Local Transit News:

A post on the updated South Link Connections bus restructure proposal is in the works.

Other Transportation:

Land Use & Housing:

Commentary & Miscellaneous:

This is an Open Thread.

68 Replies to “Midweek Roundup: Crosslake Update”

    1. The same paragraph also says “Mitigation opportunities to
      improve the project schedule are expected to be realized
      in July 2025”.

      Does that mean they will find out after July whether the RSD will be earlier than April 2026?

    2. The Times article says the target date is still January 31 (I corrected it from January 30 in the article), but ST has started making contingency plans in case it slips to after the Federal Way opening in mid March. I don’t have insider knowledge on which of these are most accurate, or what the probability of delaying to March are or what the specific cause of the delay would be. In any case, the difference is only three months. That’s better than a year or more.

      1. The opening sequence is complicated because of initiating Line 2 and the East OMF vehicles into ST operations. It’s made even more complicated by the addition of new drivers and way that these drivers get assigned to either a bus or train cab.

        First, I suspect that ST won’t open Federal Way Link unless train vehicles are made easily available from the East OMF. 1 Line service would be compromised unless those vehicles can be available. Central OMF is maxxed out.

        ST’s new diagrams on the trains suggest that they plan to run 2 Line trains in Seattle north of CID before cross-lake service begins revenue service. I think STX 515 would go away if they did that.

        Another big question is how ST will eliminate some express bus routes if Federal Way Link opens first as the 2 line simulation rolls out. They may need to convert STX 550 to be a cross-lake shuttle only to have enough drivers for the 2 Line simulation, for example.

        ST is probably going to make sure the imminent live wire testing results on the bridge are promising before committing to a rollout plan with dates for the new openings.

      2. 1/31/2026 is the RSD in April 2025 Status Report, so I wonder if Seattle Times’ information is the latest.

      3. “1/31/2026 is the RSD in April 2025 Status Report, so I wonder if Seattle Times’ information is the latest.”

        They agree then. I think the Times’ contingency plan is based on more recent stirrings in ST in June and July, after the dead tow test.

  2. Does anyone know if the 545 drivers have been given new directions? Twice now during rush hour the bus has avoided i5 by taking Boylston and Lakeview to Eastlake.

    It seems like ST / KCM is comfortable taking buses on the Lakeview bridge so maybe that bodes well for some sort of east-west service from the Harrison corridor to cap hill up Belmont (although the bigger issue might be how steep the next block up Belmont is)

    1. Huh. Back around 2017 when I was regularly riding the 545 downtown after work, they would sometimes take Boylston to the right-lane entrance ramp onto I-5, but I can’t remember clearly if they ever took Lakeview then. I want to say they did once or twice, but I might be wrong?

  3. I had friends visiting for a week and on Sunday they were planning on taking the 554 to Chinatown then Link to the airport. We live in South Issaquah and they were impressed with seeing the Trailhead Direct bus so on their own they figured out a new route and had me drop them off at the Trailhead Direct stop where the Rainier Trail crosses 2nd Ave. they took that to Mt Baker then Link to the Airport. I had not thought that one up myself!

  4. The reason free transit is likely the way towards better transit is it’s customer service forward. Without fares, there’s no need for accountants and many of the “back office” type jobs that are holding transit back currently.

    Take the idea of reduced fares for low income people, seniors, students or whoever. In reality these reduced fares folks need a small army of customer service reps to get them reduced fair cards and check of they’re eligible. So in reality, reduced fares end up sapping a great deal of labor (that’s money)…. I’d guess the accounting system and reduced fare system might suck up most of not all of the fare box money at METRO and I know it’s more than the fare box at PT. So is it even worth collecting the money? The percentage of “fare box recovery” is bogus because it omits the cost of dealing with the costs of maintaining the fare box system. I suspect the transit employees are well aware of this.

    So let’s say every employer pays a small tax to fund transit and everybody rides for free? Transit agencies need to come up with a percentage of employees that have direct contact with the transit system and customers. Fixing buses, driving buses, cleaning buses, any sort of customer service, transit security….. more of all these sorts of jobs. Less, and I mean way less, of middle management, planners, accountants, or any other employee not doing direct customer service.

