Shenzhen Metro, staggering powerhouse. (RMTransit)
Shanghai Metro, the world’s largest. (RMTransit)
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Shenzhen Metro, staggering powerhouse. (RMTransit)
Shanghai Metro, the world’s largest. (RMTransit)
This is an open thread.
Comments are closed.
I called out WSF (and the WSTC, which sets the fares) for charging so much for walk-ons that they could probably reduce the fares, increase revenue, and shorten car queues all at once.
Someone pointed out that Sounder fares were almost as much for the longest round trips. He had a point.
Paying $3.25 or more to ride short distances feels like an anachronism in the days of every other major transit service charging $2-$3 for similar trips.
But when ST is running peak bus service competing with Sounder, and they are a dead heat for travel time between Tacoma and downtown Seattle, why not just run Sounder, only charge $3, save a bundle on cancelled bus operations, and fill Sounder up better?
The savings on bus operations might be several times larger than the decreased fare revenue.
(However, this might be a mistake if implemented before the World Cup.)
In an era of record inflation, transit budget deficits, and fiscal cliffs, reducing fares is a non starter.
When was the last time Metro, ST, or WSF had a surplus?
2024. Per the 2025 Adopted Budget and Financial Plan, page 11:
Total Revenues & Other Financing: $2,986,423
Total Expenses & Outlays: $2,444,958
Excluding $93MM in net debt, ST “gained” ~$0.5B in cash last year. This is, of course, a completely meaningless metric for an agency with ~$100B on long term capital, operational, and maintenance commitments between now & 2045.
https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/financial
ST should stop running some STX routes during the South Sounder service window, independent of the fares.
2024 Build America Grand Award Winner – Lynnwood Link L300
https://youtu.be/7pWQDfzurbw
The topic of ridership on the 560, I suspect part of what’s going on is that the ridership patterns are very different at different times of day. That, during commute hours, Renton-Bellevue dominates, at night, SeaTac-Bellevue, and, midday, somewhere in between. Direction also matters, for instance, at night, the ridership is people going from the airport, not to the airport.
Another thing about the Renton geography I find unfortunate is that it is impossible for a bus traveling 405 to serve any stop in Renton at all without a long delay to exit the freeway and reenter it. STRIDE reduces the delay a little bit (by reducing coverage of Renton a lot), but even South Renton Park and ride, that one stop is going to add about 8 minutes or so to every trip. Yet, not making it leaves Renton with no way in or out except for the 101 and circuitous local bus routes.
Did anybody even look at what it would cost to put in bus ramps to make this in and out a bit faster. The long light at 7th/Grady, plus chronic traffic congestion at the exit ramp (the bus gets stuck in traffic behind all the cars wanting to go from 405 to SR-167) is just so delay prone. Even at 10:30 at night last week when I was riding, there was some slowdown, I can only imagine what it’s like at noon on a Thursday, let alone rush hour.
Between Burien and Westwood, the 560 is mostly deadheading empty to/from its Westwood layover.
And yet there is plenty of ridership in that corridor … on the H Line. It’s as if ST asked what can they do to discourage ridership on the 560, and then followed that advice.
Infrequency is one ingredient. Skipping the most popular stops (Roxbury Safeway and the White Center business district) might actually be more impactful.
If ST is dead set on minimizing 560 ridership north of Burien, why not go ahead and truncate the route at Burien, where there is a more secure layover and a dedicated employee restroom?
ST has guidelines for when underforming routes should be looked at. The 560 has been at or close to the top of that list for over a decade.
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Meanwhile, the riders trying to get to blue-collar airport-related jobs have to deal with an awkward last-mile transfer on the way to work.
The airport has shown itself to be a major transit destination, as clearly shown in 1-Line station boardings.
The dearth of layover space at the Airport Station kiss & ride is a fixable problem. Airport Station has a dedicated employee restroom. It is long past time to look seriously at extending the H Line to the airport.
I really don’t think it is worth it. Extending the H line would take roughly 20-25 minutes round trip according to the schedule of the 560. That’s roughly a 20-30% increase in service on the H line (roughly 90-110 minutes round trip).
To put that in perspective, if we invested the same amount of bus hours, we could run the H to SLU (with time to spare!) or we could run 1-2 extra trips per hour (for 7.5-8.5m service).
Alternately those same bus hours could double service on the 161, which would probably also be a more valuable use of bus hours.
With respect, how many riders on the H Line do you think commute to SLU?
Also, route 161 shows it taking 14 minutes from Burien TC to Airport Station, and 17 minutes from Airport Station to Burien TC. The 560 has to wait in a perpetual traffic jam to provide near-front-door service to the airport terminal, so, of course, it takes longer. No service planner paying attention to data is going to suggest sending more buses into the airport terminal loop. Heck, they don’t even have buses serving the terminal at Paine Field.
I get it that a few riders on the 161 have jobs in Burien. But do you really think there are more of them than there are people along the H Line who would love to be able to get to the many jobs at the airport without a long wait at Burien?
With respect, how many riders on the H Line do you think commute to SLU?
That is irrelevant. No one is suggesting a peak-only express from White Center to SLU. But to your question about ridership:
About 1,000 people a day alight the C Line north of where the H ends. If the H Line went to South Lake Union (instead of the C Line) it would probably get a similar number of riders there. Remember, not everyone boards the C Line at the Junction. Plenty board in other parts of West Seattle and plenty board downtown.
Pairing the C and H in this manner would essentially double the frequency for those trips (e. g. ferry to South Lake Union). This means that several hundred riders riders would benefit. Whether these people are commuting (and where they are commuting from) is largely irrelevant. The point is you would likely get a lot more riders than you would with an extension the other direction.
That is why I think the only way that it would happen is if ST pays for it. ST is willing to spend a fortune on a relatively small number of riders. This would be right up their alley.
I would expect that extending the H to SLU would generate much more ridership than extending it to Seatac. I don’t think an SLU extension is a high priority extension either, it’s just an example of what we could do with the same service hours.
20-25 minutes round trip means 10-15 minutes one way. I don’t think there is any fast/compelling route to SeaTac from Burien. The options are, from fastest to slowest:
1. Run express to Seatac station (no route exists; roughly 15-25 minutes round trip)
2. Run express to the airport (560; 20-25m)
3. Run local to Seatac station (161; 25-30m)
4. Run express to TIBS, then Seatac station (no route exists; 30-40m)
The 560 originally went further to Alaska Junction. It was truncated at Westwood Village due to low ridership in West Seattle. South King and East King are paying for the 560 and Stride 1, not North King. Frequency depends on the ST Express budget, which is set for only a few routes to be midday frequent. Four other routes were going to add frequency in 2022 (550 Sundays, 535 Sundays, 522 Roosevelt truncation, 594), but that was swallowed by the driver shortage. Stride is positioned as the frequency solution to the 560, but it won’t start for four years.
The urban center in southern West Seattle is Westwood Village, not White Center, so that’s why the 560 goes there and Metro has been making it a transfer hub. It’s supposed to grow someday.
Extending the H to SeaTac would presumably coincide with truncating the 161, so it wouldn’t be all new hours.
It would probably only make sense to extend the H Line to the airport very early in the morning. That is when the 574 gets a lot of its riders (presumably with people going to the airport at 2:00 AM). The 560 doesn’t run that early so that may account for why SeaTac is such a small portion of the ridership. Running that time of the morning is also fairly cheap (not much traffic). So yeah, I could see them having a few early morning extensions. But for all-day service there are much better values (including on this very line).
A chunk of the 161 riders will switch to heading to Kent Des Moines Station once there is a non-ziggy-zaggy bus route between Kent Station and Kent Des Moines Station. The 161 might pick up more riders in southeast SeaTac after the 574 gets truncated, but I just don’t see it gaining net ridership, so no frequency bump to make the Burien transfer non-painful.
The airport is a major destination at all hours of the day and night, not just when the light rail is running. The H Line is one of Metro’s highest ridership routes, with lots of riders alighting at Burien. Most of them don’t wander off from there to wait tables at nearby Burien restaurants.
