While most people looking at the sky today are hoping to see fireworks, I prefer to look at overhead trolleybus wires. The map below outlines the location of all trolleybus wires in Seattle. This dataset was created by King County and last updated in 2018. While the map has not been updated in 7 years, it is still mostly up to date. The biggest change not reflected in the map is the removal of trolley wire from Madison St from the RapidRide G Line construction. The official map and dataset is available here.

Screenshot of the trolley wire map. Click here to view the interactive map.

Many of the trolley bus routes that run today are immediately identifiable. Looking past the wires that are used by today’s routes, the map shows two other types of overhead wire: deprecated route wire and what I’m calling “utility wire”.

Deprecated Route Wire

Like all bus routes, Seattle’s trolleybus routes have gradually shifted over time. When a route changes, new trolley wire may need to be installed to support the new alignment. The old trolley wire is rarely removed. In Queen Anne, there is a wire loop around John Hay Elementary School that extends from Queen Anne Ave along Blaine St and 2nd Ave. While no routes currently use this wire, the loop served as the tail of Route 4 until 2017.

Slightly further north, there is another wire loop on Queen Anne Ave, Raye St, 3rd Ave, and McGraw St. The McGraw St segment is still used today by routes 4 and 13, but the rest of the loop is no longer used. Similar to the previous loop, this wire was used by Route 3 until 2017.

Utility Wire

In addition to the overhead wire used for past and present routes, the map shows wire used for storing, deadheading, and turning around trolleybuses. Metro’s current trolleybus fleet of New Flyer Xcelsior have small batteries that allow the buses to operate for a few miles of off-wire. Previous trolleybuses vehicles had to be connected to overhead wire at all times, and the utility wires allows buses to take a more direct path when deadheading to the start of a route. Examples of utility wire include the left turn from Rainier Ave S to S Plum St for Route 4, and the wires connecting the ends of routes 1 and 2 in Queen Anne.

Trolley Wire Expansion

Despite the Metro’s “zero emissions by 2035” goal, only Route 48 is planned to be converted to use trolleybuses. Route 48 runs on 23rd Ave and already mostly covered by overhead wire, thanks to routes 4 and 43. Electrification of the route is expected sometime in 2026. To achieve zero emissions, Metro is investing in battery electric busses for it’s non-trolley routes. While both systems have pros and cons, Metro should make the most of it’s existing trolley wire network and the new batteries it is installing in the existing trolleybus fleet. What other routes could be updated to use trolleybuses with minimal new wire or with short off-wire segments?

This is an open thread.

104 Replies to “Friday Roundtable: Metro Trolley Wire Map”

  1. Whenever SDOT and KCM met with Fix the L8 and TRU to discuss the Harrison / Mercer design, one of our members asked about trolley wire for Lakeview. KCM’s answer was quite surprising and they said with the new batteries mentioned in the article, they are considering no longer requiring 100% overhead wire coverage for a route. This could be huge for future trolley expansions and would also prevent situations like the 2 right now where a tiny section of missing wire forces the entire route to run a diesel bus

    1. This should be the future as it is currently happening in other countries. This video shows how quick it is to attach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k1z10U3utc. Detaching is similar. Once you do that the system changes. Instead of focusing so much on that last little bit you just have to have wire on most of it along with attachment points at each end. I assume that installing those things is much easier than installing several blocks of new wire.

      1. Wow, that was quick. I agree, this is definitely something that Metro should be doing?

        I’m curious how far this approach can go? For example, just how much power can a bus pull from the overhead wire to charge its batteries, and are there limits that would prevent several buses from pulling maximum power all at once? This would determine what fraction of a bus route needs to be under wire in order for a trolleybus to be viable. It would also answer questions like how much of routes like the 40 or 62 could be electrified just from the existing wire downtown. My guess is not enough for the entire route, but knowing how close it comes determines how much additional wire is needed.

        Another related question is what sorts of restructuring could be do with existing trolley routes to take advantage of off-wire capability to offer connections to more places. For example, if the 36 could run an extra 3/4 mile along Othello to connect with the 7, that could be a quite valuable connection, but not possible currently due to the constraint of trolley wire not being able to cross the Link tracks. Extending one of the upper Queen Anne buses over the Fremont bridge is another overdue connection, as travel between two urban villages a mile and a half apart should not require riding a bus in the wrong direction to transfer to a different bus going the opposite direction (the 13 might be a good candidate for this, as it already goes to SPU).

      2. From an IEEE Power Energy Society tour of King County South Base last year, my recollection is there is a concern regarding the existing DC Power Supplies that provides power to the catenary. I recall positing to KC staff that if catenary was installed on up-hill route segments then most King County Metro urban routes could be served using trolleys with the new longer-range batteries and in-motion-charging to power the entire route. My recollection of the response is there was a concern if multiple trolleys charged their batteries simultaneously. That was the reason for the electric bus charging infrastructure at South Base and purchasing battery-electric buses with much larger batteries than the trolleys that cannot charge on the catenary.

        It would be interesting to review the load calculations for the DC Power Supplies. My recollection is the KC employee who does the route scheduling held the keys to the electrical power, driver, passenger, and other restrictions.

      3. All it takes to quickly attach is the automated power collector and that piece of angled covering material to guide power collector to attach at proper position. It is no rocket science at all.

        SF MUNI trolleybus’ operators have been doing all sorts of unplanned attach/detach activity all the time. I think MUNI’s New Flyers XT models have some kind of remote control so operators can lift the power collector and connect it back to wire quickly without leaving the seat. I don’t know if KCM’s XT models can do that.

        Over the few times I saw KCM trolleybus’ power collector disconnected from wire accidentally, the drivers always had to went out of the vehicle and manually fixed it.

      4. When I rode the length of downtown Seattle on a trolleybus running on battery power, the driver reconnected to power at the touch of a button at the north end of downtown Seattle. At the time, they had a stop in Belltown that was equipped for reconnection.

      5. @asdf2
        I wrote my graduate thesis on this while interning at metro. 50% route coverage is generally what’s estimated, you can go lower in the right conditions. Having multiple vehicles charging on the same segment can definitely be an issue, but it’s an issue for traditional trolleys too and IMC can be a lot more consistent and predictable, and benefit from regenerative braking. 48, 8, 11, 60, and D have the highest coverage currently (60 is 13% and 40 is 11%), but the best targets (besides easy layups like the 48) are probably high frequency routes since they’re so much harder to electrify with standard BEBs

    2. The 43/44 has had gap of just under 1 mile – in the area of Montlake Boulevard for several years due to 520 construction. When operating a 43 that continues on as a 44, operators drop their poles before crossing 520 and then reattach them on NE Pacific Place. At the time I was operating the 43/44 a few years back, an operator was able to position the bus at stops equipped with shields attached to the wires and raise the poles from inside the bus. These shields were meant to guide the current collectors onto the wire. In my experience, this operation require a high degree of precision in how the bus was positioned. But even then the current collectors wouldn’t always make contact with the wires. This would require manually reattaching current collectors which would result in a delay in service as well as some risk to the operator.

      Another potential issue: The Climate Control system shuts off when electric trolleys are in “ESS” (or battery) mode. Depending on the time of year that can lead to a very warm coach. Not sure if the new system will allow for Climate Control to be left on. My experience with owning an EV (Chevy Bolt) would indicate that the Climate Control is not a significant amount of energy draw and could be allowed to operate while on batteries, but that is hardly an apples to apples comparison.

