Toronto’s GO commuter rail electrification and expansion has been downscaled and delayed. (RMTransit) Deutsche Bahn was going to make it like an S-Bahn, with all-day frequent service on several lines with electric trains, but the contract was canceled. This is a 24-minute rambling rant but there are several parallels with Pugetopolis and other American transit projects. E.g., planning taking a decade and letting inflation creep in, and officials who don’t understand the importance of frequency.
Bedtime story: Night bus from rainy Tokyo to sunny Okinawa. (Stephen Dalton)
This is an open thread.
Great to hear from (the former) RM Transit titan! Wishing him well with his new venture. It’s sad to hear of Toronto’s transit cancellation as well as his thoughts on North American transit generally.
RM Transit’s rant on individuals who work for transit agencies failure to understand basics like transit frequency and trains running both directions sparked a long-standing question for me. In Seattle we have Sound Transit Commuter trains (Sounder S and Sounder N). Four trains go from Everett to Seattle in the morning but zero in the opposite direction. Four trains go from Seattle to Everett in the afternoon but zero in the opposite direction. It’s a similar story between Seattle and Lakewood. If you live in Seattle and want to go north or south in the morning and come back to Seattle in the afternoon or evening Sound Transit denies transit.
Can someone help me understand what is physically going on with the trainset? For example, ST 1701 leaves Everett at 6:15 am, arrives in Seattle at 7:14. But there is no northbound trip 10 minutes later. What does this train and crew do? Does this massive investment just sit idle in the train yard taking up Seattle real estate and inordinate amounts of ST resources until 4:05 pm when it becomes ST1700 north to Everett? Does this entire trainset really work for less than 10-hours each week? In Everett these Sounder trains appear to idle all weekend long. Seems for efficiency there should be (2) trains screaming back and forth with passenger service every 40 minutes (with a goal of every 30 minutes) from both Everett and Seattle.
The failure to understand transit among transit authorities that RM Transit decries is on full display with Sounder Rail North and Sounder Rail South. Yes freight trains companies are known to hog the track but the railroads are required to accommodate commuter trains. ST staff can be flexible but they need to have sufficient backbone to state that the commuter trains need to… move. The present inefficiency and commuter rail’s uselessness to residents of Seattle is apparent to all.
ST has to request access to BNSF’s tracks and pay for the upgraded infrastructure needed to accommodate the extra ST trips. Sounder North is already a pretty marginal investment and adding extra trips “screaming” back and forth from King Street Station to Everett would be an even more dubious investment.
A better use for the shorter North Line trainsets might be to use them on midday turns between King Street Station and Tacoma. At least they would generate more ridership and revenue on the South Line. And there may some riders in Edmonds or Mukilteo that would utilize a one-seat ride to Tukwila, Kent or Auburn.
Reece has transitioned from transit videos to transit blogging. We’ll probably start linking to some of them in the Midweek Roundup.
I think the Everett trains do remain in Seattle all day and go back in the afternoon. The Seattle rail yards are huge with extra tracks to store trains. As for labor, it’s the same issue as peak-only bus routes. You either split the shift and force people to be off unpaid for several hours in the middle of the day, or you pay them to be idle, or you have different part-timers for AM and PM. Split shifts and part time are unpopular so it’s harder to recruit drivers for them.
Yes the one-way each peak aspect of the service is what I’d consider as the basic problem with Sounder. It’s kind of amazing that the service isn’t through running in both directions at peak hours at first glance.
The service plan must abide by the agreement with BNSF. The agreement was originally done at a time when peak direction commuting to Downtown Seattle was more pronounced. Only those close to negotiations can determine how viable a service plan change is now that commuting is somewhat different these days. But admittedly a new Caltrain-level, two-directional service would be a profound improvement.
I’ve wondered if the Cascades service could be enhanced like stopping at several more Sounder stations to provide the two-way service. Can new Cascades engines and train sets improve the ability for trains to start and stop faster, or would wire electrification be needed to achieve something like that? Regardless, Cascades is a “reverse direction” service even though it doesn’t stop at mist Sounder stations and isn’t mentioned in Sounder schedules.
Even though Sounder trains have a committed rider base, it needs to be mentioned that Sounder evolved as an early ST service “win” because it could begin operating relatively quickly (compared to Link). The corridor has had a long history of services and proposals before ST was created but the 1996 service concept stuck because that is what was defined in the initial ST funding referendum.
As ST builds Link outward in corridors that are only a few miles from Sounder stations (Downtown Everett and Tacoma Dome will actually be colocated stations), its usefulness may wane (but not disappear) as some Sounder riders will choose drive to Link instead. The Sounder market will always be there — but ST has chosen Link as the recipient of a large share of new transit service and capital investments.
ST is moving to a less peak-oriented service on Sounder South. ST3 has budgeted additional runs, ST has negotiated a rate with BNSF for additional timeslots, and had a pubic survey last year. The survey asked whether to add runs peak hours, continue the platform-lengthening projects for more capacity on existing peak runs, shift some peak runs to off-peak, and whether there should be more runs midday, evenings, or weekends. The majority feedback was to shift peak runs to off-peak, cancel the platform-lengthening projects, and consider running later in the evening or on weekends. Now we’re waiting to see what ST proposes after all that.
Sounder North is not slated for expansion or change because of its low ridership and bypassing most of the Snohomish County population. Instead there’s growing momentum to cancel Sounder North, either now or when Everett Link opens. The ST board was against cancelling it in 2016, saying that voters voted for it in ST1 and expect it to remain running forever. But in the past year I’ve heard a few musings that a few boardmembers have started to think about canceling it. It’s still a tentative minority view, not enough to make it happen, but now ST is thinking about a larger ST3 realignment than it has before, so that might raise an opportunity to consider it further.
“ST has chosen Link as the recipient of a large share of new transit service and capital investments”
As it should, because Sounder will never run every ten minutes, and it’s unlikely ST and BNSF would ever agree to run it every thirty minutes. So it’s inherently less effective for total subarea mobility needs than Link.
If Sounder North was canceled would be nice for those slots to go to Amtrak Cascades to run more service on this stretch and add the Mukilteo stop. Perhaps some trains could originate at Everett to head south to Portland. Its that peak direction at peak times of Sounder North that doesn’t work.
“If Sounder North was canceled would be nice for those slots to go to Amtrak Cascades to run more service on this stretch and add the Mukilteo stop. Perhaps some trains could originate at Everett to head south to Portland. Its that peak direction at peak times of Sounder North that doesn’t work.”
I tend to agree with you. Reconceptualizing Sounder North seems easily possible. It could create connectivity options that aren’t being considered. Not only is a Portland-Everett service an interesting idea, but there are other ideas that could be studied too. These include:
– Extending the line northward to Marysville and Arlington (outside of the ST district)
– Commute service to the SW Everett employment area (adding shuttle buses)
– An added Western Washington Cascades service overlaid between Bellingham and Olympia that stops at most or all the Sounder stations
– Coordinated, published scheduling with ferries at Edmonds and Mulkiteo
None of these may ultimately be realistic but they don’t seem too far fetched either. Of course, the ideas would require rethinking the branding and coordination between ST and other agencies — and there is a certain administrative barrier to good service that exists today.