Commenters here will use the is/ought fallacy to forever make the commute from Delridge to airport jobs no better than the pain it is right now. The bizarre arguments about how we need to force more transfers in order to bring up ridership metrics, instead of believing in the power of more direct rides to induce more unique riders to leave their cars at home, simply leaves me in disbelief of how much commenters actually know about transit. We’ve forgotten the difference between rides and riders, and lost track of which is more important.
Btw, in the category of bizarre arguments, would it not take fewer service hours to extend the 40 to the ferry dock than to extend the H into SLU, if the goal is to give ferry rides hyperfrequency to SLU? If you really believe in that goal, make that suggestion to Metro.
The H Line is one of Metro’s highest ridership routes, with lots of riders alighting at Burien. Most of them don’t wander off from there to wait tables at nearby Burien restaurants.
Hard to say what they do. But we do know that not that many transfer to a bus towards SeaTac. Here are some ridership numbers for the Burien Transit Center:
H Line: 829
F Line: 486
131: 257
132: 222
161: 183
165: 200
560: 95
Note: The ridership numbers for the 560 are old. Overall ridership on the route is well below when the stop numbers were gathered. If ridership dropped the same at every stop it is around 60 now.
The 161 and 560 make the most sense for going to SeaTac. Clearly a small subset of those who get off the H Line in Burien are transferring to get to SeaTac. Even if every single rider from those buses came from the H Line and every rider was headed to SeaTac it is still is well less than half of those who are get off the H Line at Burien TC.
It is worth noting that there are a lot of boardings and alightings on Ambaum itself on the H Line. Consider the ridership of an inbound (northbound) bus. At Ambaum & 136th there are over boardings and 100 alightings a day. 15th & Roxbury has about 300 riders boarding and alighting. Those aren’t outliers. Between Burien TC and 15th & Roxbury (inclusive) there are over 2,000 riders boarding and 1,000 riders alighting. This is a bus that gets a lot of its ridership from trips along the corridor. It is very easy to assume that everyone who rides a bus like the H is going to a major destination (like downtown) or even a pretty big one (like SeaTac). That clearly isn’t the case.
Of course an extension to SeaTac would get more riders. Any extension anywhere would get more riders. But there is no reason to believe that an extension to SeaTac would be a great value. Relatively few riders would actually take advantage of it and it would cost quite a bit.
would it not take fewer service hours to extend the 40 to the ferry dock than to extend the H into SLU, if the goal is to give ferry rides hyperfrequency to SLU?
That isn’t the only advantage of an extension of the H. It would just be one advantage. Keep in mind the bus is already on the waterfront. It is already making the same stops as the C Line. They are both RapidRide. They both go to West Seattle. An extension thus becomes a very simple, easy to understand option for riders. For example let’s say I want to go from SLU to Alki. I can take either bus and transfer to the 50. Meanwhile, just like the C bus, you are bound to have some one seat riders from West Seattle to South Lake Union on the H Line.
The point is that if we are talking about an extension of the H Line then it is quite likely that an extension to South Lake Union would benefit a lot more riders than an extension to SeaTac (and cost about the same amount). To be clear, I wouldn’t do it yet (I would wait for SDOT to clean up the mess at the northern tail of the C). That part of the C is way too slow. It also makes sense as a way to shift service from the old streetcar.
Nor do I think it is a pressing need in our system. It is highly unlikely that it is the next thing I would do even if the pathway was fast and we had more money. I’m just saying that even on this very route there are better values than extending the H to SeaTac.
Yeah the Renton stop effort makes a fundamental mockery of the concept of Stride as a “fast” route. That’s especially true as it’s in the middle of S1.
As with any transit project, the design details are important.
Until Renton gets fixed, keep the 560 and have Stride should skip the Renton TC stop so it can stay in the HOT lanes the entire way between Burien & Renton. Perhaps truncate the 560 at Stride 44th station. The service hours saved by not having Stride exit 405 will fund a big chunk of 560.
Until Renton gets fixed, keep the 560 and have Stride should skip the Renton TC stop so it can stay in the HOT lanes the entire way between Burien & Renton.
Yeah, that works except it costs a lot more money (or the 560 runs so infrequently that no one rides it). There are dozens of similar projects. For example an express from Kent to Seattle would be helpful. They have Sounder but in the middle of the day the only option is the 150. The 150 is a great bus but if you are trying to get from Kent Station to downtown it takes a while. An express would save more time than a similar express for the Stride Line (and probably get a lot more riders). Hell, if we are playing that game we should resurrect various Metro express bus but run them in the middle of the day. For example, run the 15 all day long (as well as the RapidRide D).
I’m not saying that ST shouldn’t have express buses — they most certainly should. It is essentially part of their mandate. But it really doesn’t make sense to have an express run alongside a Stride Line (which itself is largely an express) unless the Stride Line is really crowded and/or ST has a lot of money to spend on a huge network of similar buses. I don’t see either happening.
Not sure about skipping Renton, but rather than overlaying the 560 I think it would make sense to just continue running the 566. It could get truncated in Bellevue.
“Until Renton gets fixed, keep the 560 and have Stride should skip the Renton TC stop so it can stay in the HOT lanes the entire way between Burien & Renton. Perhaps truncate the 560 at Stride 44th station. The service hours saved by not having Stride exit 405 will fund a big chunk of 560.”
I-405 HOT ends at SR 167 interchange, portion of I-405 between SR 167 and I-5 will remain HOV just as today. There won’t be any types of manage lane along SR 518.
If STRIDE (Burien bound) has to stop at South Renton, it will exit the HOT lane at the weaving access on top of SR 169/Maple Valley Hwy. Then S1 has 3200 ft to make lane change twice to exit at Talbot Rd. From Talbot Rd to South Renton TC, it can use the BAT lane proposed for I Line. I think the real pain is how to re-enter I-405 and the opposite movement of Bellevue-bound S1.
In 200X version of I-405 master plan, A HOV direct-access ramp was proposed near Lind Ave that could have been a good access for STRIDE, but when I-405 RTB HOT lane was scoped to end at SR 167, it kind of put that project in limbo If it was built, STRIDE could really use it.
Back at your idea of truncating ST 560 in N 44th. I think it could also work if one of the KCM routes currenting terminating at Renton TC is extended to serve N 44th.
The topic of ridership on the 560, I suspect part of what’s going on is that the ridership patterns are very different at different times of day.
Maybe. ST doesn’t have stop data for the time of day. But they do have overall ridership per time of day (it is on the following page). Ridership is very peak-oriented with the vast majority of trips occurring eastbound in the morning and westbound in the evening. There is good early morning ridership but again, that is eastbound. It isn’t like the 574 where you have a giant spike very early in the morning with people headed to SeaTac. During the middle of the day there aren’t that many riders (about 10 per bus, or 20 an hour). But ridership is much stronger eastbound than westbound (go figure).
Overall it just looks like a typical commuter pattern, which makes sense. About 2/3 of the trips involve Bellevue (a commute destination). Other trips are split more evenly, with Renton taking the bulk of it. SeaTac ridership (which would be less oriented towards a typical 9-5 pattern) just doesn’t account for many riders. In other words this is mostly just a Bellevue commuter bus.
Which is why the obsession with SeaTac is misguided. The 560 provides that and it doesn’t get many riders. Consider some numbers: About 300 people a day board west of SeaTac. Only 120 of those riders get off at the two SeaTac stops. About 250 board the bus westbound in SeaTac bus. Yet over 800 people get off the bus in Renton and Bellevue. SeaTac is just not a very big destination on the 560.
It is easy to blame the frequency for this but that isn’t the case with the 574. The 574 (a bus that also runs every half hour) gets over half of its riders from SeaTac. SeaTac is a major destination on the 574 — not the 560.
I would actually blame frequency plus speed. The 560W is a slow boat and it doesn’t come very often. And it serves low density areas. And it skips White Center entirely, for no good reason, leaving only Burien and Westwood as marginally big destinations. Maybe at some point Westwood will be a thing, but right now it’s just a decent-sized shopping center that lost it’s anchor bookstore, with bus transfers and a little bit of multifamily.