    1. There are ample studies that have looked at this issue and put numbers on the amount of cost savings. Case studies have also looked it if it makes boardings faster or if it adds maintenance and security staff costs.

      Possible cost savings is different for each operator. It depends on the amount of the budget that comes from fares and how fares are collected. For example, having most riders pay with Orca cards or the emerging use of credit card taps/ smart phone taps with some systems reduces that staffing time involved in handling money so going careless doesn’t save that much more.

      The higher the percentage of revenue from fares the more costly it is to operate as free fares. If an operation gets 15 percent of revenue from fares, they’ll not find that way less than 15 percent of staff time is involved in fare collection (most staff time are for driving or maintaining vehicles) so they’ll not be able to get the cost savings they’ll need to break even.

      1. It depends

        Exactly. OK, I’ll quote the rest of the sentence.

        It depends on the amount of the budget that comes from fares and how fares are collected.

        Exactly. In some cities it just doesn’t make sense to collect fares. The net funding is so low that it isn’t worth it. In others the net money collected from fares is significant. That money is better spent on improving transit. It is easy to argue “Why not both?” but that assumes that somehow we have a perfect level of spending by increasing it to that level. Put it another way. Imagine it takes “X” amount of general tax spending to make up for the loss of fare revenue. So just tax twice that, right? Wrong, since even at double that “X” value we are better off spending it improving transit. At what point then, is it better to shift money into free fares? In the case of American city that gets a substantial amount of its money from fares, the answer is likely “never”. Transit is so underfunded that it never actually makes sense to shift the money. It is like in Scandinavia where they have high taxes on the wealthy *and* high taxes on the middle class. The VAT tax is regressive and high (typically 25%) but it is still really good to have that added revenue. Tax and spend is still a lot better than the alternative even when the tax isn’t progressive.

    2. “Without fares, there’s no need for accountants and many of the “back office” type jobs that are holding transit back currently.”

      That’s a typical “slash the bureaucrats” tactic without any analysis of what the bureaucrats do, how necessary it is, or how much money it would save. Like the recent slashes in the federal government.

      What you’re talking about is the same as fare collection overhead. That’s mentioned in the Slate article. Very small agencies like Intercity Transit in Olympia, Island Transit on Whidbey Island, and small college towns save money by not collecting fares. That doesn’t apply to large agencies like Metro.

      Also, Metro gets a lot of its operating revenue from employer passes. Those are based on the nominal fare and how much the employees use transit. Eliminating fares would undermine that formula, and perhaps the ability to charge employers anything.

      1. Also ignores what an accountant actually does like auditing financial reports and balancing the books for a business to ensure compliance with state and federal accounting laws. They aren’t just some rando employee you can cut to save money, you are required by law to have CPAs on your payroll as an organization or business otherwise you can be heavily fined if the IRS or the state decides to do a financial audit on your business.

        The bizarre contempt for office job people is pretty asinine in my opinion.
        Someone has to do breauacratic paperwork otherwise a business or organization ceases to function.

      2. Zach B.

        Reread my post. Instead of fares, employers would pay a tax for each employee. Employee passes end up being welfare for the rich because high paying jobs come with a transit pass and washing dishes often doesn’t. Why should Microsoft employees get a free ride?

        I’d like to know what the total fare box take from Metro is vs. a $20 per employee tax. Bump it up to $50 for the big tech companies. Make the damn thing revenue neutral. That way Metro actually can shift its labor force to something that actually helps with actual transit.

        And office workers actually are the problem much of the time. My wife has worked in healthcare her whole career… the insurance and medical billing side of it have grown exponentially over the last 50 years… it’s not the cost of actual healthcare that costs so much, it’s the blizzard of paperwork.

        You think Harborview has more doctors and nurses or office workers in their billing department?

        The crazy thing about healthcare is the army of office workers constantly bitch about insane the system is…. but continue take paychecks for it.

      3. “Why should Microsoft employees get a free ride?”