I think the bigger point is that it’s a lot of money and effort to serve 400 riders a day on Sounder North as it currently operates and it seems that it’s better to reconceptualize it rather than merely walk away.
“I’ve wondered if the Cascades service could be enhanced like stopping at several more Sounder stations to provide the two-way service.”
Please, no more talk of adding stations stops for Cascades trains. Sounder is for local service; Cascades is for high(er) speed intercity service.
It would be interesting to see if some of the Sounder North trips could be converted to begin/end in Bellingham as Cascades trips. Or if some Portland to Seattle trips could be extended to begin/end in Everett. When I take 518–the midday trip from PDX to VAC via SEA–there always are plenty of passengers who continue north of Seattle to Edmonds, Mukilteo, Everett, Mt. Vernon, or Bellingham.
It would be interesting to see if some of the Sounder North trips could be converted to begin/end in Bellingham as Cascades trips.
A couple of them are, basically. The Sounder schedule specifically lists them for that reason. The account for one/third of the train trips between Everett and Seattle. Those are the only Amtrak trips that are actually done via a train. Everything else (including the express service that skips places) are done via Amtrak buses.
Or if some Portland to Seattle trips could be extended to begin/end in Everett.
There is only one “through-routing” train (as you mentioned). Even it has a big layover in Seattle. You could through-route the other train but it probably isn’t worth it. You could convert some of the bus routes to trains but I don’t think that would help much either. The problem is that the route just isn’t that popular. Amtrak figures they might as well run buses to save some money. I know this is a vicious circle. The train/bus isn’t very frequent so it doesn’t get many riders. It doesn’t get many riders so it doesn’t run very often. But one of the big issues is that it is just very slow. Vancouver to Seattle in four and a half hours is going to get people to look for alternatives no matter how often they run that train.
When you add stations, you have to take into account the overall passenger travel time, not just train travel time.
Eg: Tacoma is the 3rd busiest Cascades station because it would take quite a long time for anyone from the southern suburbs to get to either Olympia or Seattle or Tukwila.
Edmonds and Tukwila fall into that category because trying to get to them on exiting transportation is really slow. It’s actually faster to get from King Street Station to either Edmonds or Mukilteo by train than it is by driving, let alone the time consuming tangle by local transit.
The problem is Everett just isn’t far enough north for Sounder North to attract the level of ridership to make the whole thing work.
Furthermore, train crews are not part time. They get paid for a full day work, no matter if you only use them for two hours. It’s one of the many reasons Sounder North is so expensive. You get far, far better equipment and crew utilization if you start those trips in Bellingham, because now you’re using the crews for a full day.
The problem is Everett just isn’t far enough north for Sounder North to attract the level of ridership to make the whole thing work.
Yeah, and it takes too long to get to Vancouver and Bellingham is too small. Either the trip needs to Vancouver needs to be a lot faster or nothing north of Seattle will ever be a good value for train travel.
Only in the US would they say Bellingham is categorically too small for all-day regional rail. The same mentality says cities of a million are too small for a subway. The problem with more Bellingham Cascades-like service is all these side issues, not the basic concept that all towns in a 100-mile grid line of a major city should have robust transit connectivity.
“The problem with more Bellingham Cascades-like service is all these side issues, not the basic concept that all towns in a 100-mile grid line of a major city should have robust transit connectivity.”
Exactly. It’s all about leasing arrangements with BNSF, and rethinking the ST Transit District boundary and services.
I will add these things:
– Marysville + Arlington combined now has almost 100K residents.
– There’s also often slow traffic through Everett on I-5.
– The number of trains on the corridor drops once the trains headed to/ from the east through the Cascades are subtracted
Only in the US would they say Bellingham is categorically too small for all-day regional rail.
Yes, Bellingham is definitely in America. It is worth noting that we are saying the same thing about Everett even though Everett is bigger and much closer. You just can’t ignore the ridership. Ridership is so low on the north part of Amtrak Cascades that they just run buses for most of their trips. Never mind why they run it. Someone in Europe might ask “How the hell do they handle the loads? They must run the buses every ten minutes, right?”. No, there just isn’t that much demand (they don’t even run the buses hourly).
There are a number of reasons why places like Bellingham don’t generate that much ridership. One is that the areas that are dense (i. e. the city part of the city) are very small. This is very different than Europe. It is quite common for most of the neighborhoods inside a city of 100,000 to feel like a Parisian neighborhood. There is nothing in Everett or Bellingham that comes close to that level of density. This effects transit of all type. It means that very few people can walk to the station. It means that just about everyone owns a car. It means that transit within the city is bound to be less efficient and thus not as good.
Of course this being America transit is simply not that good. Thus the sprawling nature of the city makes it difficult to provide good transit and then transit is underfunded on top of it.
Then you have the fact that there is a superhighway connecting these places while the train actually takes a slower route. This is just bad luck and unlike a lot of the issues I mentioned is not that common in the U. S.
On top of all of that you have the fact that we lease the lines. This pushes up the cost considerably. But even without that it is worth noting that running one train is more expensive than running one bus.
It is hard to see how we can afford decent train service to these places when we don’t even have decent bus service. Just running all-day regular bus service would be a huge (and welcome) subsidy. Maybe instead of trying to run we should at least walk first.
But again, Vancouver is different. Vancouver is a massive city. It has very high density neighborhoods everywhere. It has outstanding transit — some of the best local transit in North America. It is pretty easy to see how train service could easily carry a lot riders if it was only as fast as driving. Ridership could easily exceed fifty full buses a day. This would mean that you would be able to take advantage of the extra capacity of rail and the economies of scale that come it. This in turn would mean that places like Bellingham and even tiny Mount Vernon would go along for the ride (simply because they are “on the way”). Not every trip would include those cities but enough to make a difference.
It’s all about leasing arrangements with BNSF
No it’s not. If it was they would be running buses every hour. Keep in mind that even if you own the track it costs more to run a train then a bus. The only way you save money with a train is if you can run fewer trains. The only time it makes sense to do that is if your buses would be so crowded that you have to run too many of them. Clearly that isn’t the case here. If they ran the buses every hour there would be plenty of room on them. If they ran the trains every hour their would be even more room and it would cost much more (even if we owned the tracks).
The dynamics could change if we make a big investment in rail infrastructure. But that only makes sense if we are focused on serving Vancouver. It is the only place big enough to justify that sort of investment.
Both Mukilteo and Edmonds have major ferry terminals at the station so they are already set up to be very multimodal. Unfortunately the train has little use now due to the schedule, better coordination could leverage this. Whidbey Island and Kingston have better than average transit serving the ferry on the other side of the sound. Infact one can travel by transit to Port Townsend via Island Transit, Coupeville-PT ferry and Mukilteo-Clinton ferry.
Also Mukilteo has a newish station that must have cost $20-30 million.
“It’s all about leasing arrangements with BNSF
No it’s not. If it was they would be running buses every hour.”