The 560 is so slow and infrequent, that transferring using it can lengthen a 10-15 minute car ride to close to an hour on the bus. Very few people are going to choose a trip that shitty, and it shows in the ridership numbers.
The 574, on the other hand, is very competitive with the car trip. Sometimes faster, with the HOV lanes.
The 560W is a slow boat and it doesn’t come very often. And it serves low density areas.
The 574 runs just as often. It serves areas that are low density as well (SR-512 Park-and-Ride, Tacoma Dome). In general I would say the 560 serves more areas of density. The 560 stops on Ambaum get a ton of riders — just on a different bus (the H). But both serve park and ride lots. Yet Burien TC (which has a big parking lot) only gets less than 100 riders a day while Federal Way TC (which is quite similar) gets well over 200. From Burien to the airport is an express (no stops along the way) while Federal Way to SeaTac is not.
The biggest difference in the routing is the timing. The 574 runs very early in the morning (which is when the bus is most crowded). The 560 does not. That clearly accounts for some (but not all) of it.
I think the biggest difference is competition, especially when it comes to park and ride users. The 574 obviously gets a lot of riders who park and ride. Yet it gets hardly anyone at Star Lake or Kent/Des Moines Park and Ride. My guess is those folks just drive to Angle Lake and take Link. With Burien you have the same sort of issue. Instead of driving to Burien they drive to Angle Lake (if they are approaching from the south) and TIBS (if they are approaching from the northwest). This explains the rather unusual ridership pattern of the 574. Generally speaking the shorter the trip the more people take it. But it gets as many riders from Lakewood as from Tacoma. It gets about twice as many riders from Lakewood as from Federal Way. People are taking long trips — mainly because the 574 serves park and ride lots that are far enough away to make up for the lack of frequency.
I don’t think the west side of 560 can ever compete in that regard. Serving the de-facto transit center at Westwood Village is a worthy goal but very different than serving a string of parking lots a long ways away from Link. If that is what it takes to attract (relatively) high ridership to SeaTac then the west side of the 560 is out of luck.
The time of day absolutely does matter. I’m sure lots of people ride the bus between Renton and Bellevue in the morning, but not many are doing so in the evening. Even if SeaTac is a relatively small part of the 560’s ridership on an overall level, I can see with my own eyes that it is a big part of the subset of the 560’s ridership that takes place during certain off-peak hours of the day. For instance, last week, when I rode it, we had about 15 people getting on at SeaTac, with the number of ons and offs in all of Renton totaling about two. This was about 10:30 PM on a Tuesday night.
I will also say that, anecdotally, I would ride the 560 to/from the airport more if it were faster, frequent, or more reliable, or if the Bellevue->Kirkland connection were faster, more frequent, or more reliable. As things currently stand, I almost always opt for 255->Link going to the airport (I don’t trust the 560 on 405 when I have a plane to catch), and, quite often do it going home too (the 560 is faster, but, around 10 PM-midnight, runs once an hour, and with the long wait time, it’s usually not worth it). Last Tuesday, the 560 was an easy choice, in order to avoid the shuttle train mess downtown. But, had Link been running normally, I very well might have taken that instead.
I think we just solved the Delridge to airport commuter problem: Ride the H to Burien, and then drive to TIBS!
The 405 express lanes project currently under construction can result in shifting of the pinch points on the corridor. It may eliminate some and create others. Lots may depend on the toll rates — which will be variable.
It’s a good reminder that faster bus transit is usually only possible if the highway design promotes it. It needs to be a collaboration — of both transit service and highway design. When there are two major transit operators (ST and Metro) with the former having the dedicated funds, WSDOT, the cities and the Port (airport area) all important, a good design can only happen with a shared vision and common objectives.
So rather than deem a solution to be fatally flawed, it seems better to me to ask what design changes are needed to make a transit corridor work well. That seems to be the basic problem with the 560 corridor that Stride is partially replacing.
I could even see letting the dust settle on the 405 project before spending lots of money fixing speculative but maybe minor pinch points — at which point the Stride 1 corridor should be fully revisited.
Since TDLE won’t open until 2035 at the earliest, if ST is dead set opening Stride in 2028 then there will be a long period where STX will continue operating between SeaTac and Tacoma. It looks to me that easiest short-term solution is to extend STX 574 to Westwood and Burien in the interim. It could be helped by having the path through SeaTac as bus only as much as possible.
Then a longer-term resolution to replacing the 560 tail and the related multiple transfer hassle can be more carefully developed with all the entities involved. That would be something for 2027-2029.
Since TDLE won’t open until 2035 at the earliest, if ST is dead set opening Stride in 2028 then there will be a long period where STX will continue operating between SeaTac and Tacoma.
When Federal Way Link gets built I think it is highly unlikely that ST runs buses from Tacoma (or Federal Way) to SeaTac. Either they truncate the Tacoma buses at Federal Way or the buses stop there and continue (express) to Seattle. The only exception is very early in the morning (when Link doesn’t run). If the 574 still exists that is the only time it will run. I could see that being extended to Burien/Westwood Village but that is basically what the 161 is for. Metro considers it night owl (even though it looks to me like it could have a few more early-morning runs).
ST mused about extending the 574 to Westwood Village to backfill the part Stride 1 will abandon. That was in the mid 2010s and it never made a decision.
One other factor is the 2 Line opening across Lake Washington. It may take away riders from STX 560 west of TIBS — but I’m not sure.
I had thought Sounder North would lose riders to Lynnwood Link Extension for example — but it doesn’t appear to have shifted many.
If the 2 Line opening in the next several months does take away a notable number of riders, the future of a Link- Westwood connection may be even more doubtful.
One other factor is the 2 Line opening across Lake Washington. It may take away riders from STX 560 west of TIBS — but I’m not sure.
If there was an express from Burien to downtown then I could see that having an impact. But the buses (131, 132 or H) take a while. It is only 8 minutes longer to ride to Downtown Bellevue than Downtown Seattle. But the buses from Burien are a lot more frequent. So impatience may play a part and in some cases the transfer may save you time versus waiting for the (infrequent) 560. From Westwood Village I could definitely see it. My guess is some of those riders rode a different bus and transfer there. Then again some of those riders are heading to Renton or SeaTac (which means they would continue doing what they are doing).
In general it will be very difficult to tell. About 30% of the riders used to board west of SeaTac. But many of those riders got off the bus at Burien and SeaTac, leaving about 17% headed towards Bellevue. Some of those obviously were headed to Renton. So figure maybe 10% to 15% of the ridership were headed to Bellevue from west of SeaTac. That is small enough to be hard to notice.
The 560 tail has already been replaced. It’s called the H Line. Riders have already voted with their feet in large numbers for the more frequent option that serves the popular bus stops of color (like White Center).
It is hard to imagine a more wasteful use of limited service hours than keeping the 560W.
Renton STRIDE access is being looked into, but it won’t be funded by Sound Transit and rolled out as part of initial STRIDE service.
I think that’s why City of Renton threw that funny idea about having transit station at former Red Lion site. I think that came up when they were figuring out exact routing of S1 accessing South Renton TC (SRTC). It could have been a better idea if they brought it up a few years earlier when the SRTC was still in early planning stage. In that way WSDOT could actually consider some kind of direct-access ramp to the transit station with minimum local traffic impact.
Another thing I also wonder regarding the 560/STRIDE…once you pay the time penalty for the detour to south Renton Park and ride, how much time do you actually save by waiting at that long 7th/Grady light again to get back on the freeway vs. just follow the 560’s current route all the way through Renton? A part of me feels like the route change is a lot of coverage loss for not that much time savings. Unfortunately, it is simply impossible for a bus to get through Renton quickly without staying on 405, bypassing it completely. But, to do that, every destination that connects with Bellevue via 405 requires a separate bus (one for Renton, one for SeaTac, one for Kent). Financially, this doesn’t work, as least not with any remotely usable frequency.