        Because the issue is the size of the company and the number of cars that would be on the road if most employees drove. That’s why large companies and institutions like UW are required to have an SOV-commute reduction plan, and company-wide transit passes are a way to comply.

        I’m not against a transit tax on all employers. That would be similar to Seattle’s head tax, which Olympia has been willing to allow. But large employers should still probably pay more than small ones, because of the disproportionate impact their tens of thousands of employees have on the transportation infrastructure.

      4. https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/employer-programs/orca-business/passport/zone-cost-estimator?zone=king_seattle_zone_a&eligible-employees=5&copay=0

        A company or organization with 5 or more employees can now easily set up subsidized ORCA cards for their employees. The cost of the cards is a fraction of what it costs to pay individually out of pocket for an ORCA card. For example, a business in downtown Seattle pays about $375 annually for each employee. If the business is located outside of the CBD, the rates are even lower. An annual pass for someone working in Tacoma is less than $100.

        It used to be very difficult to set up, fund and maintain business ORCA passes for employees (believe me, I know), but it looks much simpler and cheaper now.

      5. “Reread my post. Instead of fares, employers would pay a tax for each employee.”
        Reread my post, you dont understand accounting and its even more clear with this post. Someone has to keep track of those taxes in relation to financials of the organization. Because again as I said in my previous post that accountants are there to ensure fiscal stewardship and compliance with local and federal tax/accounting laws.

      6. “the insurance and medical billing side of it have grown exponentially over the last 50 years… it’s not the cost of actual healthcare that costs so much, it’s the blizzard of paperwork.”

        Transit is nothing like healthcare. The number of healthcare billing staff and paperwork is a symptom, not the cause. The cause:

        1. For-profit insurance companies taking an excessive cut for their shareholders.
        2. For-profit hospitals doing the same. (Although there aren’t many for-profit hospitals.)
        3. The secret opaque deals between each insurance company and provider that determine how much the insurance will pay.
        4. Large employers can get better group rates than small employers or individuals.
        5. Doctors have six-figure student loans and five-digit malpractice insurance premiums to pay.
        6. Doctors like earning more money and having a higher-end lifestyle than their counterparts in Canada.
        7. Hospitals pay for poor uninsured people’s emergency care, and national insurance premiums pay for that.
        8. Uninsured people get sicker before resorting to a doctor/hospital, and get preventable conditions because of it.
        9. Homeless people live in an environment detrimental to their health.
        10. Medicare and Medicaid each have their own complex qualifications and procedures.
        11. Drug companies charge Americans sky-high prices. This also contributes to hospitals’ costs.
        12. Patients don’t know what the cost will be until after the visit, so the usual market incentives don’t work. If they ask the price beforehand, they’re told it’s a trade secret (those opaque insurance:provider deals).

      7. Yes Mike, this is all correct. Like I know people who work in insurance and most of them will tell you that most insurance people just want to process the claims and disperse of funds accordingly. Which generally happens in most cases.

        Alongside that people in other countries with government healthcare systems still have to pay medical bills and get reimbursed for services. This isn’t a uniquely American thing.

      8. My dad was an insurance broker. He created some of the first cafeteria-style plans (=health savings accounts) in the 80s, intending to give people more control over their healthcare spending and save money. In the last phase of his life in the early 90s he wanted to eliminate the insurance-company middleman taking their cut, so that consumers would contract directly with providers via these accounts and a low-premium catastrophic insurance for major issues. He died in 1995 and was unable to pursue it further. Later the big insurance companies co-opted the model and raised the premiums to match what they were getting under earlier plans.

      9. Yeah I’ve heard a similar thru line from HR people who don’t like dealing with health insurance and wish it was one less thing for them to deal with.

      10. For-profit insurance companies are also the reason pharmacies can’t stay in business. This will become a bigger issue as more Americans lose access to a pharmacy in their area.

    3. ORCA is an IT system, not an accounting system. The accounting support for fares collection at ST is less than one person (as that person also supports accounting for grants and other sources of revenue).

      ORCA has real costs, most of which are fixed. As a few others have pointed out, for very small transit system it can be more cost effective to go fare free, but for a large network like ORCA, fare revenue exceeds fare costs (cash management, fare enforcement, etc) by tens of millions of dollars.

