Accelerated Federal Way Opening

180 Replies to “Accelerated Federal Way Opening”

1. The only reasonable solution is option 3. During peak hours, Link is already full between UW and downtown – you cannot reduce capacity without severe service degradation.

   Of the option 3 sub-options, I prefer extending one train every 30 minutes, rather than running a shuttle train and making people switch. With a bus, this branching would kill reliability, but with a train on dedicated right of way, I think it can work.

   1. Peak hours you can fit maybe ten more people per car, but not more than that. So it can absorb a little increase but not a significant one.

   2. asdf2,

      Well, if you really believe that…. there 2 huge questions that need to answered.

      Why on earth did ST ever believe that building a train line to Federal Way was a good idea? If a train every 30 minutes is all you get, why not stick with buses every 15 minutes?

      Has ST reached the critical mass that should stop the construction of more light rail? I mean every line that becomes operational adds a lot of expense. The need for more trains, more operators and more maintenance has to be weighed against the budget for new construction. I don’t believe ST has been honest about just how much money systems operations and cost overruns impact the future light rail plans.

      1. “Why on earth did ST ever believe that building a train line to Federal Way was a good idea?”

         You know the answer; it’s political. Tacoma, Everett, Federal Way, and Lynnwood were political goals. It wasn’t ST pushing it on the counties/cities, it was the counties/cities pushing it on ST. We can argue about it in an open thread; I don’t want this article to get overrun with “Should Link have gone Federal Way?” debates. It is going to Federal Way.

         “If a train every 30 minutes is all you get”

         You make it sound like it’s permanent. This is just a temporary transition, caused by the delay in the cross-lake segment. And 30 minutes is just a speculation: ST has never said so.

         “every line that becomes operational adds a lot of expense. [It] to be weighed against the budget for new construction”

         This is also a topic for an open thread. But operational costs are already in the budget. They’re much less than construction costs. The costs will be similar to existing operational segments. Operations don’t “impact” future plans. What impacts future plans is design decisions in those projects, the economy, the rising price of real estate, inflation, etc.

      2. >Why on earth did ST ever believe that building a train line to Federal Way was a good idea?

         This is just until it fully opens with Line 2 in service. Having reduced capacity for a few months is acceptable because previously there was no light rail service from fedway to seattle. I don’t think it’s that hard to imagine people commuting from fedway to seattle especially when housing is currently highly priced and inelastic for the short term.

         > If a train every 30 minutes is all you get, why not stick with buses every 15 minutes?

         Are they removing that service? Also I think there’s some benefits, like during peak traffic hour not having to sit in I-5 traffic. Sure it sucks every 30 minutes, but in theory it should be consistent and predictable. But if people are going to be stuck in traffic, I think they’d rather be in their cars than a bus. Also more public transit options will lead to more people using public transit which is a good thing to reduce traffic congestion.

         Also yeah we definitely need to keep costs and hold ST accountable, but unless people stop moving into the area and stop having kids I don’t see a reasonable solution other than more efficient mass transit aka trains.

      3. “Has ST reached the critical mass that should stop the construction of more light rail?”

         Not exactly. It should stop building more light rail deep into the suburbs. The extensions to Tacoma and Everett are not cost-effective. We need more lines in Seattle.

         I mean, look at the problems with the 8 – that corridor is crying out for rapid transit. Where do we already have overloaded buses? Where do we have evident demand for transit? In Seattle. There is nothing comparable outside Seattle.

         Of course there is the issue where subareas are supposed to fund their own projects, but Seattle is not a poor city. Toll I5, toll I90, put in a congestion charge, raise taxes, do whatever it takes.

      4. Not exactly. It should stop building more light rail deep into the suburbs. The extensions to Tacoma and Everett are not cost-effective. We need more lines in Seattle.

         Exactly. Federal Way Link and Lynnwood Link are still good projects. That is because they provide excellent connections to the rail system. Maybe they could have provided that for less money, but it still works. The problem is going further.

         In general you don’t want to build rail where buses can do a good job. You want to do the opposite. You want a place where buses run all day long, carry a lot of riders, make a lot of stops in between and it takes them a long time to get there. Places like the 8 (as you mentioned).

         Unfortunately that does not describe West Seattle Link. There are various routes where rail could offer something in West Seattle (e. g. replace the H Line with an elevated line) but West Seattle Link won’t offer that. West Seattle is not really a suburb but the future rail line will have a suburban-express pattern. It will run “express” from West Seattle to SoDo, just like an express bus could. There will be no additional stops along the way. The combination of stops within West Seattle offer very little. A bus can go between these fairly quickly (and there aren’t that many people going between the future stations anyway). In contrast the Northgate Link/U-Link added a whole bunch of combinations that were extremely difficult before. Yes, they replaced the express buses headed downtown (like the 41). Yes, many of those riders were better off with the express buses. But the combination of trips (Northgate to UW, Roosevelt to Capitol, etc.) are dramatically better. This is where they added real value. This is what is missing in West Seattle and it is what is missing with the suburban extensions. This is why Lynnwood Link didn’t add that many riders. A lot of people simply switched to taking a bus (or driving) to a different station. Ridership *between* the various stations (Lynnwood to 185th, Mountlake Terrace to 148th) is minimal. In some cases it is significantly faster — very few care. Again, I’m not saying it didn’t add value — I would consider the connection between the freeway HOV lanes and the rail line to be essential — but now that they have that, extending it further just isn’t worth it.

      5. Christopher Cramer,

         Ah, there’s a difference between METRO and Sound Transit. Sound Transit isn’t there to fix stuff for METRO. We all voted for the light rail lines Sound Transit promised to build… right or wrong, there’s no walking back the will of the voters.

         I thought the whole “race the 8” thing was pretty cool as a celebration of life in a congested city. As zoning changes and Seattle gets more and more “pack and stack” housing, transportation snafus will grow and grow. Every big city in America has insane bus routes that get way behind schedule. That’s just life in a big city I guess. NYC, Chicago, Atlanta… all have bus rides to hell….

      6. “As zoning changes and Seattle gets more and more “pack and stack” housing, transportation snafus will grow and grow. Every big city in America has insane bus routes that get way behind schedule. That’s just life in a big city I guess.”

         Think about that more. Why do bus routes get behind schedule as the population grows and densifies? Because of cars! Because cars clog the roads and make the 8 L8. But that’s not an inevitable part of a big city. In Amsterdam you take the tram, which has exclusive lanes and signal priority that whizz past the cars. In New York you go down to the subway or take a regional train. Other cities have BRT busways with real transit-lane priority and signal priority. In Spain most people can walk from their house/apartment to several of their everyday necessities, so they don’t even need to get into a train/bus/car. That’s how people work around the problems that cars create and big cities have a lot of.

         Another way of putting it is, Atlanta, Chicago, and Seattle haven’t adopted the policies that work elsewhere, and that’s why they’re stuck in traffic congestion. Chicago has the L but it’s not particularly fast or frequent, and the buses have no lane priority at all. Atlanta has less bus service than it needs. New York I wouldn’t put in that category because it has extensive grade-separated solutions, and it has been creating bus lanes to get bus routes out of traffic, and bicycle corridors. It’s amazing how far New York has come from being just a “big dirty city” in 2000 to having extensive bike trails, at least one bus-only street (14th) and maybe more, and a pedestrianized street segment in Midtown somewhere.

      7. Mike Orr,

         The reason the #8 gets stuck in traffic is…. traffic. There are way too many cars in Seattle for transit to work properly. Sure, there are some ways to physically prevent the bus from getting caught in traffic at certain intersections, but those improvements can only help so much. There are too many damn cars after all! That’s just life in the USA. Everybody wants a car.

         Seattle could have just built light rail above ground for the most part by just taking over certain streets for transit and building cut and cover under certain arterial streets. That’s the way transit works in much of the world Mike and I believe you know that. But everything in America is about cars…. starting with Sound Transit! Building expensive rail underground with a tunnel machine doesn’t prevent citizens from driving their cars for the most part. Besides unnecessary tunnels, Sound Transit loves huge parking garages and lots.

         The reason the light rail line to Federal Way is 100% bullshit is because bus transit outfits will try to dump passengers into the train station…. and all these buses are going to be late because of…… too many cars! So the whole system is a disaster and nobody who has any access to car is ever going to ride a 2 seat transit ride that takes an hour and a half.

         One seat rides on a bus are cheaper and more desirable…. so you get stuck in traffic? Being stuck in traffic is just life in an American City. The bus is going to get there eventually. This beats riding a bus from Tacoma to Federal Way, getting stuck in traffic and missing the train connection, then waiting for 20 -25 minutes for the next train.

         I think most of the readers on this blog actually know, deep down, that Sound Transit is just out of money with no political will to go forward. Honestly Mike, ST can’t seem to keep the rail lines it’s already built running properly. After the Federal Way line and Eastside lines start running, the maintenance and operational costs will eat up most of the incoming taxes.

         My semi professional guess is ST never runs 25 trains a day to Federal Way and low ridership (and high expenses) piss off transit supporters. Remember, you read it here first!

      8. @Mike

         “…Chicago has the L but it’s not particularly fast or frequent…”

         Huh? What are you talking about? Depending on the line, the L runs every 4-8 minutes during peak hours and will have service from 4am to 2am.

      9. Just get rid of city parking (or make it more expensive), and make more park and rides / commuter buses available. Also ban construction of free parking for employees of companies, and push more employer subsidized transit passes. A monthly/annual fee transit pass will also be encouraging for more commuters. You can’t stop people from driving into a city otherwise… It will be “faster” for them at the expensive of transit riders.

      10. I agree with Tacomee. Commuter buses wouldn’t even get stuck in traffic if HOV was converted into 3+ and strictly enforced. I would even support converting it into bus/vanpool/toll only and adding double white lines so buses can travel at 65mph for most of the stretch. Build move HOV exits as well with transit stops as needed.

          Just introduce dynamic lanes run by a computer. Allow tolls/HOV 2+ by default. If it’s getting a little slow, up it to HOV 3+. If it’s too crowded, make it bus only.

   3. I agree, I don’t think we can reduce frequency on the existing line right now. I also don’t see much point in running a train every half hour or running a shuttle. Might as well just run Federal Way Link during non-peak hours. Don’t change the bus routes. They are a bit peak-oriented so they complement each other. You would still get some riders, especially to SeaTac.