Renton is planning bus lanes and signal priority. They’re planning to revamp the whole area in general.
In the future, there needs to be an HOV exit or some sort of bus tunnel to work this out but that is expensive.
This is an excellent point. Having Stride pass through Renton while making several stops would be much more useful than having it back track to the freeway. It would be a huge increase in frequency and connectivity for Renton, a city that many are saying should get light rail in ST4. All the more so if Renton is planning to have bus lanes and signal priority anyway! And Stride is not even meant to be expressway-exclusive, look at Stride S3, none of it is expressway, and not all of it is even necessarily in bus lanes.
Maybe ST should consider running Burien to Bellevue every 30 mins (skipping South Renton), and the remaining 2/3 of rides will pass through South Renton TC. So Burien commuters to Bellevue can time their trip accordingly, but also have access into Renton and other connections for most rides.
Also this would only happen during peak hours. Otherwise Stride would always go through Renton.
If we keep 566 running, we can time this “Burien express” bus to align with that so the 566 can pick up Renton folks during that gap.
How about a bunch of Stride lines in the I-405 corridor that all overlap on the trunk HOV lanes and then branch off to serve various destinations nearby. Some could branch off to South Center and Tukwila Station, some go down Hwy 167, some bypass Renton as expresses, some serve Renton, some hit the airport, some go to Burien, etc.? Could function as an open busway out of Bellevue TC.
I feel like Metro buses could do that instead. The point of Stride is to act like a train on wheels, and serve those same destinations with high frequency all day.
With the new toll lanes, some commuters could definitely opt to ride local express buses to Bellevue/Seattle instead of Stride. Stride will likely be used by people living near the transit centers instead, and by park & riders.
Maybe ST should consider running Burien to Bellevue every 30 mins (skipping South Renton), and the remaining 2/3 of rides will pass through South Renton TC.
Yeah, that is the sort of thing I alluded to earlier. I could see that during peak but not in the middle of the day. You could complement service from Renton to Bellevue with well timed 556 buses. But there are issues. Renton to Burien/TIBS would have twenty minute gaps. TIBS to Burien would have odd gaps. You would have a bus ten minutes after the other one and who knows when the bus (that went through Renton) will show up. If the drive through Renton takes an extra ten to twenty minutes you would have three buses within a ten minute span and then a twenty minute wait. Same goes for the freeway station north of Renton.
In the middle of the day I expect the buses to run every fifteen minutes and then things get even messier. You can alternate but then Renton is basically back to having the 566 (infrequent service to Bellevue and Burien). Other than peak I just don’t see it happening unless ST spends a lot more money on service (which seems unlikely).
The point of Stride is to act like a train on wheels, and serve those same destinations with high frequency all day.
Not as I see it. Stride 3 (on SR 522) follows a typical light rail path. But Stride 1 and 2 are express buses. If it was light rail it would go through Renton with multiple stops (like the 560 does) not make one stop at the edge of down. But it would go through town a lot faster. Of course building that sort of thing is a lot more expensive. But instead of focusing on that sort of infrastructure it was about electric buses and big new parking lots.
I visited Chengdu in 2010. They were just about to open their first rail line. 15 years later, they have 15 lines running throughout the city. Meanwhile it has been 10 years since ST3 and not a single line is open.
It’s really sad that we need this long to build rail. Our country pioneered the concept and now we’re struggling to build the basics. We should be building world class transit: high speed, modern, clean, frequent, reliable, and automatic. But nope, we’re struggling to build light rail that uses outdated, well researched technology.
Even worse, third world developing nations in Africa, Asia, etc. are already building their own transit. Many “poor” countries you wouldn’t even expect already have their equivalent of the 1 Line. It is just shameful that we are stuck like this, and even more shameful that Seattle is a leading example in the nation.
“Meanwhile it has been 10 years since ST3 and not a single line is open.”
We didn’t even finish ST2 yet…
Pike Place Market pedestrianization report. I went to my usual produce shop on Saturday. Pike Place was closed to cars, as was the stub of Pike Street connecting Pike Place to 1st Avenue. This is temporary for construction, as a lane is filled with construction materials around Stewart Street. Deliveries are allowed for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon.
I liked the closure: the street was robust with pedestrians walking, and it drained the tight congestion on the sidewalks. It looks like a European pedestrian district now. Why should that be marred for a few cars at a time, when pedestrians outnumber car drivers/passengers ten to one. And some of the drivers aren’t there intentionally: they’re just following their map-direction voices and didn’t realize what Pike Place was like until they got caught in it.
The manager of the produce shop wasn’t happy with the closure, however. He said he’s lost some business because pedestrians used to walk on the sidewalk right next to the shop, but now many of them walk in the street and don’t notice the shop. I said pedestrianization will probably make Pike Place more popular with people who are avoiding it now, so there will probably be more people on both the sidewalk and the street once people get used to it. He said we can’t tell what the final impact will be from the first three days, but he’s working with the market to get a solution that works for everybody, but he’s still concerned about losing customers at this point.
Part of Pike Street between 1st and 2nd is also closed. In the past several weeks there were art panels. On Saturday there were these strange kind of chairs that you could roll around in a circle on, and a piano player.
I’ve heard that argument before. That, by giving the street to cars and forcing pedestrians to squeeze through narrow sidewalks, that it tends to lead to more window shopping because people are walking slower. I don’t particularly buy that argument, and even if it were true, the effect could be had in a better way by putting temporary amenities such as benches or planter beds in the street, not cars.
Another factor, of course, is that, since parking at Pike Place Market is so limited, almost none of the people in the cars driving through the market spend any money there – they just drive through and gawk at it. A pedestrian is able to walk over and patronize a store that looks interesting in ways that a car can’t.
That is an interesting observation about the sidewalk window-shopping. My gf is a small-business owner and she tells me about the smallest, trivial amenities/acts of service that we as patrons would never consider but make a huge impact on revenue. I definitely in favor of restricting cars at Pike Place. But I strongly caution us transit/urban nerds to take into consideration the “other side’s” case.
Passing by in an over crowded crowded walkway is not the same as customers actually buying stuff at your business. If anything, I’m hesitant to stop at a random vendor there when it’s crowded, because I feel like I’d be blocking other people’s progress.
Farmer’s Markets seem pretty popular, and none of the ones I’ve been too have cars driving through them.
The typical suburban shopping mall is just a bunch of covered walkways through storefronts without car traffic directly in front. What faces the traffic is a bunch of windowless walls.
On Renton, does anyone know if the 8th St HOV exit will get built? It’s listed as a “current project” but work has already started on that segment of roadway and I haven’t seen anything going up: https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/major-projects/i-405sr-167-corridor-program
They are not. Renton is an absolute failure in advocating for proper highway improvements.
The most congested exits on the S curves aren’t getting auxiliary lanes… while low density areas around Newcastle are? Consider me disappointed.
And no HOV exits for Renton. Another huge issue. They need at least one HOV exit and a busway that serves Renton. Our leaders have no clue and cannot do the basics.
The “one more lane” toxic mindset has to go. Fewer lanes with better designs and exits will perform better.
Instead of an extra toll lane, WSDOT should’ve prioritized adding extra space for inline exits, future light rail, bus lanes, and auxiliary lanes.
More lanes rarely fix the problem and sometimes even make it worse, by inviting more merging and lame changing (which can cause vehicles to stop and adds traffic). There is also induced demand.
The 405 project is mostly about moving cars, unfortunately. It’s also in the midst of construction so it won’t change in the next few decades.
ST3’s approach to the corridor contributed to that. The Stride program was “leftover money” after the 4 Line. Even within 405, ST chose to pour hundreds of millions into fund 85th and 44th — of which neither are walkable, busy destinations. This while skipping the Southcenter and Factoria areas — which never even had sketch planning stops for Stride in early studies. The service design appears to look at Stride as a park-and-ride feeder more than a more urban transit line that has utility by walking to and from it.
And of course, the major destination of Downtown Bellevue will be directly reachable from Lynnwood on Link, with a single transfer from SeaTac and West Seattle. It’s somewhat duplicative.
