have to contact King County.
Question: why the heck is it worth removing the stop at Federal Way Transit Center, but there is no discussion of removing the stop at Auburn Station? The delay is undoubtedly similar. Adding an in-lane bus stop on West Main would place passengers adjacent to the train platform and actually between the bus and train platforms and the new garage that is in-design. WB passengers would only have to cross 2 lanes of traffic to get to the main bus and train platforms. It would allow the bus to through-route directly to C Street rather than through about 4 additional blocks of circuitous motion.
By comparison, removing the stop at FWTC actually places passengers 3 full city blocks away from the main bus platform and would require pedestrians to cross 8 lanes of traffic from the EB stop. The savings on the bus going in circles is similar, or even less, compared to the added distance at Auburn that is necessary to use the transit center stops.
Federal Way Transit Center will be in a new location with the opening of Link, it’s moving south of the current location. The proposed on street stops are adjacent bays that are part of the new transit center, similar to say, Bay 1 and 12 at Bellevue Transit Center.