      1. Yes, I don’t see the point of a 30-minute extension or 30-minute shuttle. That’s unusable, and not what “a metro” promises. The 2 Line Starter Line didn’t start with 30-minute service; it started with 10-minute service like a normal metro. The express buses will continue anyway until full service is achieved. There’s no indication Dow is even thinking of 30-minute service, or would have announced it if he thought it would have to resort to that. We don’t know how many unused railcars ST has, or where it’s thinking about parking them, or how severe the constraints are. ST thought for awhile it would have to reduce peak frequency due to an insufficient number of overnight spaces, but by opening it was able to maintain the normal service level. We don’t know how large the gap for Federal Way is, or how difficult it would be to fill, or whether non-revenue trains will be able to go to the east base by that point. But Dow and the staff know more about that.

   4. 30 minute frequency is brutal and almost useless – most riders will simply take the A unless they have high confidence in the arrival time of the next train.

      If Angle Lake to FW is going to have a separate level of service, it would be better to match the frequency of the “main” line to make for a strong transfer. The extension should essentially run like eBART, where rider traveling onwards should always have a train waiting for them to transfer; thankfully Angle Lake is a center platform for an easy transfer.

      Instead of cutting frequency, the reduction should be on train size: just run single car trains. Like all openings, ridership will start low-ish and build over time. Single car trains might be packed during peak, but the main line is also packed during peak so South King will be getting equivalent service.

      Unless riders are unable to board, running shorter trains is not a degradation of service. A forced transfer at Angle Lake is a delay, but much less delay than a dramatically lower frequency. A forced transfer will also be coherent for the typical low-information rider, as the transfer occurs where there previously wasn’t service.

      1. I see now Glenn proposed essentially the same thing below.

2. It seems clear to me that Federal Way Link will not be able to proceed into full-schedule testing until trains can run back and forth across the floating bridge.

   Constantine hired extra staff to remove any need to keep the testing windows for the separate extensions separate. So now, the Great Conjunction could hypothetically occur a week after Federal Way opens.

   That said, there is a lot more rigorous testing to be done to make sure the floating bridge can handle the stress of trains of various lengths, running at various speeds, passing each other at different points on the bridge, under various directions and heights of water pressure, and at various tight frequencies, enough times to produce statically valid data backing up the absolutely-safe use of the floating bridge under all foreseeable scenarios, before ST even thinks about announcing an opening date for the Cross-Lake Connection. A passengers-first approach means an absolute dedication to safety first.

   1. A bunch of people speculating on STB without having all of the facts before them. We learned nothing from lynnwood link where they said it couldn’t be done and it will be done

      1. Speculation based on SoundTransit already not having enough light rail cars to operate Lynnwood Link at needed capacity, reduced frequency over the whole line, and operating the 515 to make up for the lost service.

         So pardon me if I remain skeptical. Constantine yelling about something has so far not produced any violations of simple physics.

         If they can get Eastlink operating just enough to get out of service trains across, even if it is just one track, that solves many problems. TriMet sent light rail cars through the West Hills tunnel for some 2 years before it opened for service. There’s a lot of installation detail between having a line operable and having it serviceable.

         Whatever they are planning, if they don’t have enough cars for full service on Lynnwood Link, they certainly don’t have enough cars for Federal Way unless they do something vastly different.

      2. @Glenn in Portland,

         “ Whatever they are planning, if they don’t have enough cars for full service on Lynnwood Link, they certainly don’t have enough cars for Federal Way”

         There is an awful lot of nonsense that passes for fact on this blog, but let’s be clear. ST is operating Lynnwood Link at full capacity and there is no pre existing LRV shortage. ST even has a full complement of spares and gap trains available. There is no issue with Lynnwood Link LRV availability.

         What will ST do for FWLE LRV availability? Probably more of the same. Additional distributed storage is nearly enough to satisfy the need. And, if they had to, they could use the storage track at Judkins Park. And long term spares could be stored on the Eastside since spares are only used occasionally and wouldn’t need to be shuttled across the bridge 2 times per day.

         I am sure ST ops has this handled.

      3. No one said it couldn’t be done. They simply said there would not be enough trains to avoid crowding. That has been the case so they decided to keep (and add) some express bus service. In this case it is more complicated but the issues are similar.

      4. The reason why they need the 515 is because the bridge isn’t done yet. That’s not a FWLE problem. Thats a CLC problem. Once the CLC is done, or at least enters the operator qualifications phase for Mercer Island and Judkins Park, then frequencies between International District and Lynnwood will go to 4-5 minute headways.

         Federal Way Link Ext was always going to be 8-10 minutes, just like the 1 and 2 lines south and east of IDS.

   2. The challenge is more than just the vehicles needed for testing. It’s also having the drivers for the Link testing while at the same time needing continued STX service because those can’t get cancelled until after Link FW testing ends and service begins.

      The new diagrams on the train show a short 2 Line. Operating that would reduce the needed overall train sets on the 1 Line at peak as well as free up drivers by cancelling STX 515. Whether ST operates a short 2 Line between ID and Lynnwood remains to be seen. But I would not be surprised if ST operates Link this way.

      It would be much easier for ST to store trains at East OMF. They do however also have the 2 line tracks available in the Mt Baker tunnel and a long three track section west of Judkins Park. Those tracks were not activated in time to assist with distributed train storage for Lynnwood Link.

3. Not to get too ahead of things, but Metro and ST will need to quickly wrap up approval of their bus route restructure plans for the Federal Way extension. Hopefully the ATU locals will be amenable to operator Pick packets that change between the normal September and March Sevice Change dates, and not have to commit to exactly when the impacted packets will switch to the new service patterns.

   I think Metro’s planning staff have a council-approval-ready plan. There are frequencies I would fine-tune to be multiples of 10 minutes if I were in charge, but I am not.

   .

   I’m not sure the ST service planning department is even close to a final plan for ST Express change-ups.

   The solution for off-peak service restructuring seems straightforward to me: Add a stop to ST Express 594 at Federal Way. And then run with 10- or 20-minute headway depending on time of day and day of week.

   Truncate ST Express 578 at Federal Way, and improve headway to the next multiple of 10 minutes (skipping 50 and 40) possibly with shorter buses.

   ST Express 574 can then be reduced to peak only, suspended, or possibly retired.

   .

   The peak portion of the ST Express service restructure is more complicated. The largest factor is whether peak-direction bus service is faster than the trains with which they are competing.

   If the answer is Yes for Federal Way – Seattle, then run the 594, with its new stop in Federal Way, in both directions during peak. Some overflow buses could be standing by in Tacoma and Federal Way, just in case. But ST could boldly suspend ST Express route 577, pending the collection of ridership data on the new service pattern.

   It is time to retire (or boldly suspend) ST Express route 586. It will not be time-competitive with the 1 Line.between Federal Way and UW. If it reverts to just Tacoma to UW, the ridership will justify using paratransit-sized vans. But it still won’t be time-competitive with the various options involving the 1 Line.

   If peak-direction bus service between Federal Way and Seattle is not faster than the 1 Line, and peak-direction service between Pierce County and Seattle is not faster than taking Sounder, then consider the proposals for truncating ST Express routes 590, 592 and 595 at Federal Way, renumbered as 570, 572, and 575.

   To sweeten the pot for accepting having to take the trains during peak, consider reducing Sounder fares to $3 (boldly billed as a “pilot project”). I would bet that (1) Sounder could easily handle the extra riders; (2) Sounder fare revenue would actually go up slightly due to ridership increase; !3) if Sounder revenue goes down, the cost savings from reducing peak bus service would far more than make up the difference.

   1. Assuming there is a limited amount of service on Federal Way Link, the agencies could delay their bus changes. It seems silly to run the 574 when Federal Way Link is complete but ST has been running the 586 years after Link made it up to the U-District.

      I’m not sure the ST service planning department is even close to a final plan for ST Express change-ups.

      I agree. While there are some straightforward changes that appear obvious (i. e. stop running buses between SeaTac and Federal Way) there are lots of decisions that need to be made.

      1. There will be no period of limited service to Federal Way Station. Several trains will cross over the floating bridge every morning, and a similar number will cross to the eastside every night, starting with Federal Way’s full-schedule testing.

   2. The buses don’t have to change right when Link starts, other than a short relocation to the new transit center. The existing service will work as well as it did before Link; Link will just be an additional option available. People will get to the stations for transfers however they can, or wait for the restructure.

      Metro can’t restrucure the buses in two months; eddiew has already said that. Normally the first proposal comes out six months ahead at minimum (and large restructures like this have been a year ahead for the past decade), and the council vote is three months ahead. That would have to have been in June. Metro needs the time after that to hire and train drivers, set the schedules, and logistics. In the past there have been a few “this change will start late in the middle of the season”, but that’s for a decided new route, not a maybe concept.

      ST was planning a September 2026 restructure with a first proposal last month. I still haven’t seen it.

      The restructure processes have legally-required public hearings, feedback periods, consultations with tribes and stakeholders, and the time it takes to compile those results and make follow-up decisions, and to write the legislation. All that can’t be compressed into two or three months, especially for a large restructure.

      Metro might be able to make a small change like moving the buses from the old Federal Way transit center to the new one on a shorter timeframe. This would just be a small question for the public, “Should the buses move? What would be the impacts on you?”, and a small issue for the council. If it’s small enough to qualify as an administrative adjustment, Metro could do it anytime without the council or process.

      1. “The restructure processes have legally-required public hearings, feedback periods, consultations with tribes and stakeholders, and the time it takes to compile those results and make follow-up decisions, and to write the legislation. All that can’t be compressed into two or three months, especially for a large restructure.”

         We all know 90% of this is bullshit. The public hearing and feedback are just dog and pony shows, with little to no impact on final implementation. Slowing down a restructure for performative crap like this is why people feel like government doesn’t work for them. Maybe it’s time we reviewed and sped up some of the nonsense. Maybe “stakeholders” shouldn’t be given the chance to override the pro’s decision making just because they have the ear of Dow.

      2. Cam Solomon,

         Yeah, the whole sales pitch, the dog and pony show idea of “stakeholders” and “public meetings” needs to just die off in public transit. Metro, ST, and Pierce Transit already know what the plan is and all the public input will just be ignored in the end. You’re right, this sort of crap just makes people mistrust the government.

         After all the talk, I’m betting all the long run ST and Metro buses stop at the “magic” Federal Way light rail station served by 2 trains an hour for a total of 25 trains a day. Southend transit will end up worse. If you make transit bad enough, you don’t need very much of it.

      3. “Metro, ST, and Pierce Transit already know what the plan is and all the public input will just be ignored in the end”

         They do modify the proposals based on public feedback sometimes. The feedback is partly to learn about issues/impacts they missed.

   3. I doubt the restructure timelines will change. As Mike mentioned, there are required steps that cannot be expedited. I think the early FWLE opening will be similar to the 2 Line opening last year. It will just be a bonus service at first, especially if ST is planning on reduced service until the full 2 Line opens. The bus restructure will occur on the same timeline as planned (Spring 2026).