      Despite these minor issues, I’m glad to see continued investment in our trolley network. The trolleys are some of my favorite buses in the system to drive as well as ride in. With continued investment they should significantly outlast their Hybrid counterparts. One of which I am currently operating (on break now, of course). The 6900 series of coaches are being steadily scrapped to make room for new buses… Some day… (Today’s coach, 6923, was manufactured in May of 2011)

      1. My experience driving an EV is that the energy cost per mile from running climate control varies greatly depending on the situation. Driving down the freeway, it’s negligible, but if you drive the car at slow speeds with lots of stops and frequent door openings (e.g. like a bus), it can become very significant, with as much as 30% of total energy use going to climate control in the worst case. A bus also has a much bigger area to heat and cool than a car does, and must have lots of large doors that open very often to get passengers on and off the bus quickly. So, keeping climate control on can definitely cut into the bus’s driving range, especially on extreme weather days. And, of course, a bus battery needs to be sized to be able to keep climate control on during all possible weather conditions, including freak heat waves or polar vortexes, to avoid generating a lot of very unhappy passengers.

      2. It’s not just doors opening and closing, but each time passengers get on they’re basically at external temperature, so they and their stuff adds to the climate control load.

  2. What’s striking to me is that the only trolley routes that go more than three miles or so north or south of Downtown are the 7 and 36.

    The 48 and 8 are the only routes that jump out as only needing a little new wire. The route with the next-least need for new wire might be the 60, especially if you got rid of its deviation to 9th/Madison to serve the hospitals.

    1. The 7 is the highest-volume corridor in south Seattle. The 44 corridor must have been seen as especially prominent for most of the 20th century. Greenwood and Green lake were developed especially early. West Seattle probably lost trolley wires because of the bridge.

    2. Route 60 will need to cross i5 on the south Albro bridge and also the waterway on South Park bridge.

      Route 106 can’t have trolley wires as it cross the link wires.

      Rapidride c, h and route 21 need to use the west Seattle bridge.

      I agree route 48 and 8 is the only real one that makes sense

      1. Route 60 will need to cross i5 on the south Albro bridge and also the waterway on South Park bridge.

        Route 106 can’t have trolley wires as it cross the link wires.

        Rapidride c, h and route 21 need to use the west Seattle bridge.

        These are all good reasons why we should focus on running trolleys on and off wire (as Jason suggested up above — https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/07/04/friday-roundtable-metro-trolley-wire-map/#comment-960213). That doesn’t mean that converting those routes would be easy. In all cases you don’t have much wire right now. But those particular obstacles shouldn’t be an issue. A bus should be able to cross Link tracks by attaching and detaching. It should be able to go across a bridge and then reattach a little while later. Even West Seattle buses are not out of the question — they should just be lower priority. But the biggest issue with all of these is that there isn’t much wire there on the routes. In contrast the 48 could take advantage of quite a bit of existing wire.

  4. Years ago–and long before STB existed–I thought that Metro should reverse the direction of the trolley buses in the couplet between Yesler and Jackson. Anyone who currently rides the 7/14/36 knows how difficult and time consuming the existing couplet is. Even with the closure of the stop at 3rd & Main, the trolleys take forever to get into or out of downtown. I think reversing the run direction and adding some smart civil engineering would speed up the process enormously.

    Outbound from 3rd and James: the 7/14/36 would exit downtown on Prefontaine, run in a protected counterflow lane southbound to Jackson, use a smart bus signal to turn left onto Jackson and stop at 5th Avenue. Metro would eliminate the island stop and the 7/14/36 would only stop at 3rd & James and 5th & Jackson.

    Inbound from 5th and Jackson: the 7/14/36 would not turn onto 4th at Jackson but would turn right one short block further west into a counterflow lane on 2nd Avenue, then to 3rd Avenue S (the short hill that the buses currently go down after passing Yesler), then directly onto 3rd Avenue.

    The diesel buses that currently use the couplet (24/33/124, 28/131/132) would all be able to easily reroute on inbound trips. The diesels would need a passenger stop at about Main Street to replace the island stop. And outbound trips would need to drop down to 2nd Avenue at some point, likely Columbia. The 40 and 62 would turn eastbound onto Yesler, then southbound onto 5th to their terminals.

    I don’t know if the cost of reengineering the wire and signals, plus building safe counterflow lanes on 2nd and 4th would be recouped quickly by the time savings, but it would be nice to get in and out of downtown faster on a trolley bus.

    1. It is definitely an area that could use some work. These sorts of places are critical and can make a huge difference, even though they are considered “little” changes. It is also complicated, so if I get this wrong then people can correct me.

      I’m going to look at it northbound first. As I understand it, the northbound trolleys stop on Jackson before the 4th and then take a right on 4th. Their next stop is on Prefontaine just before Yesler. In contrast the diesel buses (like the 21) go up Fourth Avenue South. They stop just north of Royal Brougham Way before continuing on Fourth. Then they eventually get into the left lane right before Jackson. This is an exclusive lane for buses. Then they go past Jackson and stop a ways beyond Jackson. Thus the trolleys and the diesel buses are essentially leap-frogging each other at this point.

      This raises an important question: Is it necessary to leaf-frog at this point. Are there too many buses along the corridor for all of them to serve the same stop? I’ll address both choices.

      If it makes sense to leapfrog then your idea sounds great and is pretty simple. You wouldn’t move the diesel buses at all. You would just send the trolleys up the Second Avenue Extension (running in their own lane in contraflow mode). Then the bus would make an angle right on 3rd Avenue South (again running contraflow for a block between Washington and Yesler). Instead of stopping at Prefontaine just short of Yesler it would stop at 3rd Avenue South just short of Yesler. There is plenty of space.

      On the other hand if we want to consolidate it raises an important question. How bad is is for the diesel buses? It is quite possible they navigate the area just fine, as they can take advantage of that exclusive left lane (with the island bus stop). If so, then maybe we could just send the trolleys in there as well. If not, then the buses get sent to the new pathway of the trolleys. If we go we would need to replace the island bus stop. You could add a stop on the Second Avenue Extension, between Jackson and Main. There isn’t as much room as on Fourth (because of the parking lot for Seattle Lighting) so it could be an issue (more about that in a second). Since there is only one (contraflow) lane heading north, you might as well have all the buses stop there (the trolley buses couldn’t pass the diesel buses there). So you would get rid of the bus stop for the trolleys at Jackson just east of Fourth.

      If the stop on the Second Avenue Extension is too short then it could be moved to Third Avenue South (which I believe is your suggestion). This puts it between Main and Washington. At this point you would keep the stop at Jackson close to Fourth. This would not only be better coverage for those buses but it would make up for the short walk from the stairs serving Sounder to the nearby island bus stop.

      It looks to me like it would work out really well southbound. All the buses would go down the contraflow lane on Prefontaine and Fourth Avenue South. The only buses that would use the existing couplet would be those laying over down there (e. g. the 62). The diesel buses would stop curbside. There would be a second lane for the trolleys (towards the middle). It would be easiest on general traffic if we got rid of the island bus stop but it would not be essential.

      1. I think you’ve got the picture. Just a couple of clarifications, however.

        The inbound island stop on 4th Ave S for the 24/28/33 would be relocated to 3rd Ave S between Main and Washington. Whether or not the trolleys make that stop is TBD, but it does affect the leapfrogging.

        Third Ave S from Yesler to Main would be a one-way street (northbound), open to all vehicles.

        Prefontaine Pl S would be one-way southbound.

        One other consideration is the fire station at 4th and Washington. Emergency vehicles need to be able to access the contraflow lane on 4th Ave S and be able to access 3rd Avenue via Washington and 3rd Ave S.

      2. The inbound island stop on 4th Ave S for the 24/28/33 would be relocated to 3rd Ave S between Main and Washington.

        I see some issues with that. First is that those buses are in probably doing OK right now. My guess is there aren’t that many people turning left onto Prefontaine and when they do they move to the left (since they can’t continue on Third).

        I think you could get something just as good (for those buses) but it would take some additional work. First off you get rid of the bus lanes on the right side of northbound 4th between Seattle Boulevard and Jackson. The bus stops on that stretch are only used by the East Side express buses (which are going away). Now you have three northbound lanes to work with. The far left lane is for drivers turning left onto the Second Avenue Extension (and then left on Jackson). Those in the left lane would be forced into that left lane. The middle lane would then be for those buses. They would also turn, but from that middle lane. Those going straight would have to be in the right lane. That might work but it isn’t obvious it would (you would need to talk to the traffic engineers).

