66 days until the Downtown Redmond Link Extension opens.

Transportation:

Land Use & Housing:

Commentary & Miscellaneous:

This is an Open Thread.

49 Replies to “Midweek Roundup: Dog Bus”

  1. I’d highly recommend reading the Willamette Week article on how ODOT’s billion dollar budget blunder. It explains why Sound Transit we need to shut down all Sound Transit construction projects immediately and go no further without a ST 4 vote.

    Does anybody want to guess the real cost of the Ballard and West Seattle subways? What is the cost estimates now? What do you think the cost overruns are going to be? How much Federal money is likely gone from the project?

    Does 25 billion sound about right?

    If you really support public transit, who need to take a long hard look at Sound Transit squandering this sort of money.

  2. WSLE needs to be delayed longer than 30-60 days. $7+ billion for 20,000 boardings is utterly folly.

  3. “would remove existing trolley infrastructure on the 10th Ave E bridge over SR-520, replacing it with trolley infrastructure on the new Roanoke Lid over SR-520. ”

    How would the 49 go then? Google Maps doesn’t show a lid at 10th & Roanoke yet? Would it just go diagonally from 10th to Harvard or something? Or would it turn east to the Montlake Bridge, thus serving UW station but lengthening the travel time to the U-District core.

    1. I think the trolleys would go on the same route — it is really just the wording that is confusing. Right now there are a couple bridges. In the future there will be a lid. But for those in motorized vehicles it will otherwise be the same. The lid will incorporate both 10th and Denmar (which are currently bridges). Check out page 6 of this pdf: https://wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/PortageBayProject-presentation-Jan2025Meeting.pdf. It clearly shows 10th as being part of the lid. So basically this work is just to put back the wires on 10th when they rebuild things.

      1. To me, the call for comments on the work is more confusing than the description of the work. Why does this need public commentary? What sort of constructive input could the public possibly provide? I feel like I’m missing something, here.

      2. @Nathan… the PSRC website says funding is being diverted from Atlantic basic revitalization to the lid project. Maybe that’s why it requires comment… cuz the money is technically being used for a different project?

      3. That makes sense. I guess folks would be have a right to be upset if King County shunted around millions of dollars from project to project with opportunities for public input.

    2. I thought it was funds to replace the overhead wires torn down during highway construction leading me to ask why it’s on Metro to fund their replacement? Am I reading that right? Also assuming the 49 would drop its poles through the construction zone as the 43 has done (and continues to do despite Montlake construction complete).

      1. Yes, why does Metro have to pay to replace its overhead through a project which is a part of a highway widening?

        I have no quarrel with the project; it will be a nice enhancement for the neighborhood, but if you break it, you bought it.

  4. It is interesting to see how ridership on the RapidRide G has increased while ridership on the Lynnwood Link stations has done the opposite since they opened. In the case of the G I can see why. It was basically a “soft opening”. They weren’t ready. The buses worked but there were a lot of problems — most of which have been fixed. The problems were well publicized as well which means that a lot of people just didn’t bother to try it.

    Lynnwood Link was the opposite. It was done when it opened. There is also a big novelty factor. The above ground stations really are fun to ride. But after trying it a few time there is a tendency to go back to old habits. There aren’t many destinations that are close to the stations or even that many people living close to them. It is unlikely that many people will now walk to the Lynnwood Station and ride it to Mountlake Terrace. (In contrast there are plenty of people who walk to the Roosevelt Station and ride it to Capitol Hill.) The Lynnwood Link stations are mainly used like they were used before — for trips downtown. My guess is current ridership on those stations is quite similar to previous ridership (on the buses and Northgate Link).

    In contrast RapidRide G is slowly becoming a good option for a lot of people who might otherwise drive or call a cab. Northgate Link (with its Roosevelt/U-District/UW/Capitol Hill/downtown combinations) seems more like RapidRide G (with its fast and frequent urban connections) while Lynnwood Link seems more like all-day commuter rail.