      ORCA also has other benefits, notably around generating ridership and trip pair data, that is important for network design.

    4. I would like to see more fare Gates like in Japan and Paris where transit is excellent and they collect dates without issue. I think we’re just making excuses and not looking at how the rest of the world successfully operates transit fares

  5. Sound Transit create a blog to keep Seattle updated. South King County? Nope. We are told to shut up and accept that we are low priority.

    1. For the love of God, please stop. This is all you ever talk about and its honestly getting tiring and grating seeing the same “ST hates South King” comment ad nauseum from you. It isnt true and ST hasn’t forgotten South King, they literally just opened the new transit center a few months ago and will be opening Federal Way early next year. So please stop with your hyperbolics about something that isn’t there and is frankly all just in your head.

    2. Matthew still hasn’t answered my earlier question, what would Metro and ST have to do to meet Matthew’s expectations for South King County?

      The ST blog is about the 2 Line. That affects 3/5 of ST’s subareas (East King, North King, and Snohomish). It will also benefit South King by giving access to the Eastside base and more trains. The reason the 2 Line is getting a blog is the multiple setbacks it has gotten, one after the other, with no assurance that this is the last. Federal Way Link has had only one setback, the redesign of a viaduct. The rest of Federal Way’s delays were due to the recession/pandemic problems and the concrete workers strike affecting all subareas, and because South King couldn’t afford the Star Lake extension after the 2008 crash, and temporarily couldn’t afford KDM either.

    3. Matthew, these proclamations of victimhood are entering ad hominem territory unless you can clearly and reasonably explain what you’d think ST and Metro should be doing that they’re not. Metro announced their third round of revisions for their restructure around Federal Way Link (we’re working on an article about it); the Seattle Times is reporting that ST is not expecting to delay opening of FWLE if the 2 line is delayed further.

      Seriously, what are we missing?

      1. “these proclamations of victimhood are entering ad hominem territory unless you can clearly and reasonably explain what you’d think ST and Metro should be doing”

        I hadn’t thought of that. It is a vague accusation of Metro and ST, without saying what they’re doing wrong, and it implies they’re acting out of malice.

    4. Metro did just send out requests for feedback on the South King County bus restructure, so they’re at least trying to figure out how to increase service/access in Kent/Federal Way/Auburn/Des Moines.
      And it sounds like the federal way link extension may open early or at least is not delayed anymore so there’s wouldn’t need to be a blog for that. The only reason sound transit started that is because east link is so much more delayed than initially thought.

      In your opinion, how are they forgetting South King County? And what would make a difference?

    5. Aside from Seattle, who pays added taxes for extra trips on their routes, South King County gets better service than North or East King County. Want to go from Kirkland to Woodinville or Kirkland to Bothell? That’s gonna be an hour wait. Most routes in South King are 30 minutes or better. I have my own complaints about how it seems South base is understaffed it seems, but to say King County forgets about South King County is a lie.

      The only non-Seattle RapidRide route to get 10 minute headways most of the day weekdays and the only route besides the E line to get 12 minutes or better rapidride service on the weekends is the A line. The B and F lines, 10 minutes during peak only, 15 at other times and weekends (F line doesnt get 15 minutes until about 8 on weekends, every half hour until then). I know F line is south county, but just making a point here.

      Having an idea what route Mathew might use (not going to say it here), that route is going to see an increase in frequency whenever the south link connections are implemented.

  6. btw does anyone know if there have been any updates on the ballard link extension or the west seattle link extension?

    1. Ballard Link EIS is delayed to “Q3 2025”; WSLE is supposed to start primary engineering design this month, but is also the primary subject of ST’s cost savings efforts. Next update from the cost savings workgroup is also planned for Q3.

    1. This is good to hear.
      It would be really nice if they were also able to expand the span of service. 6:30 am to 10:30 pm on the core downtown to Fairhaven and WWU routes is quite limiting.

    1. Beat me to posting this and even added a video.

      I did see a rail grinding truck working on Morrison very early in the morning last week.