   4. Nothing is obvious. The agencies are very conservative and risk averse. Did ST restructure its south service with the South 317th Street center access and FWTC? No, they should have. Did ST and Metro restructure their SR-520 radial service with UW Stadium Link station? No, they should have. Did Metro restructure the Green River Valley peak-only routes when South Sounder was improved in 2013? No, they should have. Did Metro restructure local service for the Angle Lake Station? No. When ST reduced Route 554 in the great recession, was it restored after the recession. No.

      Metro will need several months. Even a few months after the ordinance is approved. March 2026 at the best. ST has not even began its outreach.

      I see flaws in P3. Of course, others may not see them I pointed out flaws in the North Link, Lynnwood Link and East Link projects that continued.

      1. If someone thought each of those restructures perfectly matched what they wanted, I would love to know who that lucky winner was.

   5. As far as the ATU is concerned, as long as Metro communicates well with the ATU the need for this I dont think it will be as big an issue as other considerations.

      The East Link connections package is ready to go on launch, so when the bridge is done and tested, they’ll be ready to go with the remaining changes to service.

      South Link on the other hand, is still going through public comment. It is going to be March 2026 at the earliest before any changes can happen as a result of the proposed changes. It will still be handy for commuters, and connections will still be available by bus at Federal Way Downtown (the bus loop has been open for many months now). But the 183 will remain Monday through Saturday and buses will not serve Kent Des Moines, and the Federal Way restructures wont occur either until the restructures are done.

      Bottom line, just like when Central Link (now the 1 line) opened in 2009, expect there to be a few months of overlap before new routes take effect.

      1. Thanks for the professional assessments.

         That said, I know Metro has a couple tricks up its sleeve it has used before.

         First, it can suspend a route any time. Route 162 was suspended before, multiple times. I bet it will again, along with the 177.

         Second, Metro makes lots of minor re-routes, all the time. I expect this to happen so routes don’t end just short of reaching a station.

         .

         The south-end ST Express routes are all operated by Pierce Transit, I believe. ATU 587’s CBA provides for four “shake-ups” per year, including one in December.

      2. That’s ATU 758, the local representing Pierce Transit operators (and T-Line operators, who work directly for ST).

         Darn auto-incorrect.

      3. Brent,

         Suspending routes like you suggest should only be done when an agency is facing a severe operator or bus shortage. While operator counts arent quite where Metro wants them to be, South Base does have enough staff and buses to reliably operate all the services they have been tasked with, so route suspensions due to fleet or operator availability are off the table.

         When the 162 is deleted, it is going to be replaced by a more frequent 164 (replaces the existing 165 east of Kent Des Moines), that serves Kent Sounder Station and Kent Des Moines Link Station, as well as making a connection for the 193 at the Freeway station. That new 164 is also part of the package for South Link Connections.

         Metro will continue to run service like normal until at least March. The schedules are already up on their GTFS files. In March, if the plan is fully approved, the 162 and 177 will be eliminated and the 164/166 (166 replaces the 165 west and north of Kent Des Moines Link Station) will be implemented, along with other changes.

         Of course, this assumes FWLE opens in time for March, which while in my guess is 99% going to happen, it’s not 100%. We will see what happens.

   6. The South Link connections is not finalized yet, customer comment is open until the end of August, so it will definitely not be ready before March 2026 (the current “Official” projected opening month of FWLE, but that will likely change in 48 hours after the next ST meeting)

      March 2026 will likely stretch Metro’s resources. Theyve already dumped the fall schedules on GTFS and there does not appear to be many meaningful changes, so this likely gives them time to ramp up hiring. East and Bellevue base have been hemorrhaged from the 2023 cuts, but South Base has not, so East and Bellevue will be able to handle the revised service, whereas south may need to claw back some of the routes its taken on recently (128, and weekends-106).

4. What is the state of the old and new Federal Way transit centers? I assume the buses are still using the one and it hasn’t been demolished yet? Does the new one look like buses could switch to it now if Metro wanted? Or is construction still unfinished?

   1. I think the new transit center opened on March 30: https://www.federalwaymirror.com/news/new-bus-loop-opens-for-federal-way-riders/

   2. The old FWTC has been demolished, buses have been using the Downtown Federal Station bus loop since late March. The station itself appears ready to welcome trains.

   3. Buses have already switched to the new transit center.

5. 10 minutes is not thrilling but sufficient before ST gets access to the East OMF. They definitely blew it by not building OMF South as part of this extension. Not only is there no redundancy should anything happen in one of those locations, but line 1 being far longer more impactful to more people means it really should have two OMFs at this point. So ultimately much like the poor decision to make the one tunnel the single point of failure for all lines, ST yet again proves it doesn’t plan for resiliency and redundancy. You just watch something happen in the tunnel during the world cup and the entire system becomes a giant boondoggle like it has several times this year.

   1. ST has faced significant NIMBY resistance to the preferred sites for the South O&MF. The community rallied around saving a Dick’s Drive-In.

      1. Even though said Dicks wasn’t even in the path of any of the multiple OMF land options considered. And only just opened when the whole debate was happening.

         The Midway Landfill next door to Dick’s was considered, but the shopping center where the Lowe’s is currently wasn’t even considered by ST in inital plans for OMF South. So it was a lot of saber rattling by Dick’s and the local community for nothing.

      2. So Des Moines valued Dicks and didn’t think it could be in a more walkable location. I went to it and you have to go a block up a small hill and turn and walk past the parking lot to get to it. It could have been right at the sidewalk where people walking by could see it and go, “I could just step into it for a second”. Instead you have take a small car street with nothing else on it up a hill to get to Dicks. A missed opportunity. And that’s what Des Moines wanted to save.

   2. Having an OMF on both sides of the Lake is the obvious decision for redundancy and resilience; ST made the right decision. If we had OMF-S but not OMF-E, we would have slightly better frequency on line 1 and zero service on line 2.

      Remember, OMF-S exists only because of the incremental fleet demand for ST3. It would be nice if ST accelerated the extension to SFW & OMF-S, but ST would also need to accelerate the acquisition of series 3 fleet, which hasn’t started because that fleet isn’t needed until the next major Link extension opens … which is the extension to Tacoma.

      1. The East O&MF was originally going to just be an Operations & Storage Facility,

         Indeed that was the main excuse for the turnback track in the middle of IDC Station, so trains could be rotated through the maintenance base.

      2. OMF-E does not have the full set of capabilities as OMF-C. There is some major maintenance for which ST2 did not need two facilities. I believe OMF-S & N will be comparable to OMF-C, as the fleet size is much larger.

6. First thing I’m going to mention is that any trains going to Federal Way are a good thing and at San cleanse it is working as quickly as they can to start getting the early work done on the new omf that’ll be built in Federal Way and get that eventually connected to Federal Way downtown station, Sound Transit is doing everything it can to make sure that as train lines open they are operating at a frequency that is the maximum attainable frequencies during peak hours for the infrastructure and for the total number of trains they have because until we have more storage for more trains and can order the next set of trains we’re going to have storage issues at this time.

   I personally agree a 30 minute frequency train is only going to serve people going from Seattle to Star Lake where the King County Metro RapidRide A line doesn’t serve while the A Line does serve kent Des Moines and Federal Way. Now obviously if we can run the train every 15 minutes between Federal Way and Angle Lake while running those trains as full line trains maybe we would actually be capable of running trains every 20 minutes to better fit in with every 10 minute frequency along the rest of the line.

   I also personally believe that what a lot of people here commenting aren’t understanding is that in the changes that are going to occur next year for the South King County restructure to accommodate getting people to light rail is that all but one commuter route along I-5 and along State Route 509 will be kept and that is the 193 to First Hill which will get over filled with extra Riders who are not wanting to sit on light rail for an hour and a half or more when getting to the first stop off of I-5 in First Hill can take as little as an hour on the 193

   Currently a lot of the commuter routes from the south end up to downtown Seattle are suspended due to not enough drivers and other various changes in ridership because the buses got suspended during the pandemic and if King County Metro was to just bring those commuter routes back more people would go back to taking the bus that they previously took, and four lines that would be redundant alongside light rail Riders who need to get to downtown quicker can take the bus well Riders trying to go to places a long light rail can potentially choose either if it’s from soda station North or take light rail if it’s anywhere to the South.

   King County Metro is also considering reducing the 193 by one total round trip and as it is currently one of four First Hill commuters it should not be getting reduced service and we should be increasing service aimed at hospital workers in First Hill so that all shift start and end times our accommodated with special bus service aimed at providing workers the ability to take the bus to work rather than have to drive and find a place to park for their evening swing shift or for their overnight shift when there were rival time coincides with the full garages from the day.

   Link light rail needs to get to Federal Way in order to get to Tacoma and to be fair seatac Airport being Seattle-Tacoma international, we should have been meaning for Tacoma before going to Lynnwood and Everett, but we chose to go to Everett Everett got delayed now Tacoma is ahead of Everett but was a late addition to the network. With that in mind we need to get trains to Tacoma but also we need to not get rid of all of the commuter routes completely because the minute Light Rail goes down during commuter hours is the minute people need those alternatives in the chance that if they normally took the train they still have a good alternative and for those who actually need the faster commute times the train will always be slower therefore people will crowd on to Sounder in Tacoma rather than take light rail because the Sounder will be an hour to downtown versus the potentially 2 hours of the Light Rail and the buses which can do the travel between Tacoma and Seattle in as little as a scheduled 50 minute trip time, those buses should remain as the main option with oh I missed the bus I have the extra time to go take the train because adding everything together waiting for the next bus which is a half hour from now versus taking the train that’s in 5 minutes I’ll get to downtown faster by taking the train and that’s what people should be considering.

   Outside of Mexico North America sucks at redundancy when it comes to new Rail lines such as Light Rail Subway Metro, and others while not having a neighboring bus route that might be slightly slower or slightly faster but provides that alternative in case something goes wrong with the trains. What are you going to do when light rail goes down and all of the shuttle buses have to come from South Base all the way down to Federal Way and you have people stranded or people choosing to take the two hour commute via the A Line and 124 people are either going to call out sick from work because of this and then we will actively see more people snapping back at their employers for making them come into work and more people getting the ability to work from home restored and we will see a drop in ridership because we are not providing a guaranteed alternative where if someone wants to take the train they can if something goes wrong they can swap to a bus and still get to work in a reasonable amount of time if not faster.