    1. If it were all day commuter rail, it would be possible to get from King Street Station to Everett in an hour as it does on Sounder, rather than the 1:30 it takes on Link + 512.

      2. Strange. I’ve never been able to get the 201/202 to show up as options. Any time I try, I never get anything less than 1 hour 29 minutes.

      3. Given that the ridership is highly peak clustered, at least so far, Lynnwood Link appears TO BE “commuter rail”.

      4. Strange. I’ve never been able to get the 201/202 to show up as options. Any time I try, I never get anything less than 1 hour 29 minutes.

        That is strange. It was the fastest option for me (and is again as I write this). Keep in mind I’m choosing Westlake as the starting point. I think this is closer to the center of downtown than CID. Twenty years ago I would say Symphony Station was the closest to the center of downtown (although it had a different name then). But using Symphony Station only adds a couple minutes. I try and pick spots as close to the stations as possible. If I pick a trip from CID to Everett Station I get an hour and seven minutes at best: https://maps.app.goo.gl/o4Fn3HXfTKBrV6oC7. Sounder would beat that, but not by a lot. So it really depends on where you are starting from in Downtown Seattle.

        North Sounder is fast to Edmonds but it isn’t particularly fast to Everett. Maybe if you are close to the station it is competitive but otherwise the 510 might very well be faster (although less consistent because of traffic). With Tacoma you have a similar issues — the existing train lines are not very direct (we have rough terrain that forced the trains to detour). The freeway is direct but encounters traffic. Light rail is fairly direct but makes a lot of stops (as you would expect). There is no obvious solution.

        The first thing I would do is change the “HOV-2” on the signs to “HOV-3”. Then it becomes a judgement call. Do you run the buses directly to Seattle or is the transfer to Link fast enough? What about Sounder? I think it depends. I think North Sounder is difficult to justify even if we owned the lines. I would run the 510 but only during peak (like it is running now). The rest of the day folks from Everett transfer to Link. It is a bit slower but there just aren’t enough people trying to get from Everett to Seattle in the middle of the day to justify an all-day express.

        Tacoma is different. Sounder is a bit slower than a bus that doesn’t encounter traffic, but not that much slower. I would run express buses but only during midday. During peak I would expect people to take Sounder. The express buses (only running midday) would stop at Federal Way (and keep going) to make that connection to Link (for trips to SeaTac or Rainier Valley). Even with the stop at Federal Way the express buses would be considerably faster than a transfer to Link (even if you could time that transfer perfectly).

        I would also nationalize the railroads. That would make running the trains cheaper although I think North Sounder still wouldn’t be worth it.

        By the way, a “commuter rail” pattern is identical to a “commuter express” pattern. The 592 (Dupont-Lakewood-Seattle) is very much like commuter rail in that sense. It only runs during peak. It makes three stops south of Seattle (Dupont, Lakewood and SR-512). About 500 people used to board heading to Seattle every morning. An average of 14 would get off the bus before it reached Seattle (https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020-service-implementation-plan.pdf#page=176). So just about everyone who rides the bus is on the bus between SR-512 and Seattle. This means that there is a very strong relationship between crowding and ridership (my original point).

    2. I think part of the story is just seasonal decreases in ridership as well. Consider that ridership across the entirety of the 1 Line is down ~14% from 9/24 – 1/25. The 4 LLE stations are down 26% in the same time period so they are certainly fairing worse than the system at whole. Maybe the northern terminus is more sensitive to this because even Northgate was down 22% from 9/23 – 1/24, even while the whole line was down 17% over the same time period.

      I think its a testament to RapidRide G for continuing to add ridership throughout the winter months. Even my non-transit-nerd friends say they go out of their way to ride it. Their biggest praise: it’s predictable. It comes frequent enough and takes around the same amount of time each trip that they don’t have to think about it. They basically treat it the way most people treat a good metro system: just show up and get on the next vehicle.

      1. Oh also my observation from riding it a few times a week is that the signal priority has gotten sooooooo much better. Those first few weeks were awful as minutes would tick by while we waited for a few light cycles. Now its pretty rare to get stopped at an intersection .