      1. I’ve seen some of the equipment (tampers, rail grinders, etc) stored during the day at the Hollywood pocket track. I figured they were out working somewhere.

  9. Some thoughts about the 560, as I ride it is on the airport this morning:

    – Most people on the bus have suitcases and almost nobody is getting on or off the bus anywhere other than Bellevue Transit Center and the airport. At least in the reverse commute direction, the bus could probably get 80% of the riders in half the time by just running nonstop between Bellevue and SeaTac (the tradeoff is that the individual people impacted by such a move would be really screwed)
    – The 560 could probably get through it’s Renton slog faster than it does, without losing coverage, with a bit of effort. For example, the choice of taking Park instead of Logan adds unnecessary left turns. The 560 should take Logan, and the F line (with no thru traffic because the route ends at the landing) should take Park.
    – There seems to be no transit signal priority in Renton whatsoever, with light after light turning red right as the bus approaches. Adding signal priority could go a long way.
    – At Renton Transit Center, some turns could be eliminated by having the bus just stay on the street and serve a stop next to the transit center.
    – the streets in Renton have no bus lanes, even when shared by multiple routes. It wasn’t the case today, but I know that when 405 is backed up, drivers start diverting to Renton streets, so they too become backed up. Some simple bus lanes could go a long way in making service more reliable.

    The proposed stride change, serving only south Renton park and ride feels like the worst of both worlds. It is very time consuming to serve, but still forces ugly transfers to most of Renton. The bus should either follow the 560’s current route with minor modifications or skip Renton entirely. I lean towards sticking with the 560’s route, with a few tweaks to remove unnecessary turns, ads signal priority a bus lanes, and run the bus twice as often as it runs currently.

    1. “Most people on the bus have suitcases and almost nobody is getting on or off the bus anywhere other than Bellevue Transit Center and the airport. ”

      This is why I keep saying that the Link transfer for Stride should be at SeaTac and not TIBS. Those airport riders will look at the hassle and decide that it’s easier to take the 2 Line to CID and transfer to the 1 Line. That’s especially true if they’re also transferring in Downtown Bellevue; if they’re near a Redmond Link station they won’t think twice about using Link all the way instead of Stride. .

      I guess that it’s possible that Stride may pick up new markets, but since there are few destinations near many of those stops and it skips many bus transfer opportunities with crossing routes, I don’t think there will be many.

      Of course, in typical Seattle fashion, ST limited the alternatives that were considered (basically one with slight stop location differences) based on “feedback” input rather than travel demand studies.

      The saving grace for a low ridership route is that service disruptions don’t inconvenience so many people!

      1. Stride could perhaps go to SeaTac after TIBS, but TIBS is a very major transfer point and I can’t see any scenario where it makes sense to skip it. TIBS is where a huge swath of South King will board, and it’s projected to be the busiest stop on all of I-405 Stride.

        For reference, in Spring 2024, as many people boarded a bus at TIBS (~3700) as at Bellevue TC. That’s more than Renton TC (~2900) or Northgate (~3200). Note that this is pre-Lynnwood restructure.

      3. @ John D:

        The next stop after TIBS eastward is Renton TC. From Renton TC there is also a direct, frequent bus to Downtown Seattle (Metro Route 101). I’m assuming that Metro will keep running it at least to SODO. I don’t think riders will ride Stride from Renton to TIBS just to head north into Seattle on Link unless that’s their only option.

        The ST forecast info doesn’t say whether those Stride TIBS riders are headed north or south (just to SeaTac or to somewhere else) or staying within station walking distance. It may be that riders from Burien are headed north but Renton riders are headed south, for example. (Note too that RapidRide F runs between Burien and TIBS every 10-15 minutes currently, and RapidRide H runs directly to Downtown Seattle albeit circuitously.)

        What’s needed is a deeper dive into the analytics. That includes direction and time of day. We all have different opinions on the topic — but the computer models that are available calculate times and weights them for different kinds of tripmaking would be a useful supplement in identifying where people want to ride in the future.

      4. @Al S.

        Why would they be headed north or south instead of east or west? I’m sure SeaTac will be a major destination as well but as far as I can tell a large amount of the travel demand for Stride at TIBS will be for riders headed to Renton or Bellevue.