        The other issue is that it would put the stop quite a ways from the previous stop. It is 830 meters as I measure it (or a 12 minute walk) between the stops (https://maps.app.goo.gl/sxvWoDgXES5cFp1z7). It also puts it farther away from the Amtrak/Sounder station. It is also possible you could put it in the triangle (https://maps.app.goo.gl/52MNoiRF1n6gpKWe8). You could expand that triangle as well. Again, that might work.

  5. Ash Way access-ramp overhead is 1 minute from the south, 4 minutes to the north.

    Going to the Everett festival, the arboretum in Legion Park, the Everett Marina, and the linear park on the waterfront. Will take ET6 and 7 probably.

  6. So are the 2/13 ever going back on the wire or are they jus diesel routes forever now? The whole trolley bus ability seems like an underused zero emissions capability as metro spent so much time focused exclusively on battery busesand most weekends rhe trolleys are are parked and unused.

    1. Agreed! It is bonkers to me the 2/13 and the 12 continue to run 100% diesel for years after the completion of work along Madison that disrupted their overhead wire. (And the 12 needs a couple of blocks of new wire given its small route revision compared to before the rapid ride G.)

    2. It’s just like why does Metro run every trolley route with diesel buses on weekends, every weekend, and years and years go by, they never bother to fix it.

      Is the trolley network either work using or not worth using? If it is worth using, they should find ways to avoid having it go unused such a larger portion of the time.

      1. Somehow they manage to operate their trolleys on weekends in Vancouver and SF. Im speculating but I think it might be a staffing thing here in Seattle. I know the overhead line crews are expensive and probably theres some other trolley only staffing or operations. Obviously Vancouver has lots of construction (less so for SF) so can’t really be that plus we’ve had good off-wire capable trolleys now for 10 years.

      2. It’s usually due to construction somewhere on the line that requires de-energizing a segment.

    3. Metro is planning to fill in the 1 1/2 blocks gap in the 12’s new route wire. But that could take a year or two or who knows how long.

      1. Back around 2015 or so, when they were first using the battery/trolley buses, I rode a 1 the length of downtown Seattle on battery power.

        They should be able to do the short section on Montlake without wire.

      2. The short section without wire has to be at the end or beginning. If it’s in the middle then the operator has get out and reattach it past the section without a wire

      3. The current trolleybus fleet can do off-wire, but for some inexplicable reason Metro has been reluctant to use this feature it paid for in regular service.

      5. How many blocks of Route 12 overhead were taken down for the G Line project?

      6. eddiew: its about 15 blocks, essentially from just west of I-5 to about 16th

        SF Muni runs the same buses off wire quite a bit… the major 30 Stockton line runs an off wire extension from the Palace of Fine Arts into the Presidio by Crissy Field. Its all flat but is about 5-10 min headways. They also run off wire in SOMA between Union Square and Caltrain Depot, there was a new permanent reroute on surface streets by I-80 as part of the Central Subway. They appear to have no rush to hang new wire. Interestingly enough they did hang new wire 15 years ago on Mason St through Union Square for a long term reroute off Stockton St for Central Subway construction but when they were using the old ETI trolleys from 2001.

        The 43 manages to handle the off wire gap through Montlake decently. There is a small time loss, usually they can drop the poles from inside the bus but occasionally they have to get and drop them by hand. They seem to have put them back up by hand though, the plastic guides don’t seem to work great and infact have seen big chunks of plastic in the street below like outside the Montlake library where they go back to on-wire.

    4. This is a G Line project residual.

      SDOT was the lead designer. They had not really figured out the Route 2 inbound pathway through the bow tie area (e.g., 11th and 13th avenues East and East Union and Madison streets). There may be a channelization and a traffic issue for Route 2. At a minimum, the Metro overhead group is slow. It appears that East Madison Street is often full of cars when the Route 2 coach needs to turn north-to-west from 13th Avenue East. It appears that the Route 2 coach will need to cross 12th Avenue East to East Union when no signal controls peds and bikes along 12th. If the old Route 2 pathway is not feasible, a new one should be found.

      The fall 2024 Madison Street project for Metro seemed to make some poor choices; the project was supposed to complement Link and the G Line. IMO, routes 10 and 12 should be on the East John Street pathway and serve the Capitol Hill station. Route 12 would have needed new switches and 19th Avenue East would not be covered between East Thomas and Madison streets. the six-minute headway of the G Line mitigates the coverage loss. Instead, the ordinance calls for them to shift to East Pine Street pathway, missing Link. The Route 12 pathway requires a bit of new overhead (or batter operation) between East Madison and Pine streets. Note that Route 11 could have used this pathway without the overhead; the ordinance shifts Route 11 to the East John Street pathway. Does East Pine Street have to covered at all between Broadway and 15th Avenue East?

      1. “Does East Pine Street have to covered at all between Broadway and 15th Avenue East?”

        Yes, it was a major loss for the Pine & Bellevue area when the 10 moved to John in 2016. I was one of the proponents of moving the 10 to backfill the 43 corridor. But what happened was many 10 riders switched to the 11 to stay near 15th & Pine, and I lost good access to Trader Joe’s and the top of the hill evenings and Sundays because there was only the 11 left east of Broadway and it dropped to half-hourly then. The old 11 was really the best east-west route for Capitol Hill because it went through the most activity areas between Pike Place Market, Pike-Pine, Madison Valley, and Madison Park, and was close to the others (the Broadway Market area). So it should be the most frequent route in the area. Cutting service off at Broadway means you can only take a bus a few blocks east and then you have to walk the rest of the way up the hill. There should be a route going from all the way to the bottom to the top and hitting the most activity centers, and the old 11 was it. The G’s ultra-frequency is a welcome addition, but it fully works only for people near Madison or going to the library area; it doesn’t address the wider variety of trips near mid Pine, and the current spaghetti of 10/11/12/49 each every 20 minutes is only a mediocre consolation. It’s a bit better for me than the pre-2022 network was, but it’s not ideal, and it’s worse for the people on the single-route tails of the 10, 11, and 49.

        What I end up doing is taking the G when I can conveniently go to the library stop (when I’m either going to the library or transferring from Link or a north-south route). This is primarily just eastbound. I usually take the 12 or 10/12 westbound, although sometimes I take the G and walk since it’s downhill.

        Now that the 12 has taken over the Pine-Madison corridor to 19th, it has replaced the 11 as the most useful east-west route on Capitol Hill.

      2. “ SDOT was the lead designer. They had not really figured out the Route 2 inbound pathway through the bow tie area.”

        Over time, several poor design choices made for RapidRide G will become increasingly obvious. This is however perhaps one of the worst. No transit project is ever perfect, and admitting mistakes should be routine.

        Sadly, SDOT like ST, usually won’t admit their design mistake and initiate a correction on their own. Metro staff will instead probably have to first recommend a solution that won’t offend SDOT.

      3. On the eve of the U-Link restructure, I didn’t realize how large the east-west transit market at 15th & Pine was, or how much I used it or would use it later.

      4. There’s pretty good ridership using the John St buses as a last (half) mile connection between Capitol Hill Station and 15th Ave/Kaiser/Top of the Hill. Essentially a hillclimb. I live in this area and use these buses often in this way but you also see lots hop out at 15th/Safeway.

      5. “Does East Pine Street have to covered at all between Broadway and 15th Avenue East?”

        Yes…

        I agree. Pine is basically its own thing west of Broadway, just like Madison. At Minor Avenue they are parallel and about 650 meters apart — just about perfect in terms of line spacing. Even at Broadway they are pretty far apart. It is only as you get farther east that they are close together. But you need someway to get to the part of Pine west of Broadway (where it is far apart from Madison). Either you come from the northeast (15th or 19th) or from a couple blocks south (Union). They only do the former and even then they don’t do it well.