Certainly the ridership and revenue would need to be there. However, if BNSF says flat out “no”to adding train sets or BNSF sets a ridiculous price, it makes no sense to consider it. So it may not make a deal but it certainly could prevent one.
“It’s all about leasing arrangements with BNSF”
It’s about more than that. It goes back to why the rail was laid where it was originally, the fact that private companies rather than the government arranged it (which affect what it’s used for and what gets priority), the shift to subsidizing cars and freeways and neglecting rail and transit, land use (as Ross points out), etc.
If the governments would just build infrastructure right in the first place, there would be a higher rail:bus ratio, and rail would be less expensive to build.
Bellingham might seem like a small and faraway place, but in 2024 it generated more ridership than Olympia/Lacey. And Bellingham generated that ridership with 4 daily trains while Olympia/Lacey sees 14 trains passing through daily.
The Cascades trains suffer from a lack of investment in rail infrastructure north of the border. There always seems to be a back-up at the Fraser River crossing and the mainline tracks from the border to Pacific Central Station are speed restricted. It’s really frustrating to plod along on tangent tracks at 30-50 mph when a few millions of investment could have the trains moving at 79 mph. Driving, a Bellingham to Vancouver trip takes about 1 hour, depending on your border experience. Amtrak could create a bus bridge from Bellingham to Vancouver with a few stops in local communities like White Rock and Surrey that would still be faster than the train and serve more communities.
“It is quite common for most of the neighborhoods inside a city of 100,000 to feel like a Parisian neighborhood. There is nothing in Everett or Bellingham that comes close to that level of density.”
So what? Lack of density and walkability is a problem to be fixed, not a reason to compound the problem with bad transit. Two wrongs don’t make a right. One wrong and one right will at least make things less bad and put them on a better track where it will be easier to solve the rest.
It’s not just about population, but where and how that population is organized.
There’s a lot of activity within a very short range of the Bellingham train station, and there’s frequent buses. 15 minutes after arriving in Bellingham you can be almost anywhere in the highest activity areas between Fairhaven and downtown.
Everett is spread over a huge area, and very little of it makes sense to serve in the same way as Bellingham. They’ve tried to make Everett station a hub of sorts, but there’s a lot of routes that don’t make sense to route there. 15 minutes after arriving in Everett, there’s a good chance you’re still waiting on one of the hourly buses that goes to any location not served by a frequent route.
It’s just a very different ridership potential when you’re dealing with old urban planning of the 1890s-1910s vs 1960s of much of Everett’s highway oriented design.
The Seattle-Vancouver route is also served by private bus operators as well, so the overall level of bus service between the cities is substantially more than what Amtrak provides. The bus is usually faster than the train, even accounting for a slow border process.
There’s also a separate issue that, if not going downtown to downtown, just getting to the station adds a lot of time , for both train and bus. From my home I. Kirkland, for example, it’s 45 minutes by bus and train to King St. Station, not including the overhead of actually waiting for the train. That makes it very difficult for the train to compete with driving, and buses aren’t any better because it’s the same trip downtown to get to the bus.
It would be nice if somebody would run a bus that would go to other parts of town, such as Lynnwood or Bellevue to complement the train, rather than directly compete for the same market. But, nobody does, not even for Seattle-Portland, which is a bigger market than Seattle-Vancouver. You would think there would be enough demand for somebody to run a nonstop Portland-Bellevue bus, at least once per day, but apparently, there isn’t, as nobody does this. It’s like cars have gotten so entrenched that nobody even bothers to compete for any trip not downtown to downtown, beyond a stop in Tacoma on a bus whose primary market is downtown to downtown.
I say, go ahead and add more trips to Sounder North. And run Amtrak Cascades much more often. Add as many trips, and even stations, as you want. Because, like the permanently closing Lake Wash Blvd to cars discussion, all of this is entirely in the realm of fantasy, so why limit yourself? And since this discussion has nothing to do with reality, there is nothing wrong with proposing to run Amtrak Cascades 10 or 20 times a day. In fact, make it 40 times a day!
“all of this is entirely in the realm of fantasy”
The point of this discussion is to identify what frequency is right in a transit best-practice sense for these corridors. That’s valuable in itself, to show what we should have, how far we are from it, and how much we’re improving. You need that in order to have something in hand to show politicians and the public and try to convince them to do it, that it’s possible, and IT would help the region overall. Then the politicians can figure out how to do it and finance it, and show us their plan and steps they’re taking toward it. Many countries less wealthy than the US and regions less wealthy than Washington with similar population levels have done it. We’re an outlier for not doing it.
Not doing our part to identify the proper service level and try to get the politicians to do it, is just giving up and relegating yourself to nothing better than this. I refuse to accept that this grossly inadequate transit is normal and nothing can be done about it.
“It’s a similar story between Seattle and Lakewood. If you live in Seattle and want to go north or south in the morning and come back to Seattle in the afternoon or evening Sound Transit denies transit.”
Sounder S Line has 3 reverse peak service runs during the morning and afternoon runs.
Not only is there reverse-peak and midday train service but there is express bus service all day to Tacoma, Lakewood. Auburn and Puyallup. The only place that is really short-changed in my opinion is Kent. It has all-day bus service but it isn’t express. Tukwila is in a similar boat but there is very little around the Tukwila station (unlike Kent).
The schedule for Amtrak Cascades is interesting. Basically a lot of buses for a train line. This tells me a couple things: First there isn’t a big market for train travel from Vancouver to Seattle and second, it is obviously expensive to run those trains. They get by just fine by running a bus most of the day even though a bus obviously carries a lot fewer riders. North Sounder is similar. It just doesn’t get many riders and costs a lot.
While there are all sorts of clever things you can do it boils down to three things as far as I see it:
1) Make the rail lines fast enough to compete with driving or an express bus.
2) Continue to subsidize a handful of train riders at a ridiculous level while short-changing everyone else.
3) Shift the money into bus service.
The first option should really be a project by the two countries and/or B. C. and Washington State. There would be local benefits as a result but it wouldn’t necessarily be the focus, they would just get carried along for the ride (so to speak). If they run a lot of trains from Seattle to Vancouver then some of them are bound to stop in places like Edmonds and Everett. Until then the obvious thing to do is just shift the money to bus service.
The train provides several combinations but I wouldn’t worry too much about a ride from Edmonds to Mukilteo or even Edmonds to Everett — it isn’t that common. Most of the other combinations are well served by local or regional bus service. Local bus service connects Mukilteo to Everett. Community Transit now runs express buses from Mukilteo to (Lynnwood) Link every half hour (timed with the ferry). Sound Transit runs peak-only express buses from Everett to Seattle and fairly frequent all-day service connecting Everett to (Lynnwood) Link. The only combination that is not that good is Edmonds to Seattle.
Edmonds has several buses but all of them run every half-hour (or worse). None of them make a fast connection to Link. For example someone leaving the bus stop at 9:00 am gets to Seattle at 10:30 am. In contrast if you time the train just right it takes a little over a half hour. Obviously you aren’t going to match the direct, express nature of a train but that isn’t a bad thing. I’m sure plenty of riders take Sounder to downtown from the north end only to backtrack using surface buses or Link. In contrast Link makes a lot of stops downtown (and the UW).