      2. >> I think part of the story is just seasonal decreases in ridership as well.

        I agree. I think Lynnwood Link numbers are down a bit because the novelty factor wore off and down a bit because of typical seasonal fluctuation. I think the more notable thing is that RapidRide G keep going up every month. But as RTB mentioned — it is better than when it opened.

      3. I gotta guess that riding the 1 Line is frustrating for folks with a schedule to meet since there are so many scheduled and unscheduled major disruptions to service. Hopefully they can be won back after everything is fixed?

      4. True. Usually place 20+ miles away from city center like trips from Snohomish County is more susceptible to seasonal impact than trips from neighborhood served by G Line.

    3. >Lynnwood Link was the opposite. It was done when it opened. There is also a big novelty factor. The above ground stations really are fun to ride. But after trying it a few time there is a tendency to go back to old habits.

      yeah checking the ridership lynnwood still is decent at 3000 but the other 3 link stations of mountlake terrace, shoreline north and shoreline south only have ~1000 daily ridership. for comparison the beacon hill, mt baker, columbia and othello have 2k daily ridership

      this is again shows why link should should have been extended along aurora avenue not along i5. But also for at-grade light rail it can actually reach density where people live and work. Of course it’s a bit unlikely sound transit will build along aurora avenue a parallel light rail any time soon but we should look into center running brt along those corridors

      1. this again shows why link should should have been extended along aurora avenue not along i5. Of course it’s a bit unlikely sound transit will build along aurora avenue a parallel light rail any time soon but we should look into center running brt along those corridors

        I agree. It was important to get a good connection for buses coming on the freeway to the north but it was a bad idea to just stay next to it with every station north of Roosevelt.

        I also think there is great value in going diagonally across a grid, especially a grid like ours with very strong (fast and frequent) transit in a north-south direction. For example imagine that after Roosevelt the train went under the freeway and connected to North Seattle College (at around 92nd & Meridian). As part of the project they would build bus-only ramps from the freeway to that station. Then the train kept going diagonally to Northgate Way & Aurora and Greenwood & 130th. That is only three stations north of Roosevelt but it completely changes the network. Every major north-south bus in the north end would connect — without a detour — to a station. The 5 connects Shoreline College with Link and then keeps going. The RapidRide E connects to the station on Aurora. The freeway buses would connect to the station by the college (as would the bus(es) on Meridian). Buses on 5th NE, Roosevelt and Lake City Way would converge onto the Roosevelt Station. You would have plenty of crossing bus service as well — in fact it would be better than what we have now (the 40 wouldn’t have to make that awkward turn to get to the station). I would go further (by cutting back to Aurora and serving more stations along Aurora) but just those stations would be huge. You aren’t trying to decide whether a bus should detour to serve Link — it just serves Link “naturally”. Link stations would essentially be “on the way” like Roosevelt and the U-District.

        Of course that never happened. So I agree about center running buses on Aurora — that would be very helpful.

      2. Interesting point about Lynnwood vs. MLT. Lynnwood has roughly twice as much parking, and three times as many riders compared with MLT. Lynnwood gets twice as many riders as the number of parking stalls, and for MLT it is around 10% more riders than parking spots. From what I can tell, walk up and bicycle ridership are small at both stations. It goes to show the importance of frequent bus connections, e.g. the Swift orange line and 512 busses.

      3. Lynnwood is a larger city, is further north, is centrally located in Snohomish County, and has more destinations a short bus ride away.

      4. It goes to show the importance of frequent bus connections

        Yes, absolutely. Lynnwood is served by a wide variety of buses. I don’t know how many buses per hour go there (especially during peak) but it has to exceed all the other Lynnwood Link stations by quite a bit. Even less frequent or peak-only buses likely contribute quite a bit. For example four out of the five express routes that connect to Link serve Lynnwood Station. My guess is none of the buses carry a huge number of riders but together it really adds up. Or how about the 117. It is timed to the Mukilteo Ferry which means it runs every half hour. But if you are trying to get from Whidbey Island or Mukilteo to anywhere in Seattle, that is your bus (and you will transfer at Lynnwood Station).