        The problem is the spaghetti of routes (as you put it). This is an improvement but many of the concepts don’t go far enough. From 15th & Pine you can take a bus that runs every ten minutes to anywhere on Pine west of there. Great! But that kind of frequency — which isn’t even that special in the area — is rare. That is where it ends. Accessing Pine from anywhere to the north (or east) and you are looking at a 20 minute bus (or a transfer). This could be improved at no cost by restructuring.

        Put it another way: Do you need 20-minute service on 19th between Broadway and Thomas? That seems like a big waste. It isn’t providing meaningful coverage. It is always a short walk to Madison, Thomas or 15th. Yet the frequency is obviously designed for a coverage route. This is an obvious flaw.

        Another question: Should we be running the 2 so close to the RapidRide G? Unlike some of the buses in the area the 2 at least has fifteen minute service. But compared to the G it is running at coverage frequency. But it isn’t adding meaningful coverage. East of Broadway an inbound bus is one block away from Madison. Outbound they share the same corridor. But it isn’t adding meaningful service even when it overlaps. It isn’t really a spine since there are only two buses and the G is running way more often. In contrast if the 2 were shifted to the Pike it would contribute to a spine even if the buses aren’t well timed for that. Running a fifteen minute bus on top of a ten minute bus still greatly improves the corridor. As we finally drag ourselves out of this self-inflicted service crunch I could easily see the 2 running every ten minutes to Madrona (and the 2 and 13 running every twenty instead of thirty). Do that and you have five minute headways westbound starting at 13th & Pine (and effectively farther away the other direction). The type of trip that Mike (and lots of other people) make would have five minute frequency while Madison has six minute frequency. Just like that we have a real transit network.

        I get why you would want to favor Capitol Hill Station (CHS) a bit more than what I would. I would move the 2 first before doing anything else. Then I could see sending the 10 and 12 down Thomas, John, Olive, Bellevue and Pike like the 11. But if you look at the ridership of the 11 it isn’t dominated now by trips to CHS. That is a really big stop but plenty of people get off an inbound bus before and after (including more riders on Pine). Not everyone is headed to Link. I think it is better to increase frequency on the 8 (by combining it with the 11) and send the 10/12 to Pine. But the main thing I would do is send the 2 to Pine (and if the 10/12 continues to go on Pine they should branch at Thomas).

      6. RossB: my question was about East Pine Street between 15th Avenue East and Broadway, not west of Broadway.

      7. @eddie — My answer still stands. It is not that you need coverage on Pine between 15th and Broadway. It is that you need some way to get to the west part of Pine from the east. For example if I’m at 15th & Pike, how do I get to Pine & Bellevue Avenue? Right now I walk a block and take the bus. There should be something similar. Without it the options are really bad. I don’t want to have to walk all the way up to Denny (only to ride the bus south). Nor do I want to walk all the way to Broadway (only to catch the bus a short distance). There are no good two-seat options, even with the very frequent and fast G right there.

        The same thing is true as you move south or east. Without service along Pine (east of Broadway) riders are pretty much hosed. This is bad enough. No need to make it worse.

        But we could make it better. That is the advantage of sending the 2 to Pine. You extend the coverage area for those trying to get to the west side of Pine. Assume the 2 doglegs (inbound) using 13th. I think this would be easiest. So it would go along Union until it took a right on 13th and then a left onto Pine. You would also have the 10 coming down as it does now. This means the coverage area (for those headed to the west part of Pine) has been extended both south and east. A lot of people to the east of Broadway would be close to a bus that goes on Pine. If you aren’t then you would be close to a bus that comes fairly close or frequently intersects one of those buses. For example if you are at 23rd & Madison and headed to Pine & Bellevue Avenue you will have lost your direct bus to Pike/Pine. Your infrequent 11 is now part of a more frequent 8. Thus you have a couple choices. You could take that 8/11 towards the Seattle Center and just walk south a couple blocks. Or you could hop on the (very frequent) RapidRide G and then transfer to the 2. You have to be really far south (by Cherry or Jefferson) to be out of luck but it would be no worse than today. You would have to go downtown first and wrap around. But that is an argument for a Boren bus. It is also an argument for running the 3 to Summit more often. The wrap-around is awkward. But fifteen minute service from Jefferson to the west part of Pike/Pine (and Summit) adds value. You’ve plugged on of the big holes left by our lack of service along Boren.

        The geography is challenging in that part of Seattle. The streets are at an angle to the west and are along the cardinal directions to the east. Except for Madison, which is at an angle. But having the 2 dogleg from Union to Pine right as it intersects Madison solves a lot of those problems. Then it is mostly a matter of frequency which again can be solved by shifting things a bit. It is striking how much things complement each other. Riding the 3 through downtown to get up to Bellevue & Pine is quite reasonable if the bus runs every fifteen minutes. But it isn’t if you are headed to Pine & Broadway. But if transit is running every 6 minutes along Broadway (and continues to run every 7.5 minutes along Jackson) then it is just a straightforward transfer. This is just so much better than what we have today.

  7. My friend on North Lynnwood is with us. She says Intl Dist station is absolutely filthy; the elevator smells like urine. Capitol Hill station is bad too, and Lynnwood station somewhat. We both smelled fentanyl in one of elevators in north Seattle or Capitol Hill. When she sees the security guards, they just stand and talk and don’t do anything about passenger misbehavior. It’s making her a discontented passenger.

    I haven’t had as many problems at Capitol Hill station, but that’s her experience.

    The one station she finds consistently clean is Roosevelt.

    1. Her conclusions seem valid.

      I was surprised to see so many security guards in most stations when I was on Link this week. They all appeared to be a security staff contractor. They seemed to be having a shouting dialogue with each other inside the stations. But they didn’t seem to be very observant. Given how many there were, it seemed that the staff size could even have been reduced if ST had constructed monitored fare gates instead. And I did not see a fare checker on my trips — just lots of security contracted staff in stations and on trains talking amongst themselves. This maybe gets into how the bureaucratic separation of security and cleaning functions — even about mere notification — creates two parallel universes of responsibility. Perhaps if security staff had more responsibility to monitor cleanliness they would be more interactive.

      I didn’t ride an elevator, but I also get the point about unpleasantness there. It is pretty difficult to make that environment feel clean though; especially with the significant use of dull metallic colors and concrete. Even spotless, these materials appear dingy.

    2. Those circa 1990 bus tunnel stations just need some TLC, a good deep clean, repainting, restoration to original. I personally prefer them much more to the newer Sound Transit station that are just ugly grey metal boxes. These bus tunnel stations are actually very elegant beautiful stations with stone work, unique details, distinct designs reflecting the neighborhood they serve, and the stations have some personality. They just need some tender loving care after 35 years of use and about 10-15 years of very heavy use.

      2. ST is now deep cleaning stations once a year. But they need more attention than that.

  8. What’s going on with filling the missing wire gap through Montlake for the 43, deadheading 44 and future electrified 48? I’m amazed the WSDOT SR-520 project didn’t have to replace the wire they ripped down.

    2 and 12 just need a block or so of wire and can go back to trolleys.

    Would be good to extend the 4 at SPU north through Fremont up to the Woodland Park Zoo (or a new 3rd Ave ship canal bridge and northward).

    11 is another good candidate, hopefully the NIMBYs wouldn’t have a fit.

    1. it was talked about briefly in https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/01/24/king-county-metros-projects-2025-and-beyond/

      The “Montlake Trolley Overhead Replacement”

      > This project is to replace approximately 27 trolley poles and associated overhead catenary system (OCS) at the Montlake Blvd E North Approach, between the bascule bridge and SR520 interchange, and the South Approach between 24th Ave E and Montlake Ave NE. These assets provide power distribution to serve Metro’s route 48, and will allow for simplified future route electrification.