When you add it all up it is pretty simple. ST should take the money from Sounder and run a frequent all-day route from Edmonds to 185th Station (in Shoreline). It would make regular stops from the ferry dock to SR-99 but then run express from there to the station. Between the last stop on Edmonds Way and the station it would stop only at Aurora and 200th (to connect to the RapidRide E, 101, 114 and 130). This would replace the need for the 909. Community Transit could cancel that bus and put it into running other buses more often. While some would no doubt miss their train it would provide much better service for a lot more people.
Current frequency is not the same as the right/ideal/ridership-appropriate/deserved frequency. There are many other factors that go into what current frequency is. It’s arbitrary decisions by agency leaders, inertia from decisions made long ago, how much the government prioritizes transit, how much money and drivers are available, etc. Jarrett and Reece have repeatedly insisted that a local bus/subway/commuter rail train should run at least every 15 minutes at the very minimum to give people effective “freedom to access places” and do activities there. Cascades is a different beast but its ideal would be every 30-60 minutes, not every four hours. Metro has performance reports saying many routes should have more frequency, but it doesn’t currently have money/drivers to implement it.
Cascades has the additional complication that it’s not just having vehicles and operating costs, it’s the fact that it has to lease timeslots from BNSF, that BNSF is more interested in lucrative freight trains, there isn’t enough track capacity for both maximum freight and maximum passenger service, and the public needs a certain amount of those freight trains running for goods and jobs.
Cascades has another complication too, that trains at current speed are slower than buses on I-5 without traffic. It should be the other way around: trains should be twice as fast as buses, as they are in other countries. Cascades’ trains’ slowness is also losing it riders.
The current bus service to get from Edmonds to King Street Station takes an hour and 15 minutes – more than twice the time it takes in the train.
The amount of time Amtrak’s Bellingham-Seattle bus spends stuck in traffic on I-5 really doesn’t make it a great option. I’ve spent far too many hours sitting on them stuck in traffic to call them fast.
The current bus service to get from Edmonds to King Street Station takes an hour and 15 minutes – more than twice the time it takes in the train.
Yes, and it is also infrequent. That is largely because bus service from Edmonds to Link is so poor.
The amount of time Amtrak’s Bellingham-Seattle bus spends stuck in traffic on I-5 really doesn’t make it a great option.
No, but neither is taking the train (when it runs). It takes 51 minutes to get between Everett and Seattle. The Amtrak is faster but it still seems especially slow. It takes 45 minutes to get from Seattle to Everett in the middle of the day. By the time you get to Mount Vernon it is an hour and half and it is two hours and fifteen minutes to get from Seattle to Bellingham. That’s just really slow and I’m not sure why.
I’ve recently tried twice to book a seat on Amtrak to Vancouver (BC) a week prior, and both times it has been sold out.
I took Amtrak with to the other Vancouver (WA) last month, and it was SRO. I didn’t have a seat.
Nobody uses Amtrak, it’s too crowded.
Clearly there is latent demand even with shitty, slow service. Imagine if they actually provided a quality service.
Yes, Amtrak has reported full trains for the past few years. It’s at record ridership I believe.
The best time to find a seat and low prices is in the shoulder seasons, midweek, and a few weeks in advance. So the best times are mid January to mid March, secondarily to late May or mid June, and again mid September to mid November. Sometimes Amtrak has sales during these times for midweek trips.
“It takes 51 minutes to get between Everett and Seattle. The Amtrak is faster but it still seems especially slow.”
Of course it’s slow. From downtown Seattle without traffic it takes 15 minutes to drive to Lynnwood, 30 to Everett, 60 to Mt Vernon, and 90 to Bellingham. Extrapolating to Edmonds and taking into account the lower-speed roads west of Mountlake Terrace, I’d estimate Edmonds at 20-25 minutes.
Of course it’s slow. From downtown Seattle without traffic it takes 15 minutes to drive to Lynnwood, 30 to Everett, 60 to Mt Vernon, and 90 to Bellingham.
Yes, that is my point. The Amtrak bus takes 45 minutes while driving takes 30. This is midday. I get that you need some cushion but that seems excessive. I also get that you want to have a regular, clock-face schedule but the trains are noted for their lack of reliability. For a midday bus it seems like it should be designed to serve each station as you would expect and if it is late then riders at those stations just have to wait a little longer. Of course that isn’t an issue with an express bus. The problem is that Amtrak doesn’t run express buses to Bellingham (but Greyhound does). As a result the Amtrak bus from Seattle to Bellingham (with stops only at Mount Vernon and Everett) takes 2 hours and 15 minutes. The train takes a bit longer (2 hours and 26 minutes). As you wrote, a drive would take an hour and a half. So basically the train is slow because it takes a long time to follow the coast from Seattle to Everett while many of the buses are slow because they allow an excessive amount of time at each stop.
Meanwhile, the bus doesn’t serve Stanwood or Edmonds (those are only served by the train).
The current bus service to get from Edmonds to King Street Station takes an hour and 15 minutes – more than twice the time it takes in the train.
Yes, and despite all that it only gets a few hundred riders a day. My guess is the subsidy per rider is well over $50. It just isn’t worth it.
The main reason the bus/Link combination is so slow is because the bus is so slow. If they ran an express from Edmonds to 185th it would be much faster. Not as fast as the train but it would also serve a lot more people along the way (and do so a lot more often).
The amount of time Amtrak’s Bellingham-Seattle bus spends stuck in traffic on I-5 really doesn’t make it a great option.
Yet driving is by far the most common way people get from one city to another. Traffic doesn’t entirely explain why the Amtrak buses are so slow. Here is the same set of stops that Amtrak makes for the 5622 bus that leaves Seattle at 11:00 am: https://maps.app.goo.gl/AVFrJ8BgGS7hwxFs9. So the train stations of Seattle, Everett, Mount Vernon, Bellingham. I can drive it 1 hour and 42 minutes (according to Google) if I left today at the same time. It takes 2 hours and 15 minutes to ride the Amtrak bus (or more than a half hour longer). I get that you need time to board people, load the luggage and all that. But after Seattle there are only two stops before Bellingham which means they are spending an extra fifteen minutes at each stop which seems excessive.
But it does mean that the bus from Everett will leave at the time specified. This means that riders could take Link and a ST/CT bus to Everett and then the Amtrak bus from there. This avoids the most likely source of congestion while connecting to a lot more people and places.
You don’t have the guess what happens to the Sounder trains after they arrive in Seattle because, if you ride a midday Amtrak train to Portland, you can see it. The trains sit in a giant railroad yard in SODO until it’s time to turn them around to go back.
Thanks, “The trains sit in a giant railroad yard in SODO until it’s time to turn them around to go back”. Beautiful train sets are used like like they are cheap old commuter jalopies. That is the sad no good very bad but accurate answer to my question.