      5. Is it possible to create a separated BRT line on Aurora/99, as with Bogota, Curitiba and whatever LA’s Orange Line is called now? Allow two-sided boarding, put planters or other barriers between the BRT and general traffic lanes, etc.?

      6. Lynnwood is a larger city, is further north, is centrally located in Snohomish County, and has more destinations a short bus ride away.

        The size of the city doesn’t actually matter (city borders are arbitrary) but the effective service area does (as you noted). Because Lynnwood is the northernmost station it has an effective service area that is larger than the other stations. This accounts for the huge number of people driving to the station. But Brandon’s point is that it wouldn’t have the good parking/ridership ratio if not for all the buses. The buses tend to favor Lynnwood Station over the other stations. There is plenty of density in Downtown Edmonds but the bus to Mountlake Terrace is infrequent and indirect. The obvious route (to 185th) doesn’t exist. It is not that the buses to Lynnwood from Edmonds are great — but the buses to other stations are no better. So it is really a combination of natural geography and the transit network Community Transit (and to a lesser extent Sound Transit) decided to build.

        If you go through the other stations it is pretty clear that they aren’t very impressive from a bus intercept standpoint. Mountlake Terrace has mostly infrequent buses. It does serve as the transfer point for the 510 (for trips like Everett to the UW) but I’m sure some of those riders just take a bus to Lynnwood Station. Other buses tend to be infrequent or awkward (or both).

        185th Station has good bus intercepts but they don’t add up to that many riders (obviously). Community Transit ridership has always been a mystery but it does seem likely that a relatively small number of Swift Blue riders are heading to Seattle which means the connection to Link isn’t adding up to a lot of riders. The 348 is good but it only provides half hour service east of the station. West of the station you don’t have to go very far before riders would rather just take the bus the direction they are headed (south). North City is a nice little community but it has never accounted for that many riders.

        Same story with 148th. The 333 connects it to Shoreline College but is otherwise fairly weak. 145th is not a particularly strong corridor (except close to the station and those folks will likely walk). North of the college it doesn’t make much sense as a feeder to Link. Hard to see many riders taking it all the way west to the college and then all the way back to the station. The 345 covers 155th & Aurora (a dense area) but so infrequently that riders probably continue to ride the E if they are headed downtown. The 346 is a coverage bus that gets less than 100 riders one-way. The 365 is a coverage bus that would involve backtracking for most riders (most will just ride to Northgate). That leaves the 65, which likely accounts for the bulk of the bus-to-Link ridership at that station. It has unique coverage on 145th which is a good (but not great) corridor. Some riders no doubt take the bus on 30th but that involves backtracking. It competes (and likely loses) with buses like the 522, 322, 61 and even the 372 for some riders.

        Lynnwood Station is the only one with both a strong and intuitive set of feeder buses. This is reflected in the ridership.

    4. Pure theorizing here… perhaps riders were fed up with constant breakdowns and packed trains? Each morning, trains are standing room only by 145th. Likewise, they’re standing-room only by University St heading north in the PM peak. That’s a long time to stand. Maybe the customer experience wasn’t all that for North end users? I wonder how current ridership compares to that of CT’s and ST’s former routes 402, 511 & 512.

      I will say, however, based from my own personal experience, 148th and Lynnwood Stations are very busy in comparison to the other new north end stations.

      1. “Each morning, trains are standing room only by 145th. Likewise, they’re standing-room only by University St heading north in the PM peak. ”

        Things should get much better once 2 Line trains cross the lake and reach Lynnwood. That should be happening in about 6 months, once 2 Line simulation begins to Lynnwood. ST testing should work like the K Line testing in LA right now — carrying riders on the entire line except between a few intermediate stations near LAX.