   We need light rail to Tacoma it has to go through Federal Way if Federal Way needs to run as a 15 minute frequency shuttle or run once every 20 minutes as an extension of the current line then that’s what needs to be done but we need to be advocating hardcore for King County Metro and it sound transit to not cancel commuter service and to not route every single person coming up from Pierce County to light rail because Federal Way cannot handle that even with its new Transit facilities at Federal Way downtown station but the link extension can’t handle it and you’re going to watch people go back to driving because it will take 2 hours to get from Tacoma to downtown Seattle with the transfer when it already takes about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes during the morning commute. Wake up and realize that it’s not that light rail isn’t bad and not needed but that what is being deleted in order to force everyone on to light rail meets the advocated for and needs to be maintained in a level that guarantees a good alternative when light rail does fail as we know it will at some point just like we know buses are going to break down so therefore if that’s the case trains will break down and when trains break down people need an option that they can choose to take immediately rather than waiting for the next train or a replacement bus.

   1. all but one commuter route along I-5 and along State Route 509 will be kept and that is the 193 to First Hill

      That is not necessarily true. ST hasn’t announced what they will do with their express buses. Metro doesn’t run many express buses now. It is pretty much all ST now. Metro runs the 162 (which only runs 8 times a day); the 177 (5 times a day) and the 193 (8 times a day). The 162 and 177 will be replaced while the 193 will remain. In contrast, ST runs a bunch of different buses including the 577 and 578 through Federal Way. The 577/578 account for 45 buses just from Federal Way. There are also the buses from Tacoma, which could easily stop at Federal Way and continue. That would give riders from Tacoma a chance to transfer to Link (for trips to places like Highline College and SeaTac) or just continue on the bus to downtown. Of course this means that riders from Federal Way could ride the bus to Seattle as well.

      I’m afraid I can’t address the rest of your comment because it isn’t clear what you are trying to say.

      1. of course, Route 193 should be deleted.
         If Routes 590-594 are continued, they should serve Federal Way and skip SODO; they could serve the CBD pattern of routes 577-578.

   2. Tacoma – Seattle trips should nearly all be handled via Sounder; unfortunately working with BNSF to obtain sufficient slot times for a Caltrain level of service (or near enough) is unlikely to be possible at this point. Rather than an extraordinarily long light rail extension, ST3 should have included purchase and substantial upgrades to the old UP line on the west side of the Valley, including grade separation, for the use of all through freight not directly serving locations along the BNSF route. This would have freed up a lot more slots for Sounder by inducing many freight runs to move to a dedicated ROW, sped up through freight service via the upgrades to the UP line, and more fully connected Tacoma and the Valley to Seattle. Doing this would allow all-day, seven days a week service between the two cities, likely even with some express runs. Light rail should have grown organically outward from Tacoma, being a Tacoma-oriented service and not using Tacoma as the “end of the line”; should the lines have met someday, fine – but that’s not really useful to Tacomans who travel to Seattle (and v. v.) as you point out and as have many commenters over the years. The Tacoma-Seattle travel time on Link is too long to be the typical mode of choice for that trip. Substantially enhanced bus service would likely fill most of the area’s needs while the Pierce/South King lines grew over time as needed.

      (I also think South Sounder should extend to Smith Cove/Interbay with a Belltown station, and North Sounder to Renton via Monster Road, but I digress.)

      1. Amen.

7. I think that there is a very probable option on top of Option 1: introducing regular 2 Line service between Lynnwood City Center and Chinatown-International District stations. Even though 1 Line service would run only every 10 minutes south of there instead of 8, Lines 1+2 service running a combined frequency of 5 minutes north of there would ease the more crowded North Seattle train loads.

   1. ST already shows this service (2 Line in Seattle) on its new diagrams inside the trains. Study it closely!

   2. ST will have to run a Lines 1+2 operation pattern in North Seattle during the 2 Line simulation anyway. ST would just start it a few mere months or weeks earlier.

   3. At 10 minutes, it requires fewer 1 Line train sets than running every 1 Line to South King at 8 minutes so that those 1 Line trains can run to Federal Way but not create a bigger train car shortage.

   4. The added capacity north of Downtown lets STX cancel Route 515, freeing those drivers to instead be assigned to the duplicate bus service across Lake Washington needed during the cross-lake simulation period.

   To me, ST’s choices to update the new diagrams in the trains showing a 2 Line in Seattle and to perform deliberate Lynnwood reversal test recently are harbingers of this. I actually would be a bit surprised if this isn’t the proposed operation to happen with an earlier Federal Way service opening.

   1. That might work. The only question is whether three-car trains running every ten minutes from the south end is adequate. I have no idea. Back in the day it wasn’t but times have changed.

      1. It may be possible to run the entire Link 1+2 operation with four car trains — or maybe four-car trains for 1 Line and three-car trains for 2 Line in North Seattle. That’s an analysis that only ST can do.

         Still, with the almost nonchalant confidence now expressed by ST that FW Link can open before cross-lake service in top of the new diagram and the reversal test, they don’t seem to have the early opening a vehicle shortage problem where they loudly said that they did in the past.

         ST has a way of putting everything in place before making a public announcement. It’s kind of palace intrigue. I’m guessing that they already know what they’re going to do. I think that something like the scenario I described above is likely — but ST also may suggest completely different and create a bigger hassle for riders.

      2. It may be possible to run the entire Link 1+2 operation with four car trains

         Only if they are bringing in a lot of trains from the East Side. I could see that. You wouldn’t have to do much with the trains. They just come over the lake (really early in the morning) and then during the day run back and forth. Then they head back over to the East Side.

         But if you are going to do that you can do just about anything. Those same trains could start running north early in the morning every 8 minutes and then join with other trains (from SoDo, etc.) then just keep running back and forth from Lynnwood to Federal Way every 8 minutes as long as you want.

8. I see a lot of comments on here saying we should accept lower service levels on Link by way of maintaining regular service between Angle Lake and Federal Way and just running a shuttle. That i dont think is feasible.

   The work that needs to get done to open FWLE is as follows:

   Construction needs to be 100% complete between Kent Des Moines and Federal Way Downtown Station (the line is already at 100% from Angle Lake to Kent Des Moines). This means trains need to be able to run under their own power all the way from Angle Lake to Federal Way Downtown. The teams say this should happen in the next month.

   Then Sound Transit needs to test the you know what out of the system to make sure the tracks, switches signals and all the other equipment work as it should.

   Lastly, they need to run 60 days of live testing, where trains continue past Angle Lake without passengers, making the stops at the stations and turning around at Federal Way Downtown.

   Remember, the operators need breaks between trips, trains do not. Trains can turn around in five minutes, and I’ve seen this many times at Angle Lake. Once the inbound driver secures their cab and walks off, the outbound driver can enter the other end and start that one up. In Lynnwood I believe the drivers switch control on the layover track and the former driver gets off at Lynnwood.

   We should wait and see what Sound Transit has in store. They pulled Lynnwood off, we should give them a chance for Angle Lake. All of these scenarios i see mentioned were also mentioned for Lynnwood. There are several pocket tracks in place throughout the system to store trains. SeaTac/ Airport, Rainier Beach, Stadium, and Northgate all have them. It’s possible theres more and I dont know what Star Lake, Kent Des Moines and Federal Way Downtown have. We lose the space south of Angle Lake but there are others. Have faith! They wouldnt open stations if they werent ready.

   1. Option 3 as I see it described is not having a separate train shuttle between Angle Lake. It’s instead reversing some 1 Line trains at Angle Lake (end station) and other 1 Line trains at Federal Way (end station).

      Given how the siding tracks are south of SeaTac rather than south of Angle Lake, it seems more logical to me to reverse the shorter line trains at SeaTac rather than at Angle Lake in this option. That would also save a train set or maybe two.

      I don’t think offering only 3 trains an hour south of SeaTac would go over too well though. I think it would be easier to introduce the short 2 Line as an overlay between Downtown Seattle and Lynnwood (totaling 12 trains an hour) and offering 6 four-car trains an hour south of Downtown Seattle — especially if the 2 Line branch to the sidings west of Judkins Park is live and able to store and idle trains. That’s a reason that I mentioned it above.

      1. Again, we should wait and see what Sound Transit’s plan is before we react to it. I find it comedic that the thought that Sound Transit would only do a half baked opening when they could do a full opening. Operators still need to qualify for the stations, they still need to get familiar with the route, and this needs to happen for 60 days. Cutting service at Seatac would once again negatively impact Angle Lake, suppressing ridership there, and it would lower the potential of usage at the other stations as well. Im pretty sure that is NOT the goal of Sound Transit.

         Let’s wait and see rather than say what ifs. Theyve surprised us with Lynnwood.

      2. I think one of two scenarios is happening:

         Just as with Lynwood Link, ST plans to store some trains at stations overnight, and there is enough secure storage area at the new stations to not reduce service. Makes sense because all new stations are elevated, which makes securing trains there relatively easy.

         Or ST is pretty sure that testing for the 2 line will be far enough along that they can reliably bring trains from Bellevue daily. This makes sense because the point time when drivers can cross the lake comes months before ST certifies the crossing as safe for passengers. Plus, ST directly stated in the recent 2 line update that passengers may be able to ride 2 line test trains through Seattle. Plus, the new route maps on trains imply this scenario already, looking like passengers can ride the 2 line as far as Chinatown. I’m pretty sure this is the actual scenario envisioned by ST.

      3. Oops, meant that as a separate comment, not a reply

      4. @Delta — I agree. While you meant this as a separate comment it matches what John wrote. It is quite likely that ST will figure out how to get enough trains over the lake.

   2. Yeah, some of these scenarios just don’t make sense. Opening the East Link starter line was one thing. It was always a question of whether it was worth it. In my opinion it was (and I haven’t changed my mind).

      But this is more like Lynnwood Link in that there are some restrictions but they muddled along. The trains are crowded but things operate normally otherwise. The only unusual thing is the 515. It really makes no sense as a bus route. It runs from station to station. It is a poorly thought out way of reducing crowding. But it still does the job. It carries over 1,000 riders a day who would otherwise ride the train. Given the capacity issues in the north end, I don’t see ST making things worse in the north end or frankly, anywhere. I also don’t see a huge number of riders flocking to Link from the south. (This isn’t like Lynnwood Link when Community Transit truncated all the express buses.) So I’m not sure what “muddling along” in the south end would be like. If they can’t introduce enough trains from the East Side then maybe they only run to Federal Way in the middle of the day (every ten minutes). If they can introduce trains from the East Side then this will just be a normal extension.

9. The thing with having the Federal Way trains be separate from extending regular 1 line trains is you could have the Federal Way trains be much shorter. Eg: have 4x 1 car trains rather than 1x 4 car train.