      5. I’m sure SeaTac will be a major destination as well but as far as I can tell a large amount of the travel demand for Stride at TIBS will be for riders headed to Renton or Bellevue.

        Good point. I think it is easy to think of TIBS as merely a connection to Link. But there are some apartments nearby as well good connecting bus service and a large parking garage. Driving to Bellevue (especially during peak) from anywhere in the area is a real pain. I can easily see people driving or taking a bus to TIBS and then catching the bus to Bellevue (and to a lesser extent Renton).

      6. “Why would they be headed north or south instead of east or west?”

        Just about as many people will board Stride as they will exit it. Someone coming from the east will probably be on RapidRide F from Southcenter and likely will just stay on the bus to Burien so they wouldn’t be counted as boardings. Likewise from the west mist would likely be on either Sttide or RapidRide F headed east already and wouldn’t likely board Stride at TIBS either. That leaves most riders catching Stride walking from the immediate area or transferring from Link (north or south), RapidRide A (south) , Metro 128 (north) or Metro 124 (north or south).

      7. “Why would they be headed north or south instead of east or west?”

        I should back up and point out that if you are already on Stride at TIBS you don’t count as a TIBS boarding. You count as a Burien boarding instead even if you’re riding through to Renton or Bellevue. That’s also true in the other direction – you are counted as a boarding where you get on Stride like in Renton or Bellevue – and you’re merely riding though at TIBS and thus not counted.

      8. I suspect that when the 1 and 2 connect, the demand for a bus going from Bellevue to Seatac will disappear.

      9. @Christopher Cramer,

        “I suspect that when the 1 and 2 connect, the demand for a bus going from Bellevue to Seatac will disappear.”

        I suspect you are right, and I suspect that demand for a lot of other buses will also disappear. But that isn’t a bad thing.

        Bus routes like those are often the most expensive to operate in the system, requiring huge per rider subsidies while often garnering low ridership. Being able to eliminate such routes is an opportunity because it allows those resources to be redeployed to more productive routes.

        CT did this wonderfully with their LLE restructure, and has seen higher ridership across all their service segments as a result. It was a win-win for both CT and their ridership base.

        I suspect we will see similar improvements with all these Link extensions and restructures.

      10. “I suspect that when the 1 and 2 connect, the demand for a bus going from Bellevue to Seatac will disappear.”

        When ST converts STX 560 to Stride 1, a direct route will no longer even go to SeaTac from Bellevue but will instead go to TIBS. That extra transfer to get to/ from SeaTac will really kill interest for the connection!

        I’m hoping that the extra burden of level changes at International District- Chinatown Station to serve transferring riders from SeaTac will lead to a renewed interest in adding down escalators there. They should have been part of the Baseline East Link project but the need was ignored.

        Advocating to add them would be a political win for any King County Executive candidate. They appear pretty easy to do on the station’s western platform but more difficult on the eastern platform.

      11. The Link connection to SeaTac from Bellevue will be pretty long. I expect that riders from downtown Bellevue will probably take Stride to Line 1; riders outside of downtown Bellevue will probably ride Line 2 to Line 1. From downtown Bellevue it’s a 2-seat ride either way, and Stride should be significantly faster most of the time.

        Breaking down travel times from Bellevue to Seatac:
        – Link (transfer in CID): 50-60m
        – Driving: 20-50m
        – 560: 30-60m
        – Stride (transfer at TIBS): 30-55m
        – Stride (theoretical direct to SeaTac): 30-45m

      12. @ John D:

        “From downtown Bellevue it’s a 2-seat ride either way, and Stride should be significantly faster most of the time.”

        You go realize that Stride 1 only connects at Downtown Bellevue, right? It may be faster or about the same on paper from that one station — but 2 Line will directly serve many other Eastside locations and stations. That includes Overlake, Redmond and South Bellevue. These are also locations where feeder buses go that dint get to Downtown Bellevue or take awhile longer if they do.