And there’s nothing to keep ST from merely running express buses that aren’t called Stride as supplemental service in the corridor.
The resulting ridership forecasts for Stride are pathetic — especially when compared to the overly optimistic Link forecasts shown here for 2040:
https://seattletransitblog.com/2020/01/27/sound-transits-station-ridership-in-2040/
And the decision to use buses was also driven by ST not adding a second track on 405 but to instead use the single-track ERC (through an area where residents would fight it) and its resulting lower train frequency. ST sabotaged rail for 405 way before 2016.
https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/partners/erp/background/ERP%20150505%20HCT%20Corridor%20Studies.pdf
It’s such a systemic, repeated sabotaging of any rail for 405 (going back for 10-15 years of planning) that it would require a fundamental shift in mindset to happen. And given the Renton HOV exit ramp omission (never even designing it before choosing to not building it) it’s clear to me that no one with a say wanted or saw Stride 1 to be anything more than a minor express bus service to either serve Downtown Bellevue or to feed Link. And I don’t see any signs of that changed from 10-15 years ago.
Wow you weren’t kidding those are some optimistic projections!
I’ll excuse the 2 Line stations because the train doesn’t cross the lake yet but they estimated the two Shoreline stations would get more than 9K daily riders and in reality they are getting ~1,000. Yikes.
At this point, it’s better to bank on park and riders. They’ll probably be the ones using Stride anyways. Even if it went to Factoria or South center, how will people get to the station? The apartments and homes are still very spread out. We can’t serve every apartment outside a walkable distance.
Given our low-medium density nature, transit is best done by having more local express buses, park and ride options to the spine (aka Stride/Link), drop off / carpool, and transfers.
To be fair: the projections are for 2040, they assume the 2 Line is already connected, and they are pre-pandemic numbers. Those projections are still probably pretty optimistic, but I’d expect ridership to climb dramatically after the 2 Line is connected and slowly over time as people/jobs/housing adjust to the new service.
As noted in that article, the Stride numbers don’t include the project improvements that have improved transit time. If the numbers are anywhere in the ballpark of the estimates I’d call Stride very successful; any bus line pulling in 10k riders over a 30-40 minute route would be considered a strong route.
At this point, it’s better to bank on park and riders. They’ll probably be the ones using Stride anyways. Even if it went to Factoria or South center, how will people get to the station?
Renton Transit Center is fairly centrally located. It looks like a real place. There are restaurants, bars, shops and some apartments. It is not far at all from the high school as well. It is the type of place that is easy to imagine getting bigger over time. It connects to numerous buses in the area and many of them follow (or could follow) the same path for extra frequency heading that direction. It could be a great hub for local and regional transit.
But it suffers from the problem you mentioned. WSDOT is not going to make it easier for buses to get there. If there was a good HOV freeway connection I could definitely see that working out really well. It is actually not that far from 405, the tricky part is building the ramps to connect to third.
While something similar at South Renton Park and Ride is obviously more feasible it is also a lot less attractive. At best it would eventually grow to be like Totem Lake. No real historical character but enough new development to get plenty of riders. Again the key is that it is a transit hub. With the current network it is already a secondary hub. Most buses serve it or could easily serve it with a small diversion (e. g. RapidRide F) or an extension (105). The other transit center would still exist — there would basically just be two for Renton.
Using ramps at NE 8th seems like the worst option. It seems like it has far less potential as a transit hub. You could extend some buses from the south but it seems like you would likely still end up with fewer connections and less frequency. It wouldn’t surprise if that is what they end up with though.
If there were HOV access ramps on N 8th I think Stride could just go through Renton. HOV ramps would probably save a few minutes getting back on the freeway during peak.
If it were up to me there would be an HOV ramp at Oaksdale, Lind, or Rainier and an HOV ramp at N 8th. There would be a decent amount of BAT lanes, ideally shared with the F, I, etc. Stride would exit and run semi-express through Renton, stopping only at the new Renton TC, old Renton TC (another option would be roughly Airport/Shattuck), and 8th/Logan.
I don’t really see any good way to serving Renton without exiting the freeway.
An option might be a freeway stop at Oaksdale/405 or Lind/405 and another at Sunset/405 or 8th/405 (crossing the freeway), with the F extended to the east to feed into Stride. That could potentially work but due to the awful walkshed near I-405 it turns every ride into a 2-seat ride.
John D, why would ridership [in Shoreline]
How many people who live in Shoreline other than a few commuters actually want to go to Bellevue or Redmond (or even moreso, vice versa) more often than a couple of times a year?
If there are commuters they probably take Microsoft’s Commuter buses with reliable WiFi.
Doubling frequency from ten minutes to five is not going to make an immefiate difference in peoples’ choice to use Link.
If it were up to me there would be an HOV ramp at Oaksdale, Lind, or Rainier and an HOV ramp at N 8th.
I think N 8th makes sense as a northern connection. Reversing at N 8th would be terrible but you don’t have to go that far south (in my opinion). Pretty much any place south of the Cedar River would work. For example let’s say they add southbound HOV ramps at S. 5th. A bus would basically do this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jHkwuMPRd984nrZaA. That doesn’t cover a huge swath of Renton but it at least covers the main part of town, probably with three stops. You would connect to every bus that serves Renton (as far as I can tell) and you would overlap the F along the way (which means your right-of-way dollars go further).
It really comes down to building that southern set of ramps. It doesn’t look trivial. But you have a lot of flexibility — it can be just about anywhere. A pair of ramps at both ends would work out well. Note: The northern ramps would be for buses coming from or headed north. The southern ramps would be for buses coming from or headed south. So ultimately it is the same number of ramps as if you put them all in one location.
@Tom
I’m not talking about Shoreline specifically, but ridership will probably improve a bit there as well.
Ridership along the Seattle segment will obviously increase because frequency is doubled and there are new destinations.
And Microsoft doesn’t serve Shoreline. They don’t serve the same corridors as KCM/ST either; they don’t have commuter buses that run on the 542 or 545’s corridor, for example.
How many people who live in Shoreline other than a few commuters actually want to go to Bellevue or Redmond (or even more so, vice versa) more often than a couple of times a year?
I expect Link ridership north of downtown to go up when they add the 2 Line just because they will run the trains more often. I don’t expect a dramatic increase but it will be significant. There will be people headed to the East Side as well. I wouldn’t expect a lot of new Shoreline riders but there will be some (and yes, mostly commuters). Then again it is possible that those riders are using transit already.
The big jump in ridership will come when they alter the buses and send the 522 to South Shoreline. Link Ridership north of the U-District is highly dependent on the bus service. Roosevelt and Northgate have significant walk-up ridership but they too are dependent on those buses. The other stations have some development that is occurring over time but it seems unlikely this will lead to a lot of ridership.
This makes it very difficult to predict future ridership. Not only do you have development around the station (which is hard to predict) but you also have development in areas not that far away as well as the bus service connecting to it. Right now Northgate gets a lot of its ridership from folks about a mile away who can quickly and easily catch a bus to the station. If there wasn’t density in those areas or the frequent buses then ridership would be much lower. We don’t know what the future holds for Shoreline or the buses which is why it is so hard to predict the ridership. The same goes for a lot of other stations.
When Lynnwood Link opened, there was a jump in Link boardings at SeaTac. Although it makes sense, I don’t think that it was expected to outshine increases elsewhere.
Potential 2 Line ridership surprises are sure to happen. Maybe it would be an interesting separate post for us to guess what they will be with an eye to revisiting the post a year after opening.
When Lynnwood Link opened, there was a jump in Link boardings at SeaTac.
The jump occurred before Lynnwood Link opened and this is a good example of how difficult it is to track the influence of certain changes (especially since we don’t have trip data). If ST was like some agencies and showed the number of trips from one stop to another it would be fairly easy to track this. But they don’t.