   So, how about:

   Keep the existing service intact, but add Federal Way as a set of single car trains. SoundTransit’s own ridership estimates from 2019 show a tiny fraction of ridership south of SeaTac as north of it.

   Let’s call this the “Federal Way Dinky” or FWD line trains. Options might be:

   1):Operate the trains 2 minutes offset from the current service, as done with MAX green and orange lines: Northbound the FWD train goes through, then the 1 line train immediately behind, so there is little transfer penalty. Southbound the order is reversed, again to minimize transfer penalty.

   Ideally, you’d have a pocket track or three track station at TIBS so the operator could just walk to the other end of the car, and FWD would be an express overlay for the A.

   Problem is, there just aren’t enough pocket tracks on Link, and no three track stations anywhere. You’d have to turn the FWD trains at the pocket track at Rainier Beach, and there just aren’t any good places to turn line 1 without blocking FWD trains.

   2) So, the only other way would be to do the FWD trains and carefully schedule them to arrive at Angle Lake just after a northbound train leaves (leaving an empty spot at the station), and leave just before the next southbound train arrives. It means having more of a transfer penalty than the FWD trains immediately ahead of regular 1 line, but at least it wouldn’t interfere too much with capacity on 1 Line.

   3) Unless you do something completely off the wall for Link, and only continue the first car of the train south to Federal Way. These are fully automatic couplers and don’t take long to couple and uncouple. TriMet used to turn 2 car trains MAX into 1 car trains and then back to 2 car trains regularly at Ruby Junction, when they were being cheap and only operated 1 car trains mid-day. It took them about 15 seconds to do this. You do need a staff member on the platform to help with the move though.

   So a 4 car train arrives at Angle Lake (or better, SeaTac as that might be worth a couple more cars). During the station stop, the first car is uncoupled and heads to Federal Way. The other 3 cars lay over per usual. The operator on the platform does the usual (adjust seat, etc.). When a single car northbound Federal Way train arrives, it couples on to the south end, with the assistance of the operator at the station. It then departs per usual.

   1. There’s a pocket track just south of Seatac; you could reverse the FWD trains there and maybe even extend them to Seatac Station.

10. This minimum 6 month gap between openings policy does not make sense. Multiple stations can open on the same day with zero gap, but if the same stations open 1 month apart, that’s a violation. Why?

    I also read the article linked above about the Apple Cup incident and didn’t find anything about two openings being less than 6 months apart as being a cause, not any indication that spacing openings further apart would have prevented it.

    1. Agreed about the Apple Cup thing. They’re problem was a structural problem of broken communication between the maintenance workers finding damaged trains, and ST project management not translating that into there being a problem with the line they had just opened.

    2. The six-month barrier was never a policy. Indeed, Lynnwood opened less than four months after the 2 Line.

       The problem was staffing. Constantine hired more staff. He has declared the problem solved.

       1. Probably also staff capability. Some much of what makes Public Works expensive & slow is lack of repetitive – every project is unique, and/or there is a long time lag between comparable projects so staff experience disappears. This is most problematic with mega-projects.

          Here, ST staff is able to gain useful experience with several openings all in a row, so it makes sense that the same teams (likely with growing resources) is able to commit to delivering better & faster openings with multiple iterations.

       2. Yes, but apparently they need to work full-time on one opening for six months, or at least all the time they have amid their other ongoing responsibilities. But ST is so keen on getting Federal Way and Crosslake out the door soon that it hired extra staff so they can work on both at once.

    3. The 6 months is ST’s staff capacity. They can’t work on one while they’re working on another. Somebody said Dow hired extra staff to overcome this linitation.

       1. Ryan Packer reported CEO Constantine saying this in his Urbanist article on Thursday.

       2. Thanks for pointing this out! I’ve added a note to the article.

11. There are several things ST can do to improve bus connections to new south end 1-Line stations before the formal restructures kick in.

    The most important is to have all ST Express routes driving by Federal Way Station detour to the station and serve it.

    The second is to be bold in suspending routes (e.g the 586), or at least low-performing runs on those routs, thereby freeing up operators for extra service where it is most needed.

    Most of the daytime restructure I spelled out in a thread above could actually be accomplished without waiting for Pierce Transit’s service change by (1) suspending route 574; (2) detouring route 594 et al to serve Federal Way Station; and (3) making route 594 the recipient of extra service enabled by freeing up drivers, particularly from suspended route 574.

    1. Some of us suggested that in the aughts when the South 317th Street overcrossing opened along with the FWTC.
       With Link, routes 590-594 no longer need serve SODO; they can use the pathway of routes 577-578. Could Route 574 now be folded into Route 594? Link makes the airport connection better than bus.

       1. For the formal service change, I am most certainly suggesting that 574 platform hours be used to make the 594 more frequent. The only stop in Pierce County that will lose all-day service is Lakewood Station.

          The currently-planned route removals will end up clearing all bus service off of 5th and 6th Ave in downtown Seattle, FWIW. The 577/578 turn north on 4th Ave S after the Seneca St exit.

       2. 4th Ave, not 4th Ave S. Doh!

    2. There are several things ST can do to improve bus connections to new south end 1-Line stations before the formal restructures kick in.

       The most important is to have all ST Express routes driving by Federal Way Station detour to the station and serve it.

       Agreed. Hard to see why anyone would mind and the cost would be minimal. The benefit for riders would be big.

       The second is to be bold in suspending routes (e.g the 586), or at least low-performing runs on those routs, thereby freeing up operators for extra service where it is most needed.

       Yes, but ST has been reluctant to do that (for whatever reason). It really doesn’t make sense to run the 566 to Redmond anymore (it should end in Bellevue Transit Center). But for whatever reason they just keep running it Redmond.

12. It depends on how many LRV ST has available. They may have achieved a higher rate of availability in the two subfleets.
    A fourth option: six-minute headway and three-car trains. See fleet above.

    1. Why would ST use 3-car trains with 6-minute-headway instead of 4-car trains at 8-minute headway. That’s the same number of LRVs.

       Wouldn’t the 6-minute headways mess with the full-schedule testing for the Cross-Lake Connection?

       1. Same capacity, less waiting, more attractive. When translake line opens, change again.

       2. There would be some public disappointment when 6-minute headways in the south half revert to 8-10 minutes. That happened when Link had 6-minute peaks between 2012 and around 2016 and then reverted to 8-minute peaks. It was wonderful during that time to finally have European-level frequency for a while, but then it was taken away. If south enders get a taste of 6-minute frequency and then it goes away, they’ll ask, “Why can’t we have it permanently?”

          ST is planning to run the ST3 Tacoma-Ballard line at 6-minute frequency all day, but that’s at least 15 years to wait.

       3. @mike

          I’d have to check but Sound transit never talks about the all day frequency and just mentions peak frequency usually

       4. I think the Cross-Lake Connection will be close to or in full-schedule testing by the time the ribbon is cut on Federal Way Link.

    2. What was the frequency of trains on the Lynnwood Link reversal test a few weeks ago? I believe that it was for eight 1 Line and eight 2 Line trains an hour. The East Link EIS assumed that operating plan.

       The ten trains an hour for each line (6 minute headways) was a promise in ST3.

       1. Do you mean the Monday morning test? That was two lines 8 minutes each. So that’s (calculating…) 15 trains per hour. If it was really 7.5 minutes instead of 8, that might get you a 16th train.

          My head spins at how to calculate the trains per hour of two 7.5 minute lines.

13. “we should expect it to require almost as many (roughly 48 trains if only comparing by distance)”

    I beleive you actually mean 48 LRV’s, as a Link “train” can actually be 1, 2, 3, or 4 LRV’s long.

    So assuming ST attempts this using distributed storage, FWLE would allow for two 4-car trains to be stored at each station, plus two more 4-car trains on the FW tail tracks, plus 2 more 4-car trains on the double length pocket track north of the FWTC station. That is ten 4-car trains in total, or 40 LRV’s. Which is really close to your estimated need of 48.

    ST could get to 48 just by reducing their spare and gap ratios. Just pressing two 4-car gap trains into routine service would satisfy the need without increasing overall storage requirements.

    That effectively means that ST “should” be able to open FWLE at current 8-min headways without relying on daily access to OMF-E.

    And ST could get fancy if they had to. The Ops Dept previously rejected my idea of a IDS to LCC overlay as “too operationally complex”. But now they have demonstrated it, and they supposedly are going to let us use it in the next month or so. That opens up all sorts of options.

    ST could reduce the base frequency system wide to 10 mins, then run a 2-car overlay IDS to LCC (or maybe just NGS). Doing so would reduce the overall LRV requirement while still maintaining needed capacity on the Westlake to NGS section (which is very crowded).

    Or ST could switch to 3-car trains while maintaining 8-min headways, and then add an overlay IDS to LCC to maintain needed capacity. The effect is nearly the same.

    But the point is to maintain capacity in North Seattle without the use of forced Link-to-Link transfers, or shuttle buses that people generally don’t like, or any other amateurish or ad hoc hooey. And to do it without relying on OMF-E which won’t be reliably available while Full ELE is still in testing.

    In regards to the 6 month gap between openings, it never really was 6 months. The testing phase was usually stated as 2 months of fit and function testing, followed by 4 months of operational and simulated service testing. But since the two staffs are materially different, the gap really always was 4 months.

    But even that 4 months has been reduced somewhat, but that reduction was achieved by Sparrman and not Dow. Sparrman made it clear several times before he left the CEO position that the timing requirement had been substantially reduced.

    So credit Sparrman.

    But hey! However ST decides to do it, we can an additional Link opening this year! That is very good news for regional transit.

    1. I certainly hope rigorous stress-testing of the long-span bridge is happening, including wind pressure in various directions. If extra cable supports are needed, better to delay and re-engineer rather than rush to open.

       1. @Brwnt White,

          You are obviously not an engineer.

          There really isn’t that much that is unique about this bridge. It’s a fairly standard, and well understood design.

          What is unique is that the contractor was able to design, build, and deliver this structure in near record time. As projects go around this region, that pretty much counts as a miracle.

          Kudos to the contractor.

14. Federal Way link won’t be ready for a few months anyway, at which point non-revenue trains should be able to drive across the I-90 bridge. Why not just use trains from OMF-E? Because they won’t have had enough testing time they can’t take passengers across the bridge as a part of regular service, but that shouldn’t mean operators can’t drive trains across the bridge at the beginning/end of a day.

    1. Yeah, that seems like the most likely scenario for opening Federal Way Link early.

    2. ST can also truck trains back & forth. All trains are received into OMF-C for testing & acceptance and then some transferred to OMF-E.

       1. Trucking trains is a lot more involved than just driving them across the floating bridge. ST is used to doing it occasionally, not a dozen times a day. The various testing phases for driving trains across the floating bridge on catenary power should be soon.