        Let’s look at Sammamish as an example. Many Sammamish residents that want to go to or from SeaTac won’t consider Stride 1. Instead, they’ll will figure out a way to get to get to 2 Line (like at Marymoor) and transfer to the 1 Line. They won’t look to transfer off of Link in Downtown Bellevue and back on again at TIBS — which not only adds time waiting for another vehicle as well as time to get across 110th but requires level changes with luggage at both stations too. That trip is going to take longer, add stress from more waiting and be a bigger hassle with luggage. A rider can also merely roll luggage onto a Link train (no big gap) but not onto a Stride bus. User experience is a very important component in trip making especially if you have luggage.

        Finally, there will be reliability issues with Stride 1 because of the Renton setup.

      13. @Al S.

        That’s what I said. I expect riders departing from downtown Bellevue to take Stride. Otherwise, transferring might shave a few minutes off the trip but I don’t think it’s worth the overhead, especially with bags.

        Travel times based on ST estimates would be:
        – Stride Bellevue to TIBS: 25-35 minutes
        – Link TIBS to SeaTac: 5 minutes
        – Link Bellevue to CID: 20 minutes
        – Link CID to SeaTac: 32 minutes

        Each transfer would be roughly 5-15 minutes

      14. I think which two-seat ride route from Bellevue to SeaTac will be faster doesn’t matter that much. When it comes to airport transit, it is more about how transit agency advertises it. Unless you are really digging into this like some of the people in this discussion, some of the local people don’t even know which way is more favorable. They will just go with whichever way they know better.

        It appears to me that ever since Long Island Railroad’s Eastside Access opens, LIRR has started posting in social media that you can take LIRR to JFK. I was sort of aware of that LIRR can go to Jamaica (one of the JFK AirTrain stops), but I never thought about using it go from/to JFK airport.

        Currently, I think ST does minimum effort to advertise options from Bellevue to SeaTac.

    2. I wonder if Stride 1 would be better with a branch to SeaTac and a branch to Burien. If each branch could run every 20 minutes for a combined 10 minute frequency between Bellevue, Renton, and TIBS. With the current routing, most passengers going to the airport will have a 3 seat ride (assuming they are coming from outside downtown Bellevue or outside downtown Renton). Two transfers can be quite the hassle with suitcases.

      1. Does anybody even ride east/west from Burien outside of rush hour? If not, maybe the solution is a peak-only Burien to Renton express route, with an all-day 560 just ending at the airport.

        As a consolation prize for the few people in Burien who do travel east/west off peak, RapidRide F can be straightened, eliminating an all-day detour to serve a peak only service (e.g. sounder).

      2. “Two transfers can be quite the hassle with suitcases.”

        Now that SeaTac is the #2 busiest Link station in the system, the user friendliness with a suitcase of different transit options should be a bigger emphasis for both station design and service design. Designing for suitcases also benefits those with large backpacks, strollers and even bicycles.

        Many decisions are being made without this perspective. Stations should be useful before they are pretty. Stations should be well laid out and not seen as a dot or bar on a map. Finally, level changes matter lots (not just a 2D map)!

        These past decisions by ST make Link harder to use for people with luggage:

        1. Distance between the ticketing areas and Link platforms (lack of moving sidewalks to the Link station).

        2. Level changes at many stations (no down escalators). It’s particularly missing at the place where people change direction — namely the CID Station. It’s also more apparent near major hotel districts like Westlake.

        3. The terrible transfer environments if DSTT2 ever opens. (It’s still amazing to me how unnecessarily expensive and complicated ST is designing the SODO station — resulting in two level changes to transfer between trains. The Downtown subway transfers are being designed like a Chutes and Ladders game.)

        And good design does not have to be costly! There are three platforms planned at SODO with two level changes (and vertical devices) to get between them. They could design it so much more efficiently. Just build a large center platform and create universal cross platform transfers — as a rider would just have to wait a few minutes next to the train doors rather than drag everything up and down again using an elevator or stairs.

    3. Things may have changed but you can see the ridership at each stop (each direction) for the 560 here: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020-service-implementation-plan.pdf#page=148. More riders were heading between Renton and Bellevue as SeaTac to Bellevue. If you count the freeway stations there were quite a bit more. Basically Bellevue dominated (with about 2/3 of the ridership) while things were pretty spread out in between.