    2. A transit and bike/ped only ship canal bridge between Fremont and Ballard would be nice. Bike/ped lane on Ballard bridge is just not ideal…

  9. There’s some sort of disruption on the BNSF main line and all passengers are being bused to Tacoma for trips further south.

    It looks like something similar is happening for passengers going north of Seattle.

    Currently Tacoma is serving as the waiting room for trains 505, 517 and 507.

    1. Text alert came while I was on the bus from Seattle to Tacoma.

      There are downed power lines across the tracks between Tacoma and Tukwila. So, the problem with northbound passengers is there’s no train equipment to send north.

  10. There’s a King County Metro email alert you can sign up for regarding trolley motorization. I see this weekend there are no trolley motorizations occuring. I have been receiving these alerts for years, as is obvious to most here for most weekends the trolleys are not operating. However I am noticing that it does appear that for weekends adjacent to major holidays the trolleys are often running.

    1. The motorizations are usually for construction somewhere along the route. Construction probably takes a break on holiday weekends. Or Metro needs more diesel buses for extra event service and can’t spare them to backfill the trolley routes, so it keeps the trolley routes trolleying.

  11. Some interesting data:
    https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2023/00001.pdf

    It costs about $15 per hour less to operate a trolleybus than a regular bus.

    The regular buses cost less per mile, but that’s because many bus miles are accumulated on routes like the 255 and other routes on freeways.

    It would therefore be interesting to see a breakdown of what the operating costs are on routes like the 8, 60, or even the D, and see how much operating savings would be achieved by switching those to trolleybus.

    1. At a trolleybus strategy open house in the 2010s I attended, Metro was deciding whether to renew the trolley fleet, expand it, or dieselize it all. It eventually decided to renew it, with only minimal expansions. During the open house they said trolleybuses cost more to operate than diesel buses, but with a federal grant for fixed-guideway routes they’re able to get, the net cost is below diesel buses. So I’d wonder if that $15 figure includes the grant or not. And I also wonder if the grant will last this administration and congress.

    2. In the grand scheme of things, the difference in operating costs between diesel bus vs. trolley bus is small relative to the total cost of operating a bus system, since you need a bus and a driver, regardless.

      That said, if operating cost is higher for trolley rather than diesel, without federal subsidies, I would like to know why. After all, a trolley bus should have less energy and maintenance cost than a diesel bus, and the labor cost to operate it should be the same. My guess is that it’s because the buses themselves cost more due to lack of economy of scale, due to so few cities using them.

      That said, Metro’s decision a few years ago to proactively replace the batteries in every single trolley bus when the warranty expired did strike me as not the best use of funds. Even if the batteries have degraded a bit and only have 80% of their original capacity, they still work. And, even if a battery were to stop working completely, the bus is still usable on-wire, just like older trolley buses that didn’t even have any batteries in them at all. I can see how there might be some cost savings to replacing all the batteries at once vs. piecemeal, but I would have waited a few more years, maybe to the point where maybe 10-20% of the batteries were completely dead, and many more down to 50% battery health, before then ordering replacements. (If Metro had actual routes that require off-wire operations, it would be more urgent, but they don’t).

      As to politics, I would assume that federal subsidies for trolley buses are cancelled until reading otherwise. But, depending on how the coin flip of presidential elections go, they could come back in 2029. It’s important to play the long game here and not just blindly assume that whatever the current administration does is long-term policy.

    3. Trolley buses generally have lower fuel costs and maintenance expenses than diesel buses, but higher infrastructure costs. Things get complicated and change over time but trolleys are fundamentally simpler (although that may not be the case with the battery/trolleys). Trolleys require a special barn that is on the wire. You can put a barn for diesel buses pretty much anywhere. With trolleys you have to maintain the wires. In that sense trolleys are like subways. The more compact and busy a system the better the value. You want a system with lots of riders per mile (which means less wire to maintain per rider). You also want lots of buses per mile and that can change.

      Consider the 8 for example. It has good ridership per mile but that is suppressed because of the poor speeds and frequency. Make it faster and you could run it more often. This in turn would increase ridership. Once you do that it, the 8 becomes a high priority for converting to a trolley (likely the highest). As with a metro you want to consider the potential ridership, not just the ridership with the current system.

      1. The linked FTA data show that Metro’s ETBs average about 6.7 mph and carry about 28 passengers per revenue hour. The other buses average about 10.7 mph and carry about 22.5 passengers per revenue hour. The trolleys work the high density, short distance missions and the diesels work the more far-flung routes.

        The unanswered question is how operating costs would be affected if the trolley routes were dieselized. Would the buses operating on those short distance/high density routes be more expensive to maintain than the trolleys working those routes? Steep hills and crush loads can add extra wear and tear to brakes, transmissions and engines. Metro may have a good idea of those costs if they’ve been running the 2/13 with a distinct subset of diesel buses.

      2. Would the buses operating on those short distance/high density routes be more expensive to maintain than the trolleys working those routes?

        I would think so. The buses are running a lot and there isn’t that much wire. It is a shame the RapidRide G isn’t running under wire since it would tip the balance even more. But even without that and even with less service many of the trolleys run often. 3/4, 7, 36, 44, 70 — those buses add up to a lot of miles per day.

  12. Im struck by the lack of trolley wires north of the Ship Canal. What routes north of the Ship Canal would do better electrified (especially due to elevation changes and high frequencies/ ridership)?

    1. The 62 is the first such route that comes to mind for me. It has steep elevation changes, some very slow sections, and even has existing wire in downtown and Belltown, plus a few blocks of 45th in Wallingford that are shared with the 44.

      Ideally, they would use the bus’s off wire capabilities to avoid running wire over the Fremont bridge, which, I’m sure would be a big mess (although, they did do not on other ship canal drawbridges for the 43 and 49, so I guess it is possible).

    2. The 44 … oh wait :)

      Seriously though the 45 seems like a good candidate. The problem with the 45 (and a lot of other buses that go through the UW) is that they are often paired (through-routed) with other routes. This pairing is not obvious or necessarily ideal. Thus the 45 is paired with the 75 and that might not be the case in the future. Not only that, but it is quite possible that you would change the route of the 75 in the near future (I would, the day Pinehurst Station opens).

      I think we should shift our thinking when it comes to trolleys. Traditionally we had to focus on individual routes. We had to have wire end to end. That isn’t the case anymore — the technology has changed. Buses can run off wire for a considerable distance — on a regular basis — and a driver can connect or disconnect without leaving the cab. That being the case we may be able to get by with sections of wire. This could easily be in the middle of the route — that way the buses fully charge while laying over.

      I think you would still focus on buses that are unlikely to change. You also want buses that have good ridership per mile (or are likely to have good ridership per mile in the future). The RapidRide E seems like a good one even though it would be a major project. But the wire in South Lake Union could be used in the future by other buses. You would basically have wire at both ends (north and south). I don’t know how big the gap could be but it seems possible that the bus could run between Green Lake and South Lake Union without wire.

      But it wouldn’t be my priority. There is no reason to focus on one part of town or the other. The first priority should be to create a system where trolleys running off-wire is common. Once you do that it makes it easier to change the routes. That in turn makes it much easier to make the other changes we should make in our system.

      1. I think it’s also important Beto point out the experience with battery buses have shown that the acceleration is better with a pure electric bus.

        The E is a long route with a huge number of stops, and thus the faster acceleration could result in some time savings over the entire length of the E.

        A 10 minute savings per trip winds up being a savings of some $700,000 or so per year, which isn’t anything to sneeze at. This doesn’t include any slight savings with trolleybuses being slightly cheaper per hour.

        I’m not necessarily saying to start with the E either. However, when it comes to deciding the best investment, it might not necessarily be one of the lower passenger count shorter routes.