        Stepping back a bit, Lynnwood Link is really the first segment with four sequential parking garages driving the ridership. The outcome is clearly a peak commute overcrowding surge of 2-4 hours when it’s really busy, while the trains probably go barren the other hours of service. The same thing will probably happen when Federal Way Link opens.

        ST isn’t in the habit of reporting time of day boardings to the public. Thus what appears to be happening is not easily determined by transit fans. The anecdotes are still valuable though! Thanks!

      2. Each morning, trains are standing room only by 145th.

        This would be consistent with what I called a “commuter rail” pattern. Ridership isn’t particularly high, but during rush hour the trains are crowded. Not only is the peak ridership very pronounced but there aren’t that many riders going between stations. Just about everyone who boards at a Lynnwood Link station rides it into the UW or downtown thus contributing to crowding (peak direction north of downtown). In contrast on much of the line there are plenty of people getting on and off and the ridership is more spread out during the day. This adds to ridership but not crowding.

  5. Here we are in March and the Montlake lid bus stops are still not yet open…
    Still highway operations trucks parked in the eastbound bus pullover. The 48s don’t stop on Montlake at the lid either. No wires have been reinstalled. Sometimes bus drivers do drop off passengers at the westbound/inbound bus stop but none of these bus stops have any signage.

    I’m really curious what the hold up is?

    The ramp has been in use for 3 months, we are just talking signage and directing his drivers to stop here.

    1. ST and Metro service changes are coming March 29/30. IIRC that is when the buses start serving the lid stops.

  6. I needed to ride the 2 Line today and observed a couple of things.

    The first is that it appears that everything is 4 car trains, perhaps due to Redmond simulated service. It certainly isn’t needed for capacity, although there were quite a few folks waiting in Bellevue downtown at rush hour.

    The other thing that I noticed was that trains are crawling into and out of Wilburton station. Anyone have any idea why?

    1. I don’t have an answer to your question, but I wanted to share this video of 4-car trains on that segment going extremely slow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txkVpFHqHew. I’m not sure why they’re doing that.

      Something to note is that Downtown Redmond Link has officially started pre-revenue service: https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/service-alerts/beginning-march-3-sound-transit-will-be-conducting-pre-revenue-service. That may be why there are 4-car trains?

      1. ST is replacing pandrol clips, which connect the rails to the ties, at the Wilburton station. That’s why the trains have to go very slowly there.

    2. I suspect that ST is “burning in”new vehicles on 2 Line now. Keep in mind that the beginning of service simulation will have service available on a much longer 2 Line. And those trains will be longer too. So the train cars kept at East OMF need to be through the burn-in stage before even the service simulation starts. The service simulation will run several weeks before the actual opening date , when riders can hop on Link to cross the lake.

  7. Today, i see another example as to why projects should never have federal funding as something to count on when it comes to planning these things. Unless the money is locked in and already in the possession of the project, a new administration, new congress, or new court rulings, can end them.

  8. I went to the King County Council meeting Tuesday to speak about Metro safety. I think that, for the first time, members of the Council are actually starting to listen to me. One thank me for my years of fighting for changes in fare enforcement and overall safety, another, while not saying my name, looked right at me and said that we should have listened to some people more. The ATU leadership all agreed with me and what I was saying. Good feeling. Now, don’t think I am about to become complacent with that. I am just getting started.

    1. A surge has been in preparation. The King County Council had a special meeting in mid January on Metro safety. I started an article on it but I never finished it because the meeting was 2 1/2 hours long so it took a week to study the video and in the end I didn’t have enough unique content to write about. The first part was public testimony, and several bus drivers spoke. Some of them said the county’s policies aren’t working, drivers are in an impossible position, and the county has been talking about improving bus security for a decade but not done anything. (This is all from my memory two months ago so it may not be exact.) After that as a Metro person presented on security and safety (two words Metro defines precisely: passenger misbehavior falls under “security”). Then the councilmembers discussed it.