       2. Right – it cannot be a daily activity. I read Stephen’s concern about vehicle testing, to heave enough fleet to serve the longer line, but upon re-read I see he mean testing of the bridge.

       3. *have. Though I suppose you can heave the fleet back & forth as well :D

       4. I doubt ST even has enough trucks to take over all the trains at once. It would probably be one or two at a time and deadheading back for more, so it would take hours to move all of them.

       5. Trucking large objects such as light rail cars is exceptionally expensive.

          They’ve already proven they can roll across the bridge at low speeds. They’re better off just doing that.

15. Ryan Packer’s story on this opening includes a claim from Sound Transit that there will be no impact on headways:

    “There will be no operational impact to headways on the 1 Line. We have the storage and maintenance capacity for 4-car trains at 8 minute peak headways once the FWLE opens,” Sound Transit spokesperson Henry Bendon told The Urbanist.

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

    1. @Christopher Cramer,

       “ includes a claim from Sound Transit that there will be no impact on headways:”

       I’d say that that is more than just a “claim”, it’s more like a necessity. With current crowding on Link ST simply can’t afford any impact to headways. They have to at least maintain what they currently provide.

       ST will try to keep things as simple as possible with these openings in order to maintain reliability. That would imply staying with 4-car trains at 8 min headways.

       Storage then becomes the only issue, but again the ST spokesman says they have it handled. I’m sure ST will try to keep that simple too, which means not relying on sporadic access to the I-90 bridge.

       Distributed storage should be able to handle most of the need, and if they had to they could probably use the siding at Judkins Park too. That is accessible without requiring access to the I-90 floating bridge or significantly impacting Full ELE testing.

       Additionally, since spares don’t get used daily, they could also stash some of their spares at OMF-E. That would free up space on the Westside without requiring frequent crossings of the bridge.

       I am a bit curious though about the impact of an open FWLE on crowding in North Seattle. I suspect the effect will be small in the peak direction, but it is something to at least watch for.

       1. “I am a bit curious though about the impact of an open FWLE on crowding in North Seattle. ”

          They’re already on north Link because their express buses terminate downtown. The only exception is U-District expresses, but that’s probably few people, and college classes start anywhere between 8:3am to 11:30am depending on the person’s class lineup that day.

       2. At most it’s only a period of several weeks before 2 Line full simulation begins. ST will be running double the number of trains in North Seattle during that simulation. There’s no reason why they couldn’t good open doors to passengers between Lynnwood and Downtown.

          They may even be ready to start simulation the day that FW Link opens. We don’t know yet.

       3. @Mike Orr,

          “They’re already on north Link because their express buses terminate downtown.”

          That is a common misconception on this blog. That somehow ridership is a zero sum game and LR just redistributes it. Nothing could be further from truth.

          The speed, frequency, reliability, and quality of LR all increase ridership over what existed before.

          And in relation to the case you reference, just the elimination of the transfer to/from the relatively infrequent and unreliable buses downtown will serve to increase ridership. We see it with every opening.

          And don’t underestimate the effect of tying Highline College into the UW and North Seattle College. Those are connections that are relatively poorly served today.

          How big will the ridership increase be in North Seattle? Hard to say, but let’s hope it is manageable. Because Link is packed already!

16. good to hear there’s no impact at peak times. Armchair urbanism spreading misinformation is not helpful.

17. Congratulations for Federal Way, they should stop whining. They’ll soon have Link light rail AND two-way, all-day peak ST express bus service by the sounds of it. Southwest Everett, where taxpayers have been paying the same taxes for the past 27 years, still has no light rail and no ST express bus service going *to* there in the morning and *from* there in the afternoons. There’s only one peak-hour, workday-only bus, and it is oriented to Seattle commuters, with one in-city bus stop at the far end of two miles of low-income, multi-family dwellings. At present, there’s another 12 year wait there.
    To alleviate some of the ridership crunch on the south end, how about reinstating Metro’s 194 express from downtown to Sea-Tac, perhaps even extending it, express, to Federal Way, via the eventual 509 extension? One of ST’s little secrets is that the 194 actually beat Link in getting to the airport. Then, Metro got rid of it, ST’s playbook for creating extra demand for light rail: eliminate the competition, a fool’s errand when light rail has breakdowns. The 194 also picked up and stopped closer to the terminal, much closer than Link and like ST’s 560, which has given the favored eastsiders this premium service for decades.

    1. Everett gets Sounder, plus an express bus to Bellevue, in addition to an all day express connection to Link. Federal Way gets neither Sounder nor the Bellevue express bus.

       As to the 194…the old 194 was faster on paper, but usually took longer than Link in practice, after accounting for long boarding times for people with luggage in both the airport and downtown, plus random traffic delays on the airport access road. It also ran much less often than Link does, and you can’t time when your bags appear on the carousel to match a bus schedule, leading to long waits to be picked up. The old 194 also stopped running very early on weekends, necessitating use of the 174 to go downtown, which is essentially today’s 124, with an airport extension (a.k.a. slow). As to the pickup location, the Link station is sometimes closer, depending on which end of the airport you are coming from. And the boarding area itself is definitely more pleasant at the Link station. The bus stop area is right next to the designated smoking area, not to mention all the car and bus exhaust.

       The old 194 also did extend to Federal Way, but the huge time sink detouring to the airport added a good 20 minutes minimum to the trip. That would be enough to make the rider slower than Link, so it would be pointless for Federal Way to run such a route. If any Federal Way express bus makes sense, it needs to run either nonstop to downtown Seattle or with limited stops to downtown Bellevue.

    2. “They’ll soon have Link light rail AND two-way, all-day peak ST express bus service by the sounds of it.”

       We don’t know whether the express buses to Federal Way will continue. We’re waiting for ST to clarify it. It’s supposed to release its first ST Express 2026 operations proposal now (and I was expecting it last month).

       In Snohomish County, according to a Title VI analysis but it’s not confirmed whether ST will do this, it might shift some 512 hours to the 513 and delete the 510 and 515. Would that address your “southwest Everett all-day service” issue? If not, where exactly do you think should have more service?

       The 194 was around 27 minutes compared to Link’s 37. But in return for that 10-minute slowdown you get: 8-10 minute frequency instead of 15, evening service after 9:30pm, Sunday service, and immunity from traffic congestion.

       “Metro got rid of it, ST’s playbook for creating extra demand for light rail: eliminate the competition”

       That’s an odd way to describe leveraging our metro upgrade. The point of Link to the airport was to replace the 194.

       1. “We don’t know whether the express buses to Federal Way will continue. We’re waiting for ST to clarify it. It’s supposed to release its first ST Express 2026 operations proposal now (and I was expecting it last month).”

          Yes. It’s hard to respond to the Metro proposal without knowing thanks to the silence. At this point, it’s rather odd that nothing is said. That seems to suggest some uncertainty behind the scenes.

          I wonder too about driver shortages during the simulation period for East Link. ST will have to employ both STX bus drivers and Link train drivers simultaneously. That may be part of why we are still waiting. It seems quite the challenge to ramp up or down driver needs when things will change every few months and there is still no firm opening date or simulation commencement date for either Link extension.

          Finally, I do think that much higher frequency train option can pull more riders than a travel time savings on a bus option. Offering a parallel STX bus is not competitive if it’s too infrequent. People would rather sit inside a comfy train for those 10 minutes versus standing on the curb in heat or cold waiting for a more infrequent STX bus for 10 minutes to get the faster in-vehicle time. . Note too that trains will idle at Federal Way —- so why wait for a bus to get a faster trip when the train is sitting in view? A rider can get right on the train and relax as they pull out their cell and begin surfing the web in less than a minute.

       2. Offering a parallel STX bus is not competitive if it’s too infrequent.

          Yes, but the bus has to be extremely infrequent for Link to be better. It is like taking a train to San Fransisco (from Seattle). I don’t care how often the train runs — an airplane is faster. A bus saves 18 minutes over Link from Federal Way. So a bus only has to run every fifteen minutes for it to be better. At that frequency, even if you just miss the bus and the train is right there you are better off waiting for the bus. It is much better from Tacoma since you can avoid the transfer.

          Running buses every fifteen minutes from Tacoma to Seattle is quite realistic. This was the plan *before* Federal Way Link. But Federal Way Link offers some major time savings even if we keep running buses from Tacoma. The first comes from not running buses from Federal Way to SeaTac. This takes a long time and the train is actually faster. Thus the savings are significant and many riders come out ahead with the train. But the biggest savings come from eliminating overlap. We actually *are* running buses every fifteen minutes from Tacoma to Seattle. It is just that from Tacoma to Federal Way half of them stop at Federal Way and continue to SeaTac while the other half just keep going to Seattle. From Federal Way to Seattle half the buses started in Federal Way while the other half started in Tacoma. Thus by simply getting rid of the bus service from Federal Way to SeaTac and having the bus from Tacoma stop at Federal Way we manage to save a huge amount of money over current service levels.

          Then you have the Auburn/Sumner/Puyallup corridor. This gets a bit more complicated. The cheapest option is to just send buses to Federal Way. You could send them more often with the savings. But there would be value in having an express that ran Kent/Auburn/Sumner/Puyallup and maybe even Tacoma. This would basically be a bus version of Sounder (for when Sounder isn’t running and wouldn’t have the ridership to justify service anyway). You really want both but it isn’t clear we can afford it unless one or both are infrequent. If the shuttle to Link is frequent but the express to downtown is not then you run into the problem you describe.

          But it is worth mentioning that the longer the trip, the more speed matters and frequency doesn’t. Riders are more likely to time their trip.

       3. “Yes, but the bus has to be extremely infrequent for Link to be better. “

          I don’t think it has to be extremely infrequent.

          First, there is one other negative factor for the bus: congestion. Link travel times are pretty reliable, even with the MLK segment involved.

          But if ST starts to drop that service to even just a 20 minute frequency, I expect many but not all riders to quickly shift. That’s particularly likely during non-peak hours. That’s not extreme to me — even though it isn’t great.

          Honestly, light rail can also be a much smoother ride if you have a seat, too. It may be quieter but maybe not. That enters into travel decisions.

          And it doesn’t take much until the bus service can enter the death spiral of first losing some riders then losing bus runs that just make more riders shift from bus to rail.

          People are much more flexible (less loyal over time) when it comes to merely switching routes than switching from walking or driving to transit — or vice versa. I think that it doesn’t take much for me to shift the transit vehicle if the ride is smoother. I think most people are that way.