      2. I really doubt acceleration and deceleration on a bus like the E is going to make much difference. The hybrid-electric buses have good horse power. They can certainly stop quickly — you just don’t want to throw the riders around. The speed limit varies as well. I think it is 40 in Shoreline and 40 along the limited access part of Aurora. But the latter doesn’t have many stops. It is not like a train. For that matter it isn’t like a bus going up a hill. The difference between going 30 or 35 mph is minimal compared to the difference between going 5 or 10 mph. Even so, the modern diesel hybrids have pretty good acceleration — not like the old days when the buses would really strain to get up the hill.

        I’m not necessarily saying to start with the E either. However, when it comes to deciding the best investment, it might not necessarily be one of the lower passenger count shorter routes.

        Agreed. You want to look at efficiency. Basically the most buses per mile. That gives you the best value. That allows you to replace the most buses while maintaining the least amount of wire. Of course that can change. One advantage of the RapidRide E is that it will likely have lots of buses in the future (just like it does today). But a corridor that is fundamentally strong but underserved (like the 8) might be a better bet in the long run. If the 8 was faster it would run more often and quickly enter a positive ridership-frequency cycle. Next thing you know you are running lots of buses along the corridor, making the case for wire even stronger.

    3. When all the streetcar lines were converted to trolleybus routes, there were presumably trolley wires on the Fremont and Ballard bridges.

      1. Yes, the 15 and 18 had wire on the Ballard bridge, and the 5, 6, & 16 didn’t use the Fremont bridge, but the Aurora Bridge until 1963.

      2. The 5, 6, 16, 26, and 28 were still using the Aurora Bridge between 1979 and 2012. The 17 didn’t cross the bridge (it turned west on Nickerson). I can’t think of any other routes between Fremont and downtown that could have crossed the Fremont Bridge. So the Fremont Bridge really had no trolley routes or downtown routes after the streetcars were removed? That’s surprising. But they may have reasoned that the Fremont Bridge is the lowest bridge so it opens the most often, whereas the Aurora Bridge never opens. But the Aurora Bridge has the disadvantage that the nearest bus stops are further from central Fremont and the 5 and 28 stops are up a hill.

      3. After the 1963 dieselization, the 26 and 28 (locals) used the Fremont Bridge while the 5/6/16 used the Aurora Bridge. The main streetcar barn was just north of the Fremont Bridge, so it had tracks and overhead wiring in that era, but I don’t think it’s ever had trolley wire.

    4. “This pairing is not obvious or necessarily ideal. Thus the 45 is paired with the 75 and that might not be the case in the future.”

      The 75/45 is a great pair. The first time I took it from Sand Point, I couldn’t remember where the transfer was after the 75/31/32 split and the 48/45 split. I assumed I’d get off at Campus Parkway and walk to 15th where the northern half of the 48 had been. When we got to Campus Parkway I asked a neighboring passenger where the 45 transfer stop was now. He said, “You’re on the 45.” I said it had been the 75 when I got on. Then I remembered the 45 was the University Way route now.

      So the 75/45 pairing serves a lot of overlapping trips between Sand Point/UVillage and the entire University Way up to 65th & Roosevelt. That’s like having the 28/132 through-routed downtown: it’s tremendously useful.

      1. Mike, I agree. but as I read Lynnwood Link, Route 45 will turn at NE Boat Street and not even reach the UWMC. Between March 2016 and fall 2021, Route 45 laid over on NE Pacific Place. LL pairs routes 75 and 77. Route 72 gets 10-minute headway and is extended to South Shoreline.

    5. As others have noted, between 1940 and 1963, routes 5, 6, 15, 16, and 18 were ETB. In NE Seattle, routes 7 and 8 were ETB and the former had branches. Routes 15 and 18 extended to West Seattle. Route 11 was ETB. The retraction of ETB was coincident with I-5 expansion and the annexation of north Seattle. Routes 6 and 16 were interlined via North 80th Street. The latter served Woodlawn Avenue NE. (Today, should Route 45 be shifted to the former Route 16 pathway from the lake front?).

      1. Were there trolleybuses on Aurora? Or were the 5, 6, and 16 not on Aurora then?

        Can trolleybuses work on a 40 mph highway without being too slow for the cars or falling off the wire and suddenly stopping and causing a high-speed collision?

      3. If overhead wire is capable of moving a train at highway speed, you would think it would be capable of moving a bus at highway speed.

      4. My understanding is Vancouver has at least one section of 45 mph trolleybus cline.

        Trolley poles do have a higher risk of jumping off the wire than train pantographs, but in the Interurban era there have been lines powered by trolley poles that put extra money into making the overhead lines not bounce around as much, and ran their trains in the 90-110 mph range (Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee regularly ran 90 mph with trolley poles, and a line in Indiana did a publicity stunt with one of their trains racing an airplane between two towns).

        So, they could probably make a higher speed trolley bus overhead line, but it’s just that no one in North America has ever had the need to do so.

        I’m not sure about overseas. Not many other countries have urban high speed highways to justify development of such a thing.

      5. The Route 8 mentioned above was ETB; it ran between downtown and NE Seattle via Eastlake and the Ave; it was coincident with Route 7 for much of its path. Later, it became Route 74, then 30, now the sad 79. There was an off-street ETB loop at the southwest corner of 35th Avenue NE and NE 55th Street; it was absorbed by the cemetery. That intersection had an SUV intrude in a pizza restaurant this week.

        The Route 8 on Denny Way was formed in 1995.

    1. Yeah, the awkward sideways ‘X’. I think they do plan on reconnecting things.

      What I find somewhat interesting is that there is existing wire on 13th between Union on Pine. So if the 2 went north on 13th between there they wouldn’t have to do much. They would have to add wire going the other direction though — on 11th or 12th.

    2. Just speculation: There is a pretty massive building being constructed at 14th and Union. That may have something to do with the delay in restoring the Route 2 wires. I’ve seen a large amount of traffic control people there because of it these past several weeks — and they’ve moved some other wires temporarily on 14th between Union and Madison.

    1. SDOT says that is the intent. Note new overhead will be needed on NE 43rd Street and the Roosevelt couplet.

  15. The expansion paragraph could be expanded. In addition to Route 48 wire on 23rd Avenue, there is the intent to add overhead to South Henderson Street; it is in the R Line budget.

    The last major expansion was for the initial Link segment as routes 14 and 36 were extended. Metro and SDOT could not agree on a Route 7 layover on South Henderson Street so that extension was stillborn.

    Major trolley overhead expansion may be off the table during Trump 2.0. It could be useful if BEB has issues with the range of articulated buses. The South King County local routes will probably all become BEB in a few years. In expansion, one could dream about routes 5, 8, 40, D, E, 45, 65, 67, and 75 could be candidates. Heck, the E Line could have double articulated ETB. SDOT dreams of extending the J Line to NE 65th Street on the Roosevelt couplet. What if transit was two-way on 11th/12th avenues NE and two one-way PBL were placed on Roosevelt? the civil work has been committed.

    The unused overhead includes 1st Avenue; it is connected with South Jackson, Marion-Madison, Union, Pike-Pine, Stewart, Virginia, and Lenora.

    During the 1980s, Pine Street was closed to traffic and ETB used Union Street west of 7th Avenue. The DSTT opened in fall 1990.

    Metro is not using the turnaround loop at East Aloha Street. Before 2005 (Route 49) it was used by the Route 7 turnback variant. Today, it seems a Route 9 ETB could connect East Aloha Street and Mt. Baker TC under wire.

    Metro is not using using the old Route 2 shuttle loop in Uptown on Thomas Street. There is an interesting loop lying fallow off Route 4 on Aloha Street. The 21st Avenue loop west of Garfield High is interesting. Metro is not using the U Heights loop today; in fall 2021, Route 48 was assigned to the loop and it was thought it would soon become ETB. ha.

    In my note above in response to the routes 2-13, I should have noted that the G Line project also took down some Route 12 overhead.