I’m not sure why SeaTac ridership jumped so much. Some of it is seasonal. But there was still a much bigger jump than usual last summer:
Feb. 2023: 4,294 — Feb. 2024: 3,925
July 2023: 6,657 — July 2024: 9,086
This was before Lynnwood Link. Ridership reached a peak in October (after Lynnwood Link opened). Ridership surpassed 10,000 riders for the first time in a long time, if not ever*. But the overall trend clearly started before Lynnwood Link. It is hard to say how much of the increase in ridership at SeaTac was due to Lynnwood Link itself.
*I don’t have any monthly Link data from before 2019. SeaTac ridership went down when Angle Link Station was added. SeaTac had almost 7,000 riders in Q2 of 2017 and then less than 6,000 in Q2 of 2018. But that was Q2. If ridership was higher in the summer and early fall (as it is now) then it is possible we had more riders for one of those months almost a year ago. Either way though I think it is safe to say ridership to the airport is fully recovered since the pandemic.
Several projects in the figure are not currently funded. Some projects are at least being studied and pending in pipeline till funding is identified, but N 8th HOV access is nothing but a high-level concept developed in I-405 master plan 20 years ago. That was way before ST3 and STRIDE’s time.
It was originally planned for the convenience of Renton TC, but with Renton deciding to move its transit center out of downtown core, this concept is in limbo now.
Can there not be a ramp connected to the west to south lane of the HOV flyover that continues north next to 167 to the new TC? That would at least make the trip toward Burien partly grade-separated. though it would require taking some space from the TC for the ramp down to street level.
It is also possible to build a ramp from the east to south ramp of the original cloverleaf up to the same level as the flyover and connect to the new ramp detailed above where it turns north. That makes half of the north and eastbound trip from Burien grade separated.
Finally, it’s also possible to wrap a second lane around the new structure between the TC and the westbound on-ramp to 405 and down to a merge beyond the meters. That makes the other half of the Burien-bound route grade-separated.
And, finally, it is “possible” to extend that elevated ramp to westbound 405 southward across 405 and on to just beyond the descent of the HOV flyover to grade where a “U-turn”loop would take it to the eastside of 167 and north to the point at which the flyover is high enough for the loop to merge with it.
Because the west to north ramp two paragraphs detailed above will be rising to flyover height, this ramp would have to be farther west than right alongside 167. But it is “doable” for professional drivers.
Finally, there is the option to have a ramp down from the start of the U-turn loop in order to deliver buses southbound on 167 to the freeway without going theough the Rainier and Grady Way intersection.
YES, this would be expensive, but it would allow the buses serving the TC to perform dramatically better and more reliably. It’s a lot better expenditure of a third of a billion than anything else in ST3.
@Tom Traffic
Yes it is definitely possible to provide full or partial bus only access. My response was to address the fact that N 8th HOV direct-access is not happening, but with TC moved to south, there will be something else coming up. It is a known issue that Rainier Ave S at Grady Way generates a lot of delay, so I don’t think they would pretend the problem doesn’t exist and do nothing between now and STRIDE opening year.
Yes it is possible if ST is very invested in minimizing intersection delay for Renton STRIDE access, but I don’t know how devoted they are to this part. Another obstacle is that it is not likely ST would pay for all of these ramps, so it will work with WSDOT and WSDOT would at least cover something like bridge replacements to make way for whatever ST wants to build for STRIDE. If WSDOT is involved, I think they may have hard time accepting certain elements that are contradicting to its master plan.
The master plan (see rendering here: https://www.randycorman.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Final-I405-I167-interchange-rendering.jpg) proposes to downgrade interchange by eliminating system ramps between I-405 and Rainier Ave S. They would only keep the system ramp between I-405 (NB/SB) and SR 167 (freeway portion). Rainier Ave S’ access to SR 167 will be kept, but vehicles between I-405 NB/SB and Rainier Ave S will be rerouted through ramps at Talbot Rd and a proposed new interchange at Lind Ave S.
On top of that, there will be a HOV direct access proposed near Lind Ave. I think it is probably WSDOT’s best interest to advance the HOV direct access at Lind Ave as a South Renton TC access alternative.
But I think what was proposed in master plan might make your bus ramp idea easier to fit around the interchange, at least the west part.
The rendering has a big mistake. There is no grassy median in the middle of 405 in Renton. Look at an aerial photo layer in a map app. There is all-concrete pavement in tight right of way between SouthCenter to north of 44th St. That makes it very difficult to build any HOV ramp (even bus only) without widening the entirety of 405 which already has a tight cross-section. It’s the weave to get to and from the new TC that will be the biggest hassle for Stride buses.
It would be such a massive reconstruction that a full-on busway in either direction is perhaps less costly and messy. Perhaps a shoulder running bus lane at peak could solve some of this but it wouldn’t resolve the bigger delay that will be tough to overcome.
The Grady/ Rainier congestion seems to be a much easier fix by comparison. It would only take a Grady Way overpass with a single-point urban interchange (SPUI) for Rainier underneath. Still, it wouldn’t eliminate the need for Stride buses to weave across several lanes of traffic just to get off of 405 to access the Renton stop.
N 8th HOV access should still be an essential part of Renton’s connection to Stride. As East King has plenty of ST subarea fund, that would be a good project for ST4.
As for fixing the TC, I’d say just ditch it. Have 2 Stride stations, one at N 8th and one at Lind where it overpasses 405, and let RR-F cover all of Renton in between. The N 8th HOV access will be expensive, but much cheaper than working on the 167/405 interchange, and a flyer station at Lind will be cheap, comparable to the new Stride stations at TIBS or Kingsgate.
“N 8th HOV access should still be an essential part of Renton’s connection to Stride. As East King has plenty of ST subarea fund, that would be a good project for ST4.”
The Legislature funded some WSDOT design work for this in 2024, so it’ll probably be fully funded and built well before ST4.
It seems like North 8th or Lind would both be really bad as standalone access points. Both would force buses to curve around and go out of their way to make connections (or simply not have connections at all). Neither has anything worthy close by. That could change but I don’t see the addition of a more frequent express to Bellevue/Burien spurring it.
On the other hand the two set of ramps could be paired to provide a good way to and from 405. That would be ideal for Renton as the bus would through it. But it would take longer for riders from Burien/TIBS to Bellevue. The bus would likely follow the F Line in places and run by the existing transit center: https://maps.app.goo.gl/TtyBDEH1tFGxcN7f6. You would want BAT lanes or bus lanes the entire way. Even so that is 12 minutes without traffic. Driving on the freeway without traffic takes about 3 minutes. Just about any exit and turnaround would probably take another 2-5 minutes. So it would be a penalty in the range of 5 to 10 minutes but even if you added only a couple stops in Renton you could serve it really well. Given how little Renton has gotten out of ST it seems reasonable for ST to favor them with this routing (while WSDOT pays for the ramps). It is also worth noting that driving on the freeway is often very slow. As I write this it takes 20 minutes. So if the competition is driving solo in your car (and it often is) there might not be much grumbling over the “Renton detour”.
If there is really big demand between Burien/TIBS and Bellevue then I could see them running an express that skips Renton (probably during peak). But otherwise I think it makes sense to have ramps at both ends of town.
How about a bunch of Stride lines in the I-405 corridor that all overlap on the trunk HOV lanes and then branch off to serve various destinations nearby. Some could branch off to South Center and Tukwila Station, some go down Hwy 167, some bypass Renton as expresses, some serve Renton, some hit the airport, some go to Burien, etc.? Could function as an open busway out of Bellevue TC.
Yeah, that is how you do it. But it wouldn’t necessarily be Stride. As far as I can tell Stride is mostly a gimmick. There are some important infrastructure improvements (that can be used by any bus) but otherwise what sets it apart is that the buses are battery-electric (and double-decker on 405). They will have off-board payment but the improvement should be minimal because there won’t be a lot of boardings per hour on Stride 1 and 2 (which is why double-decker is a good choice). But yeah, a whole bunch of overlapping buses makes sense.
The problem is paying for it. With the exception of Kent and Auburn to Bellevue I think you need fifteen minute service to compete with the local options. If you ran Stride 1 every half hour then folks going Renton/TIBS/Burien would just take the F. For example I could see this sort of thing:
1) Bellevue/TIBS/Burien every fifteen minutes (skips Renton).