Though I am feeling smarter having read many well-thought out comments and opinions of how to proceed with Sounder North and South. I’m interested in what the ST negotiated rate is with BNSF for additional timeslots and am surprised these fees aren’t an ST budget line item.
Love ST Link but abandoning heavy rail would feel like a mistake, even after Everett and Tacoma are on it. Tis better to have multiple transit options to get to your destination. It’s heartening to hear that ST polled people on changes to the heavy rail service and mid-day service was highly sought after, count me in. Heavy rail, Link, bus… and add ferries both north and south and some trolleys too please. Increase the frequency of all and we can experience transit bliss like Oslo Norway and other cool cities where even the tiniest outlying rinky-dink town has great transit options!
I’m interested in what the ST negotiated rate is with BNSF for additional timeslots and am surprised these fees aren’t an ST budget line item.
I think you might find that with some digging. For example:
In July 2010, Sound Transit approved a new agreement with BNSF to purchase four permanent easements on the South Line corridor for $185 million (equivalent to $252 million in 2023 dollars)
…
Several potential long-term improvements to the S Line were included in the Sound Transit 3 ballot measure, which was passed by voters in 2016 and allocated $1.2 billion for the corridor. Among the proposals are additional trips, including mid-day and regular weekend service, that would require negotiations with BNSF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounder_commuter_rail#Added_trips_and_2010s_improvements.
Is there really good amount of transit trips between Seattle and Everett on off-peak direction (mid-day, morning northbound, and afternoon southbound). Plus, I don’t think running train all day so it is a more efficient use of crew and trainsets is the main point here. The main point is to get some of the morning I-5 SB and afternoon I-5 NB commuters out of their car to reduce congestion.
However, even that ridership doesn’t look so good, so I doubt running off-peak service on N Line is a top priority right now. If they have the energy, putting that to S Line makes more sense.
Unfortunately, the data show that transit doesn’t reduce congestion. The only things that limit congestion are a price on access, such as tolls (priced in dollars) or congestion itself (priced in time). Otherwise, in a growing region induced demand will fill up the freeway at peak hours (if your region is not growing, you could plausible build your way out of congestion; I’m in Toledo right now and the lack of congestion is delightful). Selling transit to the broader public as congestion relief is a good sound bite but it is bad politics because it will ultimately prove false. Major cities with excellent transit all have terrible congestion.
What transit does it is allows for people to Avoid congestion. So the congestion doesn’t go away, but as we invest in our transit network, a for a growing share of trips people will have an alternative.
@AJ
Interesting take. I think I agree “avoid congestion” is a more careful way to describe transit’s benefit than calling it reducing congestion.
I guess my point in my original comment was there might not be enough people interested in an alternative option that “avoid congestion” when traveling from Seattle to Everett in the morning and traveling from Everett to Seattle in the afternoon.
“What It’s Really Like to Ride Public Transit in Tehran? a Journey Through Iranian Everyday Life”
Interesting glimpse into what it’s like to ride a public bus in Tehran. It seems like … There’s no visible fare payment system. I noticed a few exceptions to the segregation rule. And buses seem to stop a few feet away from the bus stop, so people have to board in the street.
https://youtu.be/pSYz78bx514
The same YouTuber also a video on Tehran’s Metro. Interestingly, that isn’t segregated. Men and women are all mixed together on the train cars, whereas on the bus, it’s women in the front, and men in the back.
They do have women-only carriages and signs on the platform, but different from buses, Tehran Metro doesn’t forbid women from boarding other cars that are not designated as women-only.
When I was in Dubai I obliviously stepped into the women’s only car (it was the final car at the end of the train) in the Metro and had to be firmly but politely told by security to leave. Thankfully I was able to quickly hop into the next car before the doors closed.
Now we have a power outage on the 1-line north of Capitol Hill.
The power outage ended at 10am.
The power outage started again at 9:30pm and ended at 10:30pm.
Part of how Amtrak avoids ridership is having some train services skip its Snohomish County stations. Everett Station is a regional transit hub that really ought to be served by every Amtrak train that goes through Everett. And yes, Amtrak needs to learn to make its stops faster.
Some day Link will reach Everett Station, and lots of transit trips will make more sense to catch the train there than to backtrack to King St. a lot of those trips already make more sense to go to Everett Station.
The missing link for funneling trips to Everett right now is the lack of an all-day fast connection between Lynnwood and Everett. Call it ST Express 514. Discontinue ST Express 512, since CT 201/202 serves Ash Way P&R quite well. If some peak-direction ST Express 512 service is more useful than additional peak 201/202, then just keep that peak service.
I do miss BoltBus. I wish Greyhound would take up CT’s offer to lease the old Bus Shop building at Lynnwood Station, and have a route that goes from there to King George Station in Surrey.
No, every train passing through Everett does serve Everett Station. You might be thinking of the Amtrak buses?
Correct. The trains all stop at Everett while some of the buses skip Everett. https://amtrakcascades.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/amtrak-cascades-schedule-6-10-24.pdf.
Amtrak Cascades 89nn series buses are Cantrail buses, who can only stop at King St Station while in the US.
Those are the ones that ‘skip Everett’.
The US series buses 56nn (the MTR buses with the Cascades wrap) only skip the stations that are too far from I-5.(Stanwood and Edmonds)
The Amtrak bus to Vancouver skipping Everett doesn’t really bother me because it saves a lot of travel time and Everett->Vancouver passengers have plenty of other options, including Greyhound, or the Amtrak train. Compared to a train, intermediate stops are very time-consuming for a bus, so need to keep the stop count to a minimum in order to have a competitive travel time.
The part of the Amtrak bus route I really dislike, however, is on the Canadian side. The bus stops in Richmond, at a hotel just one mile away from a Canada Line station, yet doesn’t serve the SkyTrain station itself. Taking the trouble to stop without serving a major connection point like this is really bad, and adds a lot of time to anyone going anywhere along the Canada Line (which is nowhere near Pacific Central Station, where the bus goes next). Yes, you can take an extra connection and ride a TransLink bus that one mile from the hotel to the SkyTrain station. But, why? It feels like this route was designed decades ago, before the Canada Line even existed, and nobody ever bothered to change it.
I thought all Amtrak trains served Everett. Which ones don’t?
I don’t know all Amtrak buses, but it’s reasonable that some might run express.
The missing link for funneling trips to Everett right now is the lack of an all-day fast connection between Lynnwood and Everett.
Agreed. It is surprising how slow serving the Ash Way Park and Ride is. According to Google (https://maps.app.goo.gl/txWCKFooKgrioVgX9) the 201/202 is a minute faster than the 512 even though it makes several stops along Ash Way itself. If you drive between the two locations you can save 7 minutes even if you drive along Broadway a lot longer. My guess is the stops cost about 8 or 9 minutes and even more during rush hour.
Stopping at South Everett takes extra time but likely only a minute. Ash Way should take only a minute longer but (unlike South Everett) it requires several stop lights as well as the stop itself. If they completed the ramp (https://maps.app.goo.gl/fJNin8Kxr4sd2B3bA) then you could probably shave five minutes off the bus trip and more during rush hour. Another alternative would be to just have the bus skip Ash Way as you suggested.