      At the time Balducci and Dunn sent out press releases that STB received, listing possible strategies that emerged from the meeting: “surge” patrols, fully-enclosed driver’s compartments, support for drivers, better data collection, making sure new service includes budgeted money for security, and participating in a regional task force proposed by the Amalgated Transit Union.

      Last month Metro introduced a demonstration of buses with enclosed drivers’ compartments for drivers to try out and give feedback on. There may have been movement on the other strategies but nothing that stands out in my memory.

      On Tuesday there were two more press releases. One said, “Council approves Dunn, Balducci transit safety legislation”.:

      “The King County Council on Tuesday unanimously approved legislation to support the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 587’s call for the establishment of a countywide task force on transit safety. The legislation, which requests the King County Executive’s and Council’s assistance in establishing and participating in the task force, was introduced following the tragic murder of transit operator Shawn Yim….”

      “The task force, which will include membership from cities and their police departments, transportation stakeholders, county representatives and transit operators, will convene to come up with new ideas for addressing safety for operators and riders aboard public transit as well as the areas around transit stations where safety is a concern….”

      “At a Committee of the Whole hearing in January (the one above, “whole” means all council districts), ATU Local 587 President Greg Woodfill called for the regional task force to address not only safety on Metro buses, but also the broader public safety issues in the jurisdictions in which they operate….”

      “ATU Local 587 will announce details of the specific membership and first meeting date for the task force soon.”

      The other press release was on a different topic so I’ll put in another thread.

    2. The ATU had a press release today too. The rest of the comment is quotes from it.

      The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 587 on Friday announced March 20 as the first meeting date for the new Transit Safety and Security Task Force. City leaders, public safety officials, transportation stakeholders, transit agency representatives, and King County representatives will convene in the new task force focused on addressing safety and security both aboard transit for riders and operators, and in areas around transit.

      “One of the primary goals of the task force is addressing transit safety and security in King County, including the jurisdictions in which the Metro transit department operates. As a starting point, the task force will address:

      * Improvements to operator safety on Metro transit department buses, including a plan to install physical barriers for bus operators on both newly acquired and existing bus fleet;

      * Strategies to hold public transit passengers, as well as others at bus stops and transit centers, accountable for abiding by the requirements for conduct on transit property, as specified in K.C.C. chapter 28.96, as well as local laws and regulations;

      * Interagency coordination and shared responsibilities with the jurisdictions in which the Metro transit department operates;

      * Coordination with Metro transit police, local law enforcement, communities, and transit riders to improve response times with the goal of improving both public safety and the perception of safety onboard public transit and at bus stops and transit centers; and

      * Other issues as identified by task force members.

      The task force will meet regularly through spring 2025 to develop an initial list of recommendations. Per County Legislation, a report is due in September 2025 to provide accountability and to report on progress for improving transit safety and security.

  9. The other thing King County did this week was, “The King County Council on Tuesday approved legislation asking Metro to report on so-called ghost buses, also known as unplanned trip cancellations, to boost transparency and make transit more reliable for riders across King County.”

    That’s now three different ways Metro uses “ghost”. Ghost buses are also those that appear on next-arrival displays but don’t really exist. I remember waiting for a 255 at UW station and the display said 10 minutes, 5 minutes, then it disappeared. “Ghost passengers” are those that are still on the bus after it reaches its terminus, but they don’t exist, it’s just accumulated errors in the data.

    1. I have had more than my fair share of “ghost buses.” It is especially frustrating on the weekends when there is no one to call to see what is going on.
      They are bad enough when it is a Rapidride bus, which are supposed to be every 10 to 15 minutes, but when it is a bus, like the 165, which operates every half an hour, that it becomes really frustrating. The other problem is the next bus has to pick up the slack of the ghost bus. Which makes it fall behind schedule even more.

  11. I wonder how fare payment will look after operator compartment doors get installed.

    I can’t see operators handing out paper transfers any more, since a hole big enough to do that is also big enough for a knife. But anyone paying with cash will need some sort of receipt. Perhaps the Age of Cashlessness will start sooner than expected.

    I saw someone tap their phone to the ORCA reader about a week ago.

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