2) Bellevue/Renton/Kent every half hour (extension to Auburn hourly).
3) Bellevue/Renton/Southcenter every half hour.
4) Extend the 105 (Renton) to TIBS/Burien every half hour.
5) Renton/TIBS/Burien/Westwood Village every half hour.
That has some compromises: No express service from Kent to Bellevue. Half hour service for various trips (while retaining 15 minutes service for “core” sections). But even with the compromises it would be very costly. I also don’t see a lot of great transfers. You could shorten some of the routes and force transfers but there aren’t great places to do that. Once you head north from Renton it makes sense to just keep going to Downtown Bellevue. One possibility would be to send some buses to Eastlake/Bellevue College but is a challenge because of the HOV lanes. Even if you did that you wouldn’t save any money unless you forced riders from Burien/TIBS or Renton to transfer to get to Downtown Bellevue which seems like it wouldn’t work.
Overall it runs into the same basic problem. Long distance express service is expensive. You have to have a lot of riders to justify decent frequency. Tacoma to Seattle has that. I’m not convinced that Burien/TIBS to Bellevue does. In contrast short distance express service can do quite well. The 41 was a very cost effective bus because even though it was clearly an express it didn’t spend that much time on the freeway. The RapidRide runs on an expressway (where it makes very few stops) between Green Lake and South Lake Union. But again that isn’t that far. Burien to Bellevue is.
A new inline station on Exit 11 of I-405 would be useful. It can be served by Stride, 4 line, ST express buses traveling on I-90, and metro buses into nearby areas like Eastgate/Bellevue College/Factoria.
It would make destinations like Kirkland, Mercer Island, Bellevue College, Eastgate, Factoria, and Issaquah more accessible to commuters from Renton/Burien. This is an ignored aspect of Stride 1. This ridership would not be reflected unless efforts are made to connect Stride to the I-90 corridor transit. The I-90 ramps to 405 S (Renton) is always the most congested place every weekday, so there is certainly huge ridership potential here.
Stride also opens up a new UW commute: Stride to BTC, transfer to 270/556 (Seattle campus) or Stride to BTC, then Stride to Bothell (Bothell campus). Although 101/Link probably works better for now until the 1 Line gets truncated.
I also think Stride could serve SeaTac going westbound (skipping TIBS) for half of the rides. This would encourage more ridership from people up north. TIBS is only for those who want to take light rail south to Federal Way or Tacoma, which is not as common. So cutting this to half frequency seems logical.
I’m not sure I follow you when you write about an inline station on Exit 11 of I-405. I think that is the exit for I-90. There will be an inline station on 405 south of I-90 at NE 44th. Are you suggesting another inline station between I-90 and Downtown Bellevue? If so, I completely agree. I think it would go along with HOV I-90/520 ramps between Eastgate and Downtown Bellevue.
At that point you just send a bunch of buses to Downtown Bellevue. This is the obvious hub anyway. But people who transfer won’t have to go all the way to Downtown Bellevue. For example you would have express buses from Burien, Renton and Kent going to Bellevue. You would also have express buses from Issaquah and Bellevue College to Downtown Bellevue. People going from Burien, Renton or Kent to Bellevue College or Issaquah would transfer at the inline station.
An alternative would be to connect another I-90/405 HOV ramp connection: Renton to Eastgate. At that point you could run buses from the south (Renton, Kent, etc.) to Eastgate/Bellevue College as well as Downtown Bellevue. Buses from Issaquah would also run to Downtown Bellevue. Riders could transfer south of I-90, at the 44th inline station they are building.
I also think Stride could serve SeaTac going westbound (skipping TIBS) for half of the rides. This would encourage more ridership from people up north. TIBS is only for those who want to take light rail south to Federal Way or Tacoma, which is not as common. So cutting this to half frequency seems logical.
The transfer at TIBS was designed to connect to Link very quickly. It will save a lot of service hours (when they finally build the inline station). It is not just for people headed south. Folks in Burien will have an express to TIBS (and thus an express to Rainier Valley) as well as some of the local buses. But mostly it will save money while enabling people to connect to various Link locations (including SeaTac). It is like the 522. Obviously the U-District is a much bigger destination than Roosevelt. Yet the bus ends at Roosevelt because they figure riders can take Link (or a local bus). They save a lot of service hours in the process.
Except in this case they also save a lot of people time. If the 522 kept going to the UW no one would be inconvenienced. Riders who are in hurry to transfer to Link would continue to do so at Roosevelt and not care what the bus did after that. But if the Stride 1 bus went to SeaTac it would delay people going from Burien to Renton or Bellevue (who outnumber those going to SeaTac). So Stride 1 is really a classic express. It saves service hours and time for a lot of rides. But it needs that freeway station at TIBS.
Oh, and splitting things in half would ruin trips going the other direction. If I’m trying to get from Renton to the airport it wouldn’t matter. I take whatever bus comes first. If it goes to TIBS I just transfer. But going the other direction it is a mess. I have to check the schedule to see whether it is worth it to take a train to TIBS or not. If I’m coming from south of SeaTac (on Link or the A) I have to check the schedule to see if I should get off the bus/train at SeaTac or just keep going to TIBS. If I’m coming from Rainier Valley and headed to Burien it is the same thing. You really don’t want riders having to check their schedule and make last second decisions. You effectively end up with half-hour frequency which defeats the purpose.
TIBS is a major station. It opens up a fast connection to Bellevue for a huge swath of South King, and TIBS is one of the (if not the?) highest ridership transit hubs south of CID.
Seatac is a major destination as well but I’m not sure it’s worth skipping TIBS
I think you brought up a good idea. Run a bus between the 44th inline station and Issaquah station (with Eastgate freeway station/Bellevue College and Eastgate office parks) as a stop. That should cover any demand between Renton Highlands / South King and the I-90 East corridor. It would require a transfer at 44th though, so maybe we could get it down to at least South Renton.
Also yes, I meant a new inline stop on 405 at I-90 or just after I-90. This is a major junction that would offer many connections. If this is built, then transfers can take place here instead of needing a bus from Renton
As for the TIBs thing, are they building the inline station still? if so, then of course I support TIBS. However I thought they lost funding and the bus has to take the exit.
I think SeaTac is a bigger destination but TIBS is a much easier place to serve (or it will be once they build the freeway station). To your point though TIBS has some apartments nearby and it is a significant transit hub. The 124 is a fifteen minute bus that runs north of there. Over 250 riders a day ride between the station and the Duwamish (and most of them start at TIBS). The 128 gets a lot of riders from TIBS as well. There is also the F of course. With connections to Renton and Burien it can be argued that we get little from also serving TIBS but depending on where you are headed (and how Stride serves Renton) it may be much faster to use TIBS.
An express connection from TIBS to Bellevue, Renton and Burien will be valuable.
I meant a new inline stop on 405 at I-90 or just after I-90.
I don’t think an inline stop is practical at the junction of 405/I-90. I think the best bet is north of there. Somewhere around here seems possible. You would need to build a pedestrian bridge to 118th. I could see them building a small park and ride lot while some of the folks in the condos would finally have access to transit. Then again I’m not sure if it would ever be worth it.
It is two step process. The first thing to do is build the ramps from Eastgate to Downtown Bellevue. This is definitely worth it as it basically replaces most of Issaquah Link with something much better. Way more people get a fast ride to Downtown Bellevue. Buses from Robinswood could run through Bellevue College and get on the freeway in their own lane and then travel in the HOV lanes all the way to the Bellevue Transit Center. Riders from various parts of Issaquah would have that as well.
At that point people headed from say, Renton to Issaquah would have to transfer in Downtown Bellevue. That isn’t the end of the world. It costs them about five minutes (total) travel time versus an ideal transfer (at the 405/I-90 junction). But if we really wanted to improve that connection there would be two choices. Either build an inline stop or build ramps from Renton to Eastgate. I have to assume that building an inline stop would be a lot cheaper although it would mean that riders still have to transfer. My guess is the vast majority of people are headed to Downtown Bellevue so making that the hub (while saving riders some backtracking) would be fine.