    In the Enhanced Trolley Scenarios for the AWV Replacement project (2008), Route 8.11 was targeted to be ETB.

    If we get better batteries for both BEB and ETB, as RossB stated, we could be Swiss-like. When this subfleet wears out, the G Line hybrids could be replaced by BEB with ETB poles.

  16. Semi on topic with the route 44. I still wonder if some longer east-west bus route combination makes sense.

    There’s currently
    * route 44 Ballard to uw
    * route 270 (271) uw to Bellevue
    * rapidride B Bellevue to crossroads

    What about a long Ballard to Bellevue route? Aka route 44 + 270.

    In the rapidride plans they also call for a combined route 270 to rapidride B

    Technically without traffic one could get from Bellevue to Ballard in like 40 minutes with a combined 44+270 since it would also remove the transfer time. Though I guess with the future east link it might more reliable to take the rapidride D + link

    1. I think the key is it improve reliability. The 270 should be fairly reliable (and fast). But the 44 isn’t. It needs a lot of work.

      Though I guess with the future east link it might more reliable to take the rapidride D + link

      Yeah, or from Wallingford you could take the E and Link. You can avoid that issue by serving areas to the north of East Link. If the 255 and 45 weren’t so long I could see those two buses through-routing. If Metro ever runs a 405/520 bus (e. g. Totem Lake to the UW) I could easily see that just as an extension of the 45. Most likely that would be ST which would make that combination difficult. Maybe if ST just granted Metro some money. This is one of the (many) issues with ST being its own agency with little cooperation with Metro.

      1. I really like the idea of a cross-lake bus being thru routed with something east/west, like the 44, because it goes places Link doesn’t, providing high quality access to more of the city.

        Of course, there would be issues to work out. We don’t want Montlake bridge openings causing bus bunching on the 44. Also, the 270 is not planned to run as often as the 44, especially on weekends.

      2. I really like the idea of a cross-lake bus being thru routed with something east/west, like the 44, because it goes places Link doesn’t, providing high quality access to more of the city.

        The UW is an area where transit converges. The benefits for a rider of through-routing are relatively minor. The odds that someone would want to ride from say, Wallingford to Kirkland are relatively low. The main benefit with through-routing is that you save service. Various parts of the U-District are popular and so you don’t want to just end at UW Station or U-District Station. You want to go through the area like the 44 or 255. There is value in providing enough service along that stretch to create a spine. But you can easily overdue it, and through-routing becomes a way to avoid too much overlap. It is the same thing as downtown. The 5 and 21 overlap. This is good if you are going from Phinney Ridge to High Point. But that is just a bonus. The big advantage is that we aren’t using an excessive amount of service hours downtown. But like downtown you have to be careful about reliability. Bridges can screw up reliability which is why the C and D were de-coupled. It cost Metro a bunch of service hours (the buses ran less often) but at least the C is a lot more reliable.

        As a bonus the C also went to South Lake Union. The U-District is more narrow than downtown. Or at least the main corridors are more isolated. The 255 and 44 overlap because there is no other way to get between the stations. If a bus could drive on Rainier Vista then some of the buses would go that way, providing additional direct coverage (just like the C goes to South Lake Union).

        We don’t want Montlake bridge openings causing bus bunching on the 44.

        Yeah, exactly. I don’t think it is as bad as some of the other bridges. The buses can get to the front of the line and thus only have to wait for the bridge to open and close. This is much better than being behind a big backup (that can take a long time to clear out). At least that is the idea. I’m not sure if they have achieved that at either end. It is critical that they do, even if none of the buses ever through-route. It is more important that we focus on areas like bridge crossings (which involve dozens of buses a day and tens of thousands of riders) than picking an arbitrary bus and deeming it RapidRide.

      3. “Bridges can screw up reliability which is why the C and D were de-coupled.”

        They were decoupled to get more service into SLU, which was a priority. And to restore the connection between Ballard and Pioneer Square/stadiums that people had been complaining about ever since the D started. Bridge reliability may have been an issue too but it wasn’t mentioned at the time.

        You’re acting like more service to SLU and a Ballard-Pioneer Square connection don’t matter at all and if the C and D were still interlined that would be just fine. That ignores the thousands of complaints for years for something better.

        The C/D interline wasn’t like the 28/132, 65/67, or 45/75. It skipped the southern half of downtown.

      4. You’re acting like more service to SLU and a Ballard-Pioneer Square connection don’t matter at all

        No, I specifically mentioned it. I’m just saying that if the D was more reliable it is quite likely they would remain paired. Yes, it is nice that the C serves South Lake Union. But there are other buses (and a streetcar) that do that. It is nice for riders from West Seattle to have a one-seat ride to South Lake Union but it was nice for them to have a one-seat ride to Belltown and Uptown (and even Ballard). The savings from pairing those buses was huge. There are still planners who think we should not have split the two.

        The problem is that sometimes riders would be waiting downtown for the C and it would be twenty minutes late because it got stuck behind a huge draffic jam at the Ballard Bridge. We pair a lot of buses but none of them go over a drawbridge anymore*. The 31/32 used to be paired with the 65/75 but it was too unreliable. To a certain extent a route name is arbitrary, but it is worth noting that the 48 was split into two pieces with the northern part (the 45) not crossing the bridge. Of course some buses have to go over those bridges and keep going, but they often get mixed in with other buses so they have a backup for the key sections. For example if I’m in Uptown heading to Downtown I can catch the D. But if it is stuck in traffic it doesn’t matter — I can catch the 1, 2 and 13 (which don’t cross a bridge). Not all buses are like that. Folks in Eastlake or Montlake (heading south) are just out of luck. But there has been a clear move away from combining routes from the south end with buses that go over a drawbridge. The buses that are paired go over the Aurora Bridge or they start just south of the bridge (e. g. in Magnolia).

        *There are some exceptions but they tend to be late at night when traffic is less of an issue.

    2. Yeah I can confirm that Link + D is faster than 44 unfortunately.
      Through a couple times of riding the entire 44 (from UW to Ballard), I noticed that very few people from UW/U-District actually ride all the way. Most of them boarding east if I-5 get off at Wallingford. 44 carries few people to Ballard during weekday PM.

      1. You can get from UW to 15th & Market faster on Link+D than the 44? That indicates the 44 is taking more than 36 minutes (6 Link + 5 transfer + 25 D).

        “I noticed that very few people from UW/U-District actually ride all the way.”

        That would be the 44’s travel time drag. Ballardites are probably driving more or not going to the U-District as much because of it. When I lived in Ballard, I found it had a 25-minute overhead to get in and out of to a regional transfer point (Westlake or U-District). It’s one of the reasons I moved out of Ballard, because I found that most of what I do is in the eastern half of the city or in Bellevue, and there was the 25-minute overhead every time I went to them.

        SDOT may have 44 corridor improvements planned sometime after the 40 improvements. The 44 was going to get a RapidRide upgrade in Move Seattle in the 2010s, but Move Seattle’s ambitions were cut in half. It did do some, like queue jumps east of Aurora, but I guess it wasn’t enough.

      2. I’m looking at Google Maps and every time it says the 44 is faster (https://maps.app.goo.gl/X19HoWyDn86CoyqW9). Weekdays, weekends, rush-hour (either direction) it seems like it always faster to take the 44. Even to UW Station the 44 is faster. This is from 15th & Market to a Link Station (which is ideal from a D/Link perspective). I’m sure there are times when the other option is faster but I think they are rare.

      3. Yeah I can confirm that Link + D is faster than 44 unfortunately.
        Through a couple times of riding the entire 44 (from UW to Ballard), I noticed that very few people from UW/U-District actually ride all the way. Most of them boarding east if I-5 get off at Wallingford. 44 carries few people to Ballard during weekday PM.