But part of the issue is the transfers. It is really not that bad a trip from Lynnwood to Everett. But you have to wait for that bus and then (probably) wait for the bus from Everett to northern cities. Frequency on Link is OK but will be much better (for this leg) once East Link is done. But the 512 only runs every fifteen minutes. That is fine if you are headed from somewhere on Link to Everett but not great if you are then making another transfer. To top it all off you then have an infrequent set of buses to get you to Bellingham or Vancouver. If the new 514 (as you call it) was running every ten minutes and the intercity bus north of Everett was running every hour it would make a huge difference. You would still have to time it just right going north but at least going the other direction would involve a lot less waiting.
My take is that with Link running to Lynnwood and soon Federal Way, and express busses with service throughout the day connecting to Link, Sounder might be more of a legacy service that has had its day. Especially Sounder North, but also wait to see what happens with Sounder South once Federal Way Link opens up. It might be better to focus on improving Amtrak Cascades, especially Olympia to Bellingham. Cascades “Local” Trains running once every hour or two, in both directions, between Olympia and Bellingham would be huge.
I think Sounder North just isn’t worth it. The only really added value is Edmonds and there isn’t enough ridership to justify that. There is also the drawback of serving the south end of downtown from the north. It skips over most of the destinations in the city. This means that a trip to the UW from Everett for example just doesn’t make sense with Sounder.
Sounder South is a different ball game. Ridership is respectable during peak at every station. For just about every station it is significantly faster than driving and often faster than taking an express bus. It is also significantly faster for the vast majority of trips than any combination involving Link.
But this is true only at peak. Ridership outside of peak is tiny. Even reverse-peak is really small. Outside of peak the buses move fairly well and are often faster than Link, especially from Tacoma and Lakewood. Given that we have to negotiate with BNSF for every extra run this leads to a fairly common and appropriate approach: Run the train during peak and buses the rest of the day. The pattern is that of classic commuter rail and it makes sense for the service to match.
For the most part the framework of a top-notch bus/commuter rail system has already been laid. A lot of the express buses already exist. When Link gets extended to Federal Way the buses that go from Tacoma/Lakewood to Seattle need only stop at Federal Way to make the connection to Link. Meanwhile, the buses that go to SeaTac can be eliminated altogether. That would give riders from Tacoma/Lakewood an ideal system. They would have frequent buses directly from Downtown Tacoma to Downtown Seattle, a frequent bus connecting them to Link and commuter rail when ridership justifies it.
It is a little trickier for the other stations. At a minimum I would expect an Auburn/Sumner/Puyallup to Federal Way bus. This would allow those riders to transfer to that same express bus to Seattle (or Tacoma) as well as Link. But I could easily see an Auburn/Sumner/Puyallup/Kent/Downtown Seattle express bus as well. Or maybe Sumner and Puyallup are connected to Auburn and Federal Way but they run a Kent/Auburn express bus as well. There are a number of combinations and it depends on how much ST wants to spend on it.
“At a minimum I would expect an Auburn/Sumner/Puyallup to Federal Way bus.”
That bus already exists. ST #578.
Yes, as I wrote a lot of these routes exist (in one way or another). In this case the 578 is similar but it continues to downtown (it does not end at Federal Way). I would probably rename the route just to avoid confusion.
I have thought similarly.
Sounder was created as a way to carry commuters inbound to Central Seattle and back out in the afternoon. It was created to move a large number of riders quickly at a specific time window. It was implemented with only a few years of planning and investment required.
It does benefit from having dedicated BNSF time slots. That gives it ongoing value.
It does have two things going against it. One is the nearby building and opening of Link, which isn’t directly duplicative but it is nearby. The other is the decline of commute-period focused work travel.
Meanwhile, the concept of enhancing regional travel exists as represented by Cascades service seems like an evolving market. Also, freeway traffic congestion seems increasing in places like Everett and near JBLM, both miles from Downtown Seattle.
At this point, an objective assessment and new plan for regional travel seems needed. I would suggest that it needs to be directed at the State level (operator neutral) and it needs to be inclusive of Sounder, Cascades and freeway buses. Maybe it should include ferries too. I would suggest it to begin once Federal Way Link and full East Link is open.
It needs to also include a specific focus on improving state government travel needs in Olympia. Why is getting to Olympia via transit so relatively difficult? That specific topic may be the extra oomph needed to get the legislature to fund and support a next generation regional travel plan.
So much of our rail planning is focused on enhancing or expanding existing operations with existing operators, or it focuses on building a utopian HSR from scratch. It rarely steps back and looks at travel needs with an agency-neutral and technology-neutral perspective for a practical but effective investment plan.
Federal Way Link largely serves a completely separate catchment than Sounder South. I suspect the FW opening will have very minimal impact on ridership for the Sounder. It is far slower to Seattle, and it misses most of the residential density in South King, such as it is.
The reason ridership outside peak is minuscule is, in part, because it has been almost exclusively advertised to, and used, commuters. Everyone else (not commuters) assume, pretty accurately, that this train is not for them. Those, such as myself, rarely even consider it when going to Seattle. If I have the time and flexibility and aren’t staying too late, I then I take the 594. Otherwise I drive.
The ugly truth about Sounder South is that its daily ridership in 2025 remains at about half of its 2019 ridership. It’s much lower than it was in 2016 even, when ST3 was developed with more parking garage spaces, longer platforms and trains, and more trains.
Sounder South has a major demand problem. ST will at some point have to face the music and adjust its approach.
The place where Link is going to hurt Sounder demand further is with the need for time-of-day flexibility. If I live in eastern Auburn, I may prefer to drive to Sounder. But if I need to get home in the middle of the day, driving to Federal Way Downtown or Star Lake becomes very enticing if not necessary. The same is true if I want to stay later — like enjoy dinner in Downtown Seattle or go to some professional or recreational event after work.
It’s why great bus connections between Link and Sounder stations need to be part of the strategy. Such connections are essential if Sounder is going to recover any ridership to get anywhere close to the demand they had a decade ago. Otherwise, Sounder capacity expansion is a huge waste.
Capacity expansion shouldn’t happen. Span and frequency definitely should be somewhere on ST prioritization list, however. Especially if there plan for canceling the 594 goes forward.
Link is an incredibly degraded replacement for current service.
Federal Way Link largely serves a completely separate catchment than Sounder South. I suspect the FW opening will have very minimal impact on ridership for the Sounder. It is far slower to Seattle, and it misses most of the residential density in South King, such as it is.
Agreed.
The reason ridership outside peak is minuscule is, in part, because it has been almost exclusively advertised to, and used, commuters.
I don’t buy it. It is worth noting that *reverse peak* ridership is also very poor. And no, I can’t point to the specifics because once again, Sound Transit refuses to release the data in a manner than can be accessed in a reliable manner. If you are incapable of managing a website so people can get monthly data at least release it annually like you used to.
In any event, it is a moot point. Even if midday ridership was really good and a train running every hour got as many riders (combined) as the buses running every half hour it would be way too expensive to operate (per rider). The only time Sounder is actually cost-effective is during peak and only South Sounder. The rest of the time we should run buses.