      That is why I think the best thing to do (if they add direct access ramps) is to send the F to Bellevue. That is where you will get the most riders. The ridership from the 560 is Renton is good. It would be even better as an extension from the F (as it would get more riders from Renton as well as Southcenter). A fast trip from Renton to TIBS, Burien or even SeaTac isn’t as important as a fast trip to Bellevue. Sending the F to Bellevue would mean service and Metro can’t afford it. ST would have to kick in.

      It is noting that the express from Burien to TIBS will be popular for those looking for a faster way to get to Seattle (especially Rainier Valley).

      1. My intuition tells me that there is likely a big difference in how people are using the 560 at different times of day that isn’t captured in the overall ridership stats. For example, there may indeed be a lot of people riding Renton-Bellevue in the peak commute direction during rush hour, but that trip is very peak-oriented, the steady 5-10 people per bus doing Bellevue-SeaTac may still represent over half the bus the rest of the day.

  10. Last night I rode my bike down to the Marymoor Park movie night. I meant to take East Link back up the hill on the way home, but realized only too late that East Link stops service at 9:30!

    This’s a huge missed opportunity when there’re evening events.

    1. When simulation starts (months before the cross-lake opening), 2 Line trains will almost certainly run later. Indications are that could be as early as November 2025 as late as March 2026.

      In the meantime, ST could schedule a few later “clean up” train runs after events.

      I just checked the Cirque du Soleil web site. It returns to Marymoor starting January 30, 2026 for five weeks! Will they promote using Link or will they again encourage everyone to drive (and create parking revenue)?

      For what it’s worth, the last RapidRide B bus leaves Downtown Redmond at 11:44 pm. It’s several blocks from Marymoor — but there is the new trail connecting it. Someone isn’t totally stranded.

    2. I saw a poster for a Suicidal Tendencies show at Marymoor at the end of the August. I thought about going but if it ends at midnight, both the 2 Line and the B and the 550 will have ended. It’s part of Marymoor’s Summer Concert series so I guess it will get late 2 Line service, and it starts at 6pm so it may wrap up by 10pm.

      1. All you wanted was a Pepsi. And a way to get home.

        (For those who don’t know the band, the Pepsi line is from their song, Institutionalized. Great song and great lyrics.)

  11. federal way link on the way for “early” opening https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/07/10/federal-way-light-rail-extension-on-track-for-early-opening/

    > The eight-mile extension of Sound Transit’s 1 Line south to Federal Way is on track to open earlier than expected, the agency announced Thursday. Previously scheduled for a grand opening in early 2026, riders could be able to board trains at the three new stations south of Angle Lake before the end of 2025, with an exact start date still being finalized.

    Looks like they can open it by end of year.

    @matthew
    > Sound Transit create a blog to keep Seattle updated. South King County? Nope. We are told to shut up and accept that we are low priority.

    I guess complaints can manifest your desired reality. :)

    as another note

    > “Our teams have now informed me that what used to take four to six months to prepare for a single opening can now be condensed significantly to allow both Federal Way and the cross lake part of East Link to be open without one project delaying the other.”

    It is great they finally learned to reformed their testing to be a bit faster now.

    I guess maybe we should priortize some more federal way articles then

    1. “King County Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer issued the following statement concerning today’s announcement that light rail service may begin in Federal Way as early as later this year. Von Reichbauer also serves on the Sound Transit Board of Directors.

      “Better a delayed promise than a broken one,” said von Reichbauer. “I want to thank the ‘godmother’ of Sound Transit, Senator Patty Murray, our new CEO Dow Constantine, and Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus for helping me move South King County up on the schedule for the start of light rail service to Downtown Federal Way.

      “Our $3.2 billion light rail project will serve an estimated 20,000 to 23,000 daily riders and will create predictability for workers who commute daily, as well as for travelers heading to SeaTac Airport.

      “As our region prepares for FIFA next year, light rail will put South King County on the map as a destination for the hundreds of thousands of visitors traveling to our region for the tournament.”

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