       4. ST could just make several ST Express routes more frequent, like Metro could just give evening/Sunday frequency to several bus routes. But it’s easier to get a Link or RapidRide line approved than to convince them to do that. Or to even fill in the frequency while we’re waiting for the Link or RapidRide line. Metro/ST act like they think it’s OK to force people to wait ten or twenty years for full-time frequency in a Link/RapidRide candidate corridor when the need is now.

       5. @Al S,

          “ I think that it doesn’t take much for me to shift the transit vehicle if the ride is smoother. I think most people are that way.”

          People on this blog like to deride “rail bias” as being somehow irrational, but it isn’t. It’s just that old adage that “quality sells”.

          People do prefer rail, and rail gets additional ridership because of it. But that preference is really a preference for the speed, reliability, and frequency of rail. And, yes, also for the ride quality of rail.

          Quality does sell.

       6. I don’t think it has to be extremely infrequent.

          The bus saves 18 minutes of travel time. If the bus runs every fifteen minutes it is always faster than Link. Always.

          But if ST starts to drop that service to even just a 20 minute frequency, I expect many but not all riders to quickly shift.

          At 20 minutes, the bus is faster 90% of the time, even if the train runs every second. If you just miss the bus and the train is about to leave then catching the bus is faster. But if you missed the bus by five minutes, you are better off waiting for the bus (even if the train is about to leave). If you miss the bus by three minutes, or ten minutes or fifteen minutes you are better off waiting for a bus. But there is that tiny window (2 minutes out of every 20) where you would be better off catching the train — assuming the train is leaving within two minutes. The trains won’t be running instantaneously. Riders will have to wait for them as well. Since the train will run every 7.5 minutes (at best) you are realistically looking at a window that doesn’t exist.

          Realistically, very few people will just barely miss the bus. There are very few spontaneous trips taken between Federal Way and Seattle. Riders tend to time their trip. Commuters know when they have to leave the house or work to catch the bus. Frequent riders know the schedule (assuming it is based on the clock). For example they “7, 27, 47” after the hour.

          That’s particularly likely during non-peak hours.

          It it the opposite. The only time that Link could be faster is during peak. During non-peak the bus is definitely faster.

          There may be a bias towards Link, but there is no evidence for it. There doesn’t appear to be much preference for Sounder from Tacoma. Prior to the pandemic the 590 and Sounder both ran at the same time (mostly peak but occasionally reverse peak). The 590 carried more riders than the two Tacoma Sounder stations (combined). This is striking to me given the fact that Sounder is not light rail — it is much, much more comfortable. During peak is also when there is a very good chance that Sounder will be faster. Yet for whatever reason, people preferred the bus.

          We can see this with buses from the north as well. The 510 set a post-pandemic high last month. Lynnwood Link had no impact on ridership. Even though riders can take more than one express bus to Lynnwood and transfer there, they prefer taking the express to downtown. This is during peak — the one time of day when Link may be faster. Or look at the 515. It essentially copies Link. It runs from Lynnwood Station to downtown. Unlike the 510 it doesn’t save you a transfer — you have to get to Lynnwood Station anyway. Yet it carried 1,400 riders a day in April. Again, it only runs during peak. Yet it carried about a third of the ridership of Lynnwood Link station and more than either of the Shoreline stations. The bias towards Link is slight to nonexistent.

          Rail bias is misunderstood. To quote this study:

          After a brief review of existing literature, models of choice among alternative travel modes are estimated using revealed preference data and stated preference data. The main conclusion of the study is that there is no evident preference for rail travel over bus when quantifiable service characteristics such as travel time and cost are equal, but a bias does arise when rail travel offers a higher quality service.

          The higher quality of service that Link offers is speed and frequency. You can take a bus from the UW to Capitol Hill but Link is much faster and frequent. But if you are traveling within the transit tunnel downtown, Link is not an improvement. You were better off when the buses ran as they were more frequent (and just as fast).

          In this case, the train will be more frequent. But not enough to make up for the speed difference unless the bus is very infrequent (or there is enough traffic to dramatically slow down the buses).

          Obviously there will be people that prefer the train for various trips. If you are headed to Rainier Valley from Federal Way, that is your vehicle. A handful may prefer the views from Link instead of a bus. Riders who miss the bus may decide to take the slower train instead of waiting for the faster bus. Of course there is rush hour — the one time of day when there is a decent chance that Link will be faster. It is quite possible that a lot of those riders take Link. But the idea that everyone will switch to Link (if the buses run frequently) runs contrary to common sense as well as all historical evidence with similar changes in our system. You have it backwards. If you give people a choice (by providing express bus service at a decent frequency) a lot of riders will just ride the bus.

       7. “People do prefer rail, and rail gets additional ridership because of it.”

          Everyone has different trigger points about choosing bus versus rail if they have options. However, there seems to be this tacit assumption that opening Federal Way Link will not significantly reduce STX ridership on I-5 if the parallel bus services remain.

          That’s obviously not true. It will.

          Unless those buses go somewhere else than other 1 Line destinations they will lose many riders. At that point, ST will look at reducing frequency for productivity reasons. Then those buses will lose more riders. Then ST will reduce the express bus service even more.

          There is another thing that has happened about ridership in that corridor too: A drop in ridership of over 40 percent since 2019. It’s similar to the drop in South Sounder ridership. The market for transit tripmaking between Pierce County and Seattle is way down and it can’t be blamed on COVID anymore. It now appears structural.

          Sound Transit won’t run mostly empty express buses forever. At some point, productivity accountability is going to happen.

          And circling back to the original thread, there are other parts of the ST service district that don’t get great service. Should ST offer duplicate light rail and bus service in the I-5 services or run better service on the 167 corridor, for example?

          PS. Nostalgia lovers wax about Route 194. That’s ancient history at this point. SeaTac congestion and I-5 congestion has gotten much worse. King County has added over 400K residents since 2010 when the service stopped, which contributes to the congestion. The SeaTac Link station is the second busiest Link station now — and much of the recent increase in demand appears to be to be coming from its adjacent stations. SeaTac Link station usage is much higher than Route 194 ridership could have even if it was running. Second and Fourth Avenues both lost traffic lanes to bicycles since 2010 making Downtown slower too. Nostalgia has its place; but SeaTac, I-5 and Downtown Seattle traffic is much worse these days and Route 194 would not have the attractiveness it did 15 years ago.

       8. “That’s particularly likely during non-peak hours.”

          My sentence is admittedly ambiguous. The sentence should be “The likelihood of ST reducing STX service is particularly likely during non-peak hours.”

       9. “The bus saves 18 minutes of travel time. If the bus runs every fifteen minutes it is always faster than Link. Always.”

          That’s not what the STX 578 schedules say. During the peak congestion times the schedule travel time approaches 50 minutes, comparable to the 50 minute Link trip estimated by ST between Westlake and Federal Way — when demand is likely highest. Sure it’s faster during the midday of up to 17 minutes in one direction — but it’s not “always”.

          And the SODO busway appears to be just 2-3 years from closure for West Seattle Link construction, adding several minutes. If the route is shifted to stay on I-5 north of Spokane St, it will run into quite significant traffic congestion with added travel time — and I don’t see WSDOT putting in a bus lane on that stretch of I-5. So this time advantage will be short-lived.

          As we’ve discussed before, Link is tragically not designed to run faster the further it gets from Seattle. So that point is well taken. The situation will be even worse if TDLE opens. But ST has built or will build Link at great expense — and will prefer to run STX to benefit Link ridership stats as much as they can unless it just gets too crowded.

       10. Sorry, I should have specified off-peak. That was implied and clearly stated in the rest of the comment. This was detailed at the bottom of this post: https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/02/25/regional-transit-after-federal-way-link/. Again, off-peak.

           The point being that if the buses run every fifteen minutes — which would not require additional funding over what is happening right now — the frequency of the train is irrelevant. As long as traffic isn’t bad, the bus is faster. This contradicts your suggestion, which is that Link can make up for its slow speed with better frequency in the middle of the day. It can’t. The only time it is faster is when the bus is really slow or running very infrequently.

           This is different than other situations. At 6:00 am the 515 is faster from Lynnwood to Westlake. But it is only five minutes faster. The bus runs every ten minutes and soon the train will run every four. If you miss the bus it is definitely faster to catch the train, rather than wait for another bus. Of course by then ST won’t run the 515. Some riders may prefer it, but it just isn’t worth it.

           Speaking of which, mote that in that essay I suggest we get rid of peak-only buses to downtown from Federal Way. The buses may be faster, but not that much faster. Again, I don’t think it is worth it.

           As far as ridership goes, Federal Way has a strong peak orientation but not as big as I assumed. The 577 and 177 (which only run during peak) get about 1,000 riders (combined). Those buses only run during peak. The 578 gets about 1,600. It rarely runs during peak. Some of the 578 riders are coming from places other than Federal Way, but back when they tracked such things, most of the riders came from Federal Way. I still think most of the riders take the express bus during peak, but it is fairly close. (Mainly this is because there are more hours outside of peak. )

       11. “The point being that if the buses run every fifteen minutes — which would not require additional funding over what is happening right now — the frequency of the train is irrelevant.”

           The new train sets going to Federal Way will require “additional funding” for the drivers and support staff. It may not be STX additional funding but ids still ST additional funding.

       12. @ Ross:

           Looking at the STX 578 southbound schedule, the I-5 congestion seems to impact the travel time between Westlake (Pike St) and Federal Way for most of the afternoon. It’s 37 minutes for the 12:57 bus. It’s 43 minutes for the 1:57 bus. It’s 49 minutes for the 3:24 bus. It finally returns to below 40 minutes (39) for the 5:57 bus and finally down to 35 minutes for the 6:31 bus.

           https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/routes-schedules/578?at=1752610035725&direction=0&start_stop=null&view=table&route_tab=schedule&stops_0=1_10225%2C3_10401&stops_1=3_10401%2C3_26454

           So what hours are you suggesting?

       13. “The new train sets going to Federal Way will require “additional funding” for the drivers and support staff”

           Link’s operational funding is already in the budget. Federal Way Link was probably predicated on truncating the express buses (like the 545 and 550 in East Link), so keeping the express buses would require additional money that ST would have to take from its total resources [or delay Tacoma Dome Link for it]).

       14. Ross, you said “The higher quality of service that Link offers is speed and frequency.”
           Completely missed Al’s point about Link being a smoother ride.

           If I try to read on the bus, I usually get a headache within 10 minutes because the bus is a lot jerkier when accelerating/decelerating. So I try not to read anything, which makes a bus ride lost productivity/leisure time for me compared to Link. It’s not as nice as productivity/leisure time at home, but it is often better than time at a bus stop and much better than time ON a bus.

           Also, I deal with a lot less disruption on Link than I do on bus rides, especially if that bus is red and starts with the letter E.