“ Federal Way Link largely serves a completely separate catchment than Sounder South.”
A catchment area changes by time of day. That’s especially true if you have a car and can drive to different transit garages.
If someone drives to the Auburn Station and misses that morning 8:18 train, are the going to wait until 10:53 to catch the next one? Wouldn’t they be more likely to get back in their car and drive to Federal Way Link?
Also, if their destination is UW, wouldn’t they be tempted to drive the extra theee miles to FW Link to avoid the hassle of transferring at King Street/ CID?
If someone drives to the Auburn Station and misses that morning 8:18 train, are the going to wait until 10:53 to catch the next one? Wouldn’t they be more likely to get back in their car and drive to Federal Way Link?
It is also quite possible they get in their car and drive to the Tukwila Park and Ride where they can catch the 150 (it is pretty fast from there). It is also quite possible that in the future they run an express bus from Auburn and the best thing to do from Auburn is just wait for it.
But all of that misses the point. There are a bound to be a bunch of different options when you can’t catch the vehicle you assumed you were going to take. But driving well out of your way to catch a metro like Link will only be good if your goal is to get to some Link location south of Downtown Seattle (like SeaTac). Otherwise it is bound to take a very long time.
This makes it dramatically different than say, Everett. Sounder takes about an hour from Everett. Link is slower than that but it is still definitely competitive with Sounder, even with the transfer. As I write this (after 9:00 pm) it would take 32 minutes to get from Westlake Station to Everett Station (by driving) which means if they ran an all-day express bus it would be quite a bit faster than Sounder from Everett.
That is simply not the case with Auburn. It takes It takes 34 minutes to get from Auburn Station to King Street Station via Sounder. As I write this it takes 34 minutes to drive there. Thus an express bus (or a taxicab) late at night is roughly the same as Sounder any time of day. Link is much, much slower. From Federal Way to CID is supposed to take 51 minutes. Thus even if you could magically teleport yourself from Auburn to Federal Way it would take 17 minutes longer. But more to the point people can’t teleport. Auburn to Federal Way (or any of the Link stations) is not a trivial drive. It takes 13 minutes now (after 9:00 pm).
It is just a different catchment area.
It’s a much different experience if you don’t have a car. Most people in Auburn and Kent live east of downtown. They take a bus that comes at most every 15 minutes, which takes them to Auburn Station or Kent Station (Sounder), and further to a future Link station. Sounder takes 30 minutes from Auburn or 20 minutes from Kent. Link will likely take 45 minutes from Federal Way or 38 minutes from Federal Way to CID (to be comparable to King Street Station), but that’s on top of a half-hour bus trip. So it can make a big difference in total trip time whether you can catch Sounder or not.
@ Ross:
I highly doubt that anyone in Downtown Auburn would try to drive to a Tukwila or Renton at 8:20 in the morning. It’s 10 very slow-moving miles.
It’s a faster shot to Federal Way at 8:20 in the morning. There is just one signal in Auburn and four signals in Federal Way between the two station garages.
There hs also the issue of frequency. At 8 minutes, using Link is very enticing!
That’s an issue with Sounder by the way. It’s no big deal to miss a Link train. Missing a Sounder train is a much bigger deal! In the Auburn example, a rider is going to want a time cushion to make sure that they don’t miss that 8:18 train. So if they’re cutting it close, they may not even try.
Have you spent time in South along during commute hours? There’s a reason why the 167 Express Lanes routinely get $10 between Renton and Auburn. It’s very slow headed northward.
From Auburn Station to CID takes 27 minutes on Sounder.
Google says it takes “typically 12 to 26 minutes” to get from Auburn Station to Federal Way transit center at 8:00 am on weekday. So roughly 20 minutes to get to Link. Once you get to Link you can expect a 50 minute ride to CID (not counting the transfer). That is one hour and ten minutes instead of less than thirty.
Meanwhile it takes 22-37 minutes to drive from the Auburn Station to the Tukwila Park and Ride (at that time of day). So figure 30 minutes of driving. It takes the bus about 20 minutes to get to CID.
So driving to the Tukwila Park and Ride seems like the best option. Is that what the rider will do? Will they instead just drive into Seattle? Will they call their boss and tell them they are working from home? Who cares!
The point is, Link is not a good alternative to Sounder if you are in Auburn. You are promoting a trip that requires driving an extra “12 to 26 minutes” during rush hour to then take a train that takes an additional 23 minutes to get downtown.
If your point is that they should run Sounder trains later in the morning, I agree. If you think they should run more express buses to downtown from Auburn after Link gets to Federal Way I most definitely agree. But Link is merely a last ditch option for those in Auburn when Sounder isn’t running — and even then it isn’t necessarily the best one.
@ Ross:
Your logic is incomplete.
1. Link will run every 8 minutes so that’s an average 4 minute wait. Route 150 runs every 15, so that’s an average 8 minute wait.
2. More significantly, it’s much slower between Auburn and Tukwila in the afternoons southbound than in the mornings northbound. It may seem competitive in one direction; but an experienced commuter will be concerned about both directions. With the car sitting in Tukwila, the rider must get off at Tukwila (not Auburn) for the Sounder return trip and endure that slow drive to Auburn.
Because of that second reason, a driver in your scenario would seemingly be more likely to park at Kent as opposed to Tukwila and ride Route 150 from there. The worst traffic congestion is between Kent and 405. Yeah it takes longer in the mornings to ride Route 150 from Kent but the return trip using Sounder in the afternoons could more than make up for the additional time. Of course, the last Sounder train leaves King Street at 6:30 pm so if that worker stays late they may have no choice than to ride Metro Route 150.
I won’t even get into the added travel time to South King buses if ST starts West Seattle Link construction in 2027-8 and closes the SODO busway.
I get that using Link is a longer transit in-vehicle travel time. That’s a valid point. I’m just pointing out that there are many other time and convenience considerations that a driving Sounder user will think about.
And the lines are just three miles from each other, with several major cross streets connecting the corridors. There will surely be some catchment overlap to get in and out of Seattle (25-30 miles away).
We can speculate all we want. We should have a real-world answer in the next year once FW Link opens. And things may change again by 2029 for the Puyallup area when SR 167 opens, connecting it to I-5.
Holy smokes, Al, you keep missing the main point! We can speculate all we want about the best way to get from Auburn to Downtown Seattle when Sounder isn’t running but one thing is abundantly clear: Link is terrible for that! It is a long drive to a slower train!
Never mind the fact that Sounder would be at least twice as fast as Link. That is clearly the best option when it is available. But when Sounder isn’t running an express bus would be much faster than Link even it if stopped in Kent along the way. At best the drive from Auburn to Federal Way takes 12 minutes. As of right now (2:45 pm on a typical weekday) it takes 17 minutes. But even at 12 minutes it means that a trip involving Link always takes over an hour from Auburn Station. A bus could do it in about 40 minutes (including the stop in Kent) and go in HOV lanes most of the way. That is a savings of over 20 minutes. That means that if the bus ran every 20 minutes it would be faster every time. Even if you just missed the bus are are willing to get back into your car (that may not exist) and drive it do a different parking lot (thus making it impossible to take the Sounder train home) you are much better off just waiting for the next bus.