Meanwhile you would still have express buses from Eastgate/Issaquah to Mercer Island. That is the better, faster way to get to Link if you are headed to Seattle. With the bus from Eastgate running express to Downtown Bellevue it skips Bellevue Way. To backfill service on Bellevue Way you would shift a bus over there (like the proposed 240).
Transferring at Bellevue is closer to 8-10 minutes (round trip) compared to the “ideal” transfer at 90/405. There are no stops on the ramp and it takes a bit of time to reach the transit center due to the stoplights. It’s OK but certainly less than ideal.
I think the best option would be an inline stop at SE 8th. I’m not sure that is worth it either but that whole area is set to be rezoned with Bellevue’s comp plan. That would be roughly 4-5 minutes extra travel time compared to the ideal transfer point.
I wonder if a center ramp to S Bellevue P+R and some bus priority would be better value than 90/405 HOV ramps (for a theoretical issaquah-bellevue stride)
There may be another inline station south of I-90 at 112th Ave SE.
I always found it odd that STRIDE didn’t include Newport Hills Park-and-Ride while there will be an ETL direct access ramp built possible freeway flyer stop.
I later learned that back when I-405 Renton-to-Bellevue project was out for RFP (summer 2018 which is after ST3 was published and voted), it was not determined yet whether 112th Ave SE ETL direct-access would be built.
The RFP of Renton-to-Bellevue ETL was set up in a way that it let contractor to choose whether they would include 112th Ave SE ETL access in their bid. Now we know the design-builder chose to build that and it will open by the time S1 starts service.
I guess what happened was when STRIDE concept was developed, ST didn’t know whether 112th Ave SE ETL access would be there when S1 service begins, so they didn’t consider Newport Hills P&R as a STRIDE station.
@John D,
With the exception of Burien, I don’t think anyone on the Stride corridor would use Stride specifically to get to TIBS. The main destination is Bellevue in AM, and Renton in PM.
TIBS to Bellevue makes no sense… you’d take Stride instead. If you meant Seattle, then Renton folks would just use the 101/102/111. Kent would use the 150. Other areas that would be served by Stride have better options than TIBS. So only Burien would really use TIBS to take the light rail north. Otherwise I only see TIBS as a connector to the airport and any destinations to the South. This is good IF they built that inline station… Otherwise it’s just as much of a time waste as SeaTac, and you’d see less ridership.
I meant TIBS as a Stride stop. The inline stop is still being built.
TIBS is a major transit hub. It has higher Link ridership than Roosevelt or Northgate, and is the point of highest ridership for the A and F lines. It is one of the most important stops on Stride 1.
https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/01/20/ridership-patterns-for-rapidride-a-line/
https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/02/24/ridership-patterns-for-rapidride-f-line/
With the exception of Burien, I don’t think anyone on the Stride corridor would use Stride specifically to get to TIBS.
TIBS is more than just a connection to Link. Otherwise you would be correct. But TIBS has apartments within walking distance and quite a few places within a fairly short, fairly frequent connecting bus ride. A trip like this (https://maps.app.goo.gl/WsUDDs3kyMmJeft78) is quite plausible and becomes a simple two-seat ride instead of the current transit option which takes well over an hour.
I would say that SeaTac is a bigger destination but TIBS has plenty of value as a stop. The fact that you can make that connection so much quicker with a freeway station makes that the obvious choice.
RE TIBS:
“This is good IF they built that inline station… Otherwise it’s just as much of a time waste as SeaTac, and you’d see less ridership.
I’ve stated this travel time penalty problem before. I’ll even add that it’s a time-consuming hassle for riders to get between Stride and Link (and other buses including RapidRide) if the inline 518 stop ever does get built (and ST currently has just tabled the stop — but has not provided the cost to add it in the future).
As far as comparing the two stations for average weekday boardings (ST monthly ridership tables), in March 2025 TIBS had about 3500 Link boardings while SeaTac had about 8800 Link boardings. In March 2023 (well before Lynnwood Link) TIBS had 2300 Link boardings while SeaTac had about 4800 Link boardings. So SeaTac Link station gets over twice as much use as TIBS does. More importantly, SeaTac ridership grows faster than TIBS does as Link extensions open (83 percent compared to 52 percent). Note too that even with new apartment buildings near TIBS.
To finish my post, I think it’s pretty clear that the further the trip, the more important SeaTac becomes compared to TIBS. As another long distance transit service, Stride would seem better suited if it went to SeaTac — even with the time penalty.
However, I could see Renton to TIBS to Seattle potentially being faster than 101/102 if a new express line that skips South Seattle is built. Essentially, it’d go directly from TIBS to SODO then into Seattle. That’d save a significant amount of time for riders. The Rainier Valley stretch is slow and doesn’t generate enough ridership to warrant that waste of time.
The Rainier Valley stretch is slow and doesn’t generate enough ridership to warrant that waste of time.
Uh, that is absurd. The four Rainier Valley stops get more riders than Lynnwood Link. With Beacon Hill they get well over 10,000 (last month they had over 11,000). In contrast the four Lynnwood Link stations got 7,200 last month.
The main reason the trip you are suggesting doesn’t make sense is the geography. From Renton you can take the 106 to Rainier Valley or the 101 to downtown. Likewise some from Bellevue would take Link to Judkins Park and transfer to the 7 or 106 to get to Rainier Valley. Even though Link is an express north of TIBS (not making any stops for a very long distance) taking a bus to TIBS and then the train just isn’t worth it.
I think that there can be grade separated access to and from the new Renton TC connecting it to the HOV lanes on I-405 to the north, the and the general lanes of I-405 to and from the west, plus the general lane on SR167 to the south. You can see a poor illustration of the idea at Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/yarrow2025/.
Basically the idea starts with an exit from the west to south HOV ramp between 405 and 167. In the illustration the red line leads from the freeway to the transit center and the green line from the transit center back to the various freeways.
The ramp from I-405 westbound to the TC starts from the HOV flyover above the east to north cloverleaf ramp then curves to the north and crosses over the middle level of “original 405” and then runs alongsize Rainier slowly descending to Grady Way, curves into the TC property and descends the rest of the way to the ground.
A ramp from the 405 east to 167 south original outer ramp diverges to the left soon after leaving the main lanes and climbs fairly quickly to pass over the 167 south to 405 east cloverleaf which is rising itself from the lowest level of 167 southbound to the mid-level of 405 east. The ramp continues to rise to the level of the HOV flyover and merges with the ramp described in the previous paragraph.
This does leave 167 north to the Transit Center without a grade-separation, but to provide it would require climbing high enough to pass over the HOV flyover starting from grade. It doesn’t seem worth it.
However, to get the buses into the HOV lanes does seem worth it to me, so I came up with the green line, which leads buses back to I-405 in both directions. It would start at grade level on the north side of the TX, rise enough to clear Rainier Avenue and curve to run on a structure immediately west of the street. It would curve next to the original on-ramp to westbound I-405 while climbing high enough to pass over the freeway just east of the merge point. It would also drop a ramp next to the existing on-ramp that would merge with it just beyond the ramp meters.
The ramp to 405 east (toward Bellevue) would continue across I-405 and the newly modified 405 east to 167 south ramp rising to a bit above the level of the HOV flyover. It would continue south until the flyover begins its descent then make a U-turn over 167 and run alongside the 167 north to 405 east ramp until it attains the same elevation as the HOV flyover and then cross the 167 to 405 ramp to merge with the HOV flyover.
At the beginning of the U-turn the green ramp could branch off a ramp that descends to 167 south. It’s simple to do, so why not let the buses following 167 south have a path over the interchange too.
I think this makes serving Renton TC from South STRide pretty easy and quick.
I’m sorry that the image gets truncated by Instagram. It appears not to allow arbitrary images.
I was able to add smaller pictures of the TC and 167 ends of the proposal.