        That’s not been my experience. I ride the 44 eastbound sometimes around 7AM and get on at Aurora. The bus is already about half full, with a few people getting on and off at every stop. About half the bus empties out at U-District Station (way more than pre-Link with the 71/72/73/74). Another 1/4 to 1/3 of the bus gets off at 43rd & 15th, with a good chunk of them appearing to transfer to other buses on 15th.

        In the afternoon going west, it’s about reversed; there’s a good number of people who get off at Wallingford but probably an equal number of people get on.

        Overall, the 44 is sort of a shorter, slower form of the E, with constant activity at almost every stop. It made a great RapidRide candidate 15 years ago, and is even better now that it hits a couple Link stations. When Ballard Link opens (hopefully) in 15 more years, it’ll be an even more compelling candidate, and I hope SDOT and Metro can manage to upgrade it before then.

      4. “When Ballard Link opens (hopefully) in 15 more years, it’ll be an even more compelling candidate, and I hope SDOT and Metro can manage to upgrade it before then.”

        The next RapidRide candidates are here: https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/07/23/rapidride-future-and-prioritization/

        Tier 0: K, R.
        Tier 1: 150, 36.
        Tier 2: 40, 44, B+270 (Crossroads-UDistrict)
        Tier 3: 165, 181, B+226 (Redmond-Eastgate)

        So it’s in the second tier. That would put it in the 2030s I’d guess. It also depends on whether federal grants for RapidRide vanish, whether our local transit funding deteriorates further given the state/local budget squeezes, and on whether King County passes a Metro Connects levy that could accelerate the RapidRide projects.

      5. Ross and Skylar,

        I probably didn’t make it super clear. When I said UW, I meant the triangular area by UW Link station.
        And I only tried this for westbound direction in the afternoon (from UW to Ballard)
        If the trip starts at U-District, I can imagine 44 is faster.

        This is my google search below
        https://maps.app.goo.gl/vA6ryvfg4cGihqebA?g_st=ic

      6. OK, but even from the UW Station to 15th & Market it appears that going downtown is slower. If you happen to be right next to the station (maybe visiting the climbing rock?) then it is basically a wash between taking Link north or just boarding the 44 north. But at no point does it make sense to take Link south. The problem is that the D just isn’t that fast. It can’t make up for the extra length of the route. The 44 isn’t as good as it should be it isn’t that bad. The same is true of the D.

    3. There was talk of sending the 44 to Seattle Children’s Hospital past U Village to an existing bus loop on the backside of Hospital campus. I don’t know what the status is of that.

      As for the 270+44, I agree about a Ballard-Bellevue/East Side line but I’d have it be express or limited in Seattle with only a few stops… UW station, UDistrict, Wallingford, Aurora, 15th, Downtown Ballard, Locks or go via Fremont and skip Wallingford and U District, which might avoid most of the automobile congestion (and 44 redundancy) along 45th corridor.

      1. Ballard-Children’s was an alternative for RapidRide 44. There was always a debate about whether that would be better or worse than the current routing. On one hand it would be more straight and grid-correct. On the other hand, the entire UW campus, U-District, and UWMC are major destinations like a downtown, so arguably it serves more people to turn south. Also, the reroute would require 30 blocks of new trolley wire. They were counting on a RapidRide’s project’s budget to fund that. Without that, it’s difficult to see where the money would come from. Or they could dieselize the route to avoid adding wire, but that was seen as a step backward.

        So it’s unclear how much is due to SDOT/Metro’s hesitation about the reroute vs the collapse of the RapidRide project that would have funded the wire. This route is now gone from Metro Connects, like the 48-Rainier, so that suggests SDOT/Metro have turned against it. In contrast, the 8-Madison Park, 49-Beacon, and 106-Boren concepts are still in Metro Connects.

      3. “Or, they could run the last mile off wire.”

        That would depend on Metro doing something it hasn’t been willing to do for ten years. It may be starting to change its mind now, but will it? We’ve expected or hoped for a lot of things that never happen.

    4. WL
      the Metro RR planners discuss the split B-270 combination. it will be difficult to find a layover and turnaround loop near Crossroads Mall.

      Another intra Eastside option came to me this week. RR B Red: between downtown Redmond and OV P&R via OV Link; shift from NE 40th Street to NE 36th Street to avoid the interchange congestion; before Link, it was important for the B to provide transfer opportunities with routes 542-545; with Link, that is no longer the case. RR B Bell: between RTS and South Bellevue stations via 156th, 8th, 116th, 10th, 110th, 4th, Bellevue Way. Both RR BR and BB would have layover at Link stations. The RR BB would cover the arterial segment of Route 550. Note serving the hospital district gets it out of NE 8th Street interchange congestion. Bellevue would probably have to provide priority nearside 116th Avenue NE.

      There is no network reason that the arterial segment of Route 550 need a blue bus.

      1. This is highly speculative, but I wonder if one of the reasons Metro is reluctant to run trolley buses partially off wire in routine service is concerns about battery life. That is, a lithium ion battery is rated for a certain number of charge/discharge cycles (typically around 500-2000, depending on the battery chemistry), and going off-wire on a bus that is in service 18 hours per day/365 days per year is going to churn through those cycles very quickly (depending on how much of the route is off wire). So, the batteries on trolley buses would likely need replacement more often if Metro designed routes to make heavy use of off wire capability vs. if they keep the batteries in reserve only for special situations, and Metro may be trying to avoid such increased battery replacement costs.

        (Battery buses have the same issue too, but because the batteries are much bigger, each they get more miles driven out of each charge cycle).

      2. @eddiew

        from the prioritization document i saw

        > The proposed eastern terminus location for the corridor would be in the vicinity of the Crossroads Bellevue shopping center near NE 8th Street and 156th Ave NE. No routes terminate here today, and this new layover location would likely be on-street. However, there could be opportunities for an off-street layover facility in the parking lot of the shopping center.
        > The alignment from Metro Connects assumes a turnaround here using the mall access road parallel to NE 8th Street on the south side of the shopping center. If feasible, this could be where the layover and charging facilities are provided. Such a layover facility may impact the cost of implementing this RapidRide corridor.
        > Another potential option may require coordination with the City of Bellevue for access to city owned property (Crossroads Park and Fire Station 3) on the north side of NE 8th Street west of 164th Ave NE to turn around.

        But yeah I agree unsure if the Crossroads Mall will agree to it.

      3. > Another intra Eastside option came to me this week. RR B Redmond segment: between downtown Redmond and OV P&R via OV Link; shift from NE 40th Street to NE 36th Street to avoid the interchange congestion; before Link, it was important for the B to provide transfer opportunities with routes 542-545; with Link, that is no longer the case.

        Well partially. The st 542 to u district will receive increased frequency and run every 15 minutes after the full east link. and it will not stop at overlake village. also most of the microsoft shuttles all use the redmond technology station.

        > RR B Bellevue segment: between RTS and South Bellevue stations via 156th, 8th, 116th, 10th, 110th, 4th, Bellevue Way. Both RR BR and BB would have layover at Link stations. The RR BB would cover the arterial segment of Route 550. Note serving the hospital district gets it out of NE 8th Street interchange congestion. Bellevue would probably have to provide priority nearside 116th Avenue NE.

        The future st 554 between issaquah to downtown seattle will be truncated to run from issaquah to bellevue. it will take over the segment on bellevue way.
        https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/projects/east-link-connections/routes/554.pdf

        But honestly if 554 had continued it’s truncation at mercer island, i would have liked the idea of an extended rapidride B that reaches the bellevue square mall

      4. Wesley Lin
        yes, you shared the ELC Route 554. But that has not been decided by ST yet. If implemented, it would provide relatively slow service to the Issaquah to Seattle market. A transfer at MI is much faster. Compare the scheduled times for routes 554 and 556. The center HOV lanes provide a great pathway between the Eastgate freeway station and MI Link.

        Note that the two agencies have slipped; they no longer implement service changes simultaneously. ST is doing its FWLE process later than Metro’s as well.

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