The only world in which Link is the best option for getting from Auburn to downtown is a transit dystopia where Sound Transit invests billions in new light rail small numbers of people and leaves thousands who depend on Sounder with crap.
Ross, you get about lots of things — but this is an area where you clearly don’t fully understand the congestion and what it’s like for people who drive to transit in South King.
First of all, ST estimates that it will be a reliable 46 minutes between Star Lake and Downtown Seattle. 50 minutes to Federal Way Downtown.
“At best the drive from Auburn to Federal Way takes 12 minutes. ”
That’s false. The drive takes as little as 7 minutes to Federal Way from Downtown Auburn.
If someone is coming down the eastern hill like off if SE 274th in East Kent (Meadow Ridge), Star Lake Station is only 1-2 minutes further of a drive than Kent Sounder Station is.
The travel times from Tukwila park and ride are well north of 405. That’s right where Route 150 buses get off or on I-5. It’s not Tukwila Sounder.
It may be 23 minutes on a Sounder Train from Kent to King Street, but there are other time factors involved. A rider will want a longer cushion to make sure that they don’t miss their Sounder train. They don’t have to do that for Link — so that’s an extra 10 minutes right there. Then there is the transfer at King Street to get to Link in Downtown Seattle. That’s about 5-7 minutes more and a heck of a lot of stairs.
I get that a special Auburn bus that goes nonstop to Downtown Seattle could be faster. It’s just that it’s a huge waste of money to operate a route like that! There’s a financial reason that ST doesn’t operate a nonstop express bus from every South King neighborhood.
I could go on but it’s pretty useless to say more. It’s clear that you want to deny basic factors about north-south traffic congestion in South King, and the ease of having no transfer by riding Link once Link opens. Sounder is barely faster once the need for an arrival time buffer and a King Street transfer is added, and driving to a Route 150 stop is definitely slower total travel time.
I wish others would weigh in.
“Link will run every 8 minutes so that’s an average 4 minute wait.”
That’s only peak hours. Most of the time it’s every 10 minutes.
” a driver in your scenario would seemingly be more likely to park at Kent as opposed to Tukwila and ride Route 150 from there. The worst traffic congestion is between Kent and 405. Yeah it takes longer in the mornings to ride Route 150 from Kent but the return trip using Sounder in the afternoons could more than make up for the additional time.”
Nobody takes the 150 if they don’t have to. It’s OK for Seatte-Southcenter or Kent-Southcenter but Seattle-Kent takes an hour; it’s just bad transit service for a large suburb 15 miles away. Redmond is the same distance and the 545 takes 40 minutes.
“I get that a special Auburn bus that goes nonstop to Downtown Seattle could be faster. It’s just that it’s a huge waste of money to operate a route like that! There’s a financial reason that ST doesn’t operate a nonstop express bus from every South King neighborhood.”
It would stop in Kent along the way. Auburn has the 578, which takes 45 minutes to downtown. Kent has nothing. Kent is not just “some King County neighborhood”; it’s the largest city in South King County at 133K. It has needed an all-day express ever since ST Express was created in the 1990s, and we’ve been spending the past decade pleading with Sound Transit and Metro to serve it somehow, but they’ve always ignored it. Metro Connects did have a Seattle-Kent-Auburn express in the 2010s but it’s gone now, probably because Metro’s budget is more constrained.
“50 minutes to Federal Way Downtown.”
That’s the big question with South Link. How will people weigh its longer travel time vs higher frequency and immunity from congestion? Tacoma and Federal Way residents are up in arms about losing their express buses, saying Link is unacceptably slow. But Auburn and Kent residents will say the opposite? We’ll see how everybody votes with their feet.
Idea for a series of posts. Profile each future light rail station. Pinehurst, Mercer Island, Judkins Park, KDM, etc. Include a map, current and planned station-area TOD, bus routes, expected ridership, and so on.
Looking forward to seeing your drafts in the contact @ STB inbox.
Nathan, if your boss said to you, I’d like your thoughts on such and such, you wouldn’t say to him, “Wait a minute. Why do I have to give my thoughts? If you want thoughts on something, why don’t you come up with your own?”
That’s what is going on here. I’m asking people to write about certain upcoming stations. Perhaps it would be easier if they write about the station they live closest to. A Pinehurst resident can write about Pinehurst Station, and so on.
Cam, will you write about Federal Way Station?
I am pretty sure you aren’t Nathan’s boss, Sam.
> Nathan, if your boss said to you, I’d like your thoughts on such and such, you wouldn’t say to him, “Wait a minute. Why do I have to give my thoughts? If you want thoughts on something, why don’t you come up with your own?”
As Ross said, that metaphor would be relevant if you were somehow superior to the blog contributors. It’s important to remember that you get what you pay for!
Almost the only time I go to FW (though there is a decent hotpot) is on my way to SeaTac. Rarely to fly, and more often to transfer to the 560W. Which is going away.
It remains to be seen how often I will find Link out of FW useful. I suspect not much.
for kdm it was already addressed in https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/02/21/federal-way-link-stations-and-walkability/ unless is there something more specific you wanted?
for Pinehurst, Mercer Island, Judkins Park. sure i have a draft for judkins park already was waiting for it to be closer to the opening, but perhaps we could talk about it earlier.
i feel like for pinehurst station it’s been talked about already, though maybe that’s just been in the comments and not an article. mercer island i don’t think we’ve written an article about it yet surprisingly.
Sound Transit released their preferred alignment they’ll be voting on in a few days. It’s overall good in terms of the station locations they picked tho I’m dreading the inevitable debate and fight over Freighthouse Square from not only locals but also local business owners in the building as the preferred alignment ST are looking at for Tacoma Dome station will require a complete teardown of Freighthouse Square Building and ST & Amtrak headhouses.
https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/06/16/sound-transit-picks-new-preferred-light-rail-route-to-tacoma-dome/
The Urbanist has several good new posts about Sound Transit planning, this one and one on station design (how deep and long they are driving up costs)… might be good topics for a mid week STB thread. :)
They’ll be in the Wednesday post :)
Disappointed about Freighthouse Square. Sound Transit has said they won’t be replacing it with anything other than something along the lines of vending machines. Maybe.
Perhaps the city will step up with funding to build a significant new replacement for all those displaced businesses, and provide services for this massive transit hub.
Another silly question regarding Seattle->Vancouver travel. Do the U.S. and Canadian governments charge bus operators a per-passenger fee for use of their customs facilities (and similar for Amtrak)? If so, such fees effectively function as a financial incentive to drive, as drivers don’t pay any fee to cross the border in their car.
I think I read there’s something like a $20 customs fee included in the ticket price.
[Comment was removed as it was a violation of our comment policy. Don’t make BS claims that are personal in nature. That just leads to a lot of pointless debate and mainly it is just obnoxious.]