           So I would usually pick an hour light rail ride over a 50-minute bus ride. And I know others who feel similarly. That’s rail bias.

       15. But is there enough rail bias for Tacoma Dome Link to be worthwhile? It turns an hour long express bus trip into a 1 hour 30 minute Link trip, requiring a transfer at Tacoma Dome to actually get anywhere useful from anywhere useful (unlike either the 574 or the 594).

           I just don’t see 4 cars worth of people doing that, and SoundTransit’s own ridership estimates from 2019 indicate few would be willing to do this. Tacoma Dome link ridership was estimsted to be less than 1/4 that between SeaTac and Seattle.

       16. Probably not worth it for Tacoma Dome, especially since Sounder exists for commuters.

           But for Federal Way, Link does still (barely) make sense.

           For Tacoma, I think Link would have to run grade-separated to downtown for commuters from Federal Way to take it in significant numbers. I’ve never taken the T-line, but if it’s anything like the streetcars in Seattle, it’s not much better than a bus.

       17. I didn’t ignore Al’s point about rail bias, I argued that it was minimal to nonexistent . So did the researchers I cited: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967070X02000094. Just to repeat: Of course there are people who prefer Link over the bus. But my guess is there would a be a stronger preference from Sounder over the bus and yet lots of people still take the bus from Tacoma (when Sounder is running).

           It is worth noting that the ST Express buses are nice. I know people who specifically prefer those buses (they have a bias for those buses). This particular route makes very few stops. There is a huge section where no one is getting on and off. My guess is a southbound bus is not full at any point. A rider could board downtown, take out their laptop and settle down. Some more people will board but once the bus reaches that last stop on SoDo busway there are no stops until Federal Way. In contrast a southbound train will be full through downtown. They may not even get a seat until later. Even when they get a seat they can expect plenty of people coming and going as it makes it’s way through Rainier Valley.

           Again, I can see why someone would prefer Link. But there will be plenty of people who prefer a bus. But based on all available evidence, the vast majority of riders will just prefer the fastest option.

       18. The new train sets going to Federal Way will require “additional funding” for the drivers and support staff.

           What does that have to do with anything? Come on, Al, stick to the subject. It really isn’t that complicated. Yet you keep jumping around and I have to keep clarifying things over and over as you take statements out of context. Let me try once again:

           1) Assuming we no longer run buses from Federal Way to SeaTac, we can runs buses every fifteen minutes midday from Lakewood/Tacoma/Federal Way/Downtown Seattle *with no additional funds*. We actually save money.

           2) In the middle of the day the buses are over fifteen minutes faster than Link. This means that if the buses run every fifteen minutes midday, taking the bus is faster, regardless of how often the trains run.

           3) It is easy to assume that people will prefer taking Link over a bus even if the bus is slower. But there is no evidence for that. In fact there is plenty of counter evidence. The 510 is the most recent example.

           Thus it is quite likely that if ST runs buses every fifteen minutes from Federal Way the bus will pick up almost as many riders as they do now (off-peak). It is only during peak where you will see a significant drop-off in ridership. If that is the case — if no one rides the bus from Federal Way to downtown during peak, then just cancel peak service from Federal Way to Downtown Seattle, which is what I proposed in the first place. There are plenty of riders the rest of the day (from Lakewood, Tacoma and Federal Way) that would very much appreciate fifteen minute frequency to go along with their express to downtown. Link then complements the bus quite well. For those headed to SeaTac, Rainier Valley or Beacon Hill, Link is the ticket. For those headed to downtown, the express bus is faster.

       19. I think there are a few reasons that someone would prefer the 594 over Th Sounder, beyond the ones you mention, that outweigh any real or perceived “rail bias.”

           1) The Sounder stops at King Street station, and the walkshed for King Street station is poor, compared to near Westlake, where the 594 ends (and all the intermediate stops as well). That drawback of The Sounder could be mitigated by creating a few more stops north of King Street. Looking at it’s route, maybe Madison (before it turns West), The Aquarium, Seattle Center, Dravus, and The Locks in Ballard. The last 3 would be very cheap, as it is surface-running at that point.

           https://urban-map.com/seattle-rail-map/

           2) The schedule is confusing, with massive gaps in service during the day, at night, and on the weekends. It’s just not what people first think of when they want to travel between Seattle and Tacoma. Even at every half hour and dealing with backups on I-5, the 594 is likely perceived as faster (which it often is) and more reliable by those who do the trip regularly. There are also anecdotal reports that you don’t always get a seat on The Sounder. And that’s a real problem, given that there is no strap-hanging infrastructure on the train. If that happens to you once, you may decide the bus is better.

           3) It costs more, pushing a regular commuter’s costs from $200 to over $500. That’s a lot for someone coming from Tacoma, who often would only be riding the bus if the cost of driving were already prohibitive.

       20. “There are also anecdotal reports that you don’t always get a seat on The Sounder. And that’s a real problem, given that there is no strap-hanging infrastructure on the train.”

           I thought staff didn’t allow people to stand on Sounder. That if there wasn’t a seat, you had to get off.

       21. There’s other issues about a frequent Federal Way to Downtown Seattle bus: The improved farebox recovery and the related desired success of the Federal Way Link extension.

           Getting as many riders as possible is a fundamental need for ST. The recent one-year drop in Link farebox from 16% to 12% is pretty embarrassing for 2024. It however can be somewhat explained away as a “temporary” problem of running the Eastside 2 Line while continuing with express buses. The temporary nature of STX 515 is similar.

           But this Federal Way to Downtown Seattle nonstop bus segment would be permanent.

           It would be STX permanently competing against ST Link. The result would be weaker Federal Way Link ridership. Others may feel that FW Link ridership will still be good because induced new riders; but that flies against any thought that other existing riders won’t take it because it takes longer.

           So a Board member or senior staff has to be ok with lower Federal Way Link ridership and lower Link farebox recovery to support a parallel long-distance, frequent STX service. Or that Board or senior staff member may want to eliminate any competing internal connection to ensure as many riders as possible ride Link so that they can declare Link a bigger “success”.

           Almost every prior Link extension opening has had a reasonable transit travel time benefit up until now. Many have included eliminating longer parallel services to take advantage of it. This one is notably different. This one is more even to a bit worse in travel time to some (rail preference may mask some of it but not all of it). And the future extensions to West Seattle as a stub, Everett and Tacoma Dome appear to show that Link will be even more markedly slower than STX much of the day.

           It may be that any Link-parallel STX service will be doomed in the long run for appearances sake — regardless of any travel time advantage. That’s because ST committed to building and operating Link, and running parallel STX service would be a tacit admission that further light rail expansion is relatively wasteful and duplicative. (That’s a different situation than something like RapidRide A or Swift with their many more localized stops feeding Link.)

           We can’t just think about what’s fastest for riders. We have to think about what’s most permanently financially viable for our cash-limited public transit operators. Because without productive ridership, the transit agency will just be permanently financially unable to offer decent frequency for both long distance bus and parallel rail. One will end up healthy and the other will begin to wither financially . And unlike something less financially impactful like T-Link or even North Sounder, these productivity needs will be much more apparent and acute.

           In short, ST must begin to transition from being a “PR” agency that makes visionary promises to being just another transit agency with a bottom line set by taxpayers with its upcoming operations plan.

       22. @Al — Yes, truncating all the buses at Federal Way would be cheaper for Sound Transit. It would just be worse for existing riders, especially those forced to transfer.

       23. We can’t just think about what’s fastest for riders. We have to think about what’s most permanently financially viable for our cash-limited public transit operators.

           It would be pretty odd for ST to suddenly claim that they need to drastically cut service that has been popular and historically a good value. It is worth noting:

           1) They had planned to run buses from Tacoma to Seattle every fifteen minutes. They cancelled because of the driver shortage, not lack of funds.
           2) They run a bus from Tacoma to the UW (even though Link has been running to the UW for over a decade now).
           3) They would spend roughly the same amount now by simply consolidating service between Lakewood/Tacoma/Federal Way and Seattle (i. e. have the Tacoma buses stop in Federal Way).
           4) They would save a huge amount of money by not running buses from Federal Way to SeaTac.

           In other words, they could save a huge amount of money *and* improve service. This would definitely improve the farebox recovery for ST Express buses while also improving ridership for Link.

           5) They could save even more money by reducing or eliminating peak service from Federal Way to downtown — the only time that Sounder runs and the only time when Link is competitive with an express bus.

           and finally, the kicker ….

           6) They are building Tacoma Dome Link. You can’t claim that running fewer buses than you run now is just too expensive while turning around and saying you plan on building a train to Tacoma.

       24. “ It would be pretty odd for ST to suddenly claim that they need to drastically cut service that has been popular and historically a good value.”

           They cut popular STX service when Lynnwood Link opened — and ST created STX 515 to be temporary until the 2 Line begins boarding riders in Lynnwood. Weren’t those dropped STX lines popular too?

           I don’t think it would be an “odd” decision to drop the service given similar adjustments made for prior Link extension openings.

           I will also note (from ST’s ridership page) that STX service contracted to Pierce Transit is down over 40 percent from 2019 — as is South Sounder. That’s in a corridor at a time when no ST Link stations opened. In relative terms the “historically a good value” argument is significantly weaker than it was. It’s no longer 2019.

           ST is at some point going to have to be generally more judicious about where they can offer service. The agency seems to transcend tough fiscal decisions that other public operators have had to face until now. But as ST has to spend lots more operating dollars every year starting in 2024 and increasing in 2026 thanks to adding miles of Link extensions with 10 minute service (and soon 5 minute service on the North Seattle/ Lynnwood trunk), they’ll be forced to have to make harder choices for the agency moving forward for budgetary reasons.

           The best financial thing ST could theoretically do for the STX service to Pierce County and South King County is to just not open Federal Way Link at all. Or maybe just abandon Tacoma Dome Link entirely and shift those billions to STX service. But that’s not going to happen. ST promised to build Link southward — but didn’t promise to permanently continue an STX bus between Tacoma and Seattle. All the Link ridership projections even assumed that there would be no parallel STX bus.

           I get the travel time argument! That’s not what my point is. My point is that there’s also an agency operating budget to consider at some point.

       25. The issue is whether Link’s travel time is acceptable for trips of this distance between these size cities and their cachement areas. There are argumentns both ways on that.

           Link was predicated on truncating/deleting the 512, 522, 545, 550, and probably 577, 578, and 59x. All the ST Express planning scenarios in January 2016 truncated them. The travel-time issue to Federal Way and Tacoma was known ever since the speed of the initial segment became clear, but ST just kept ignoring it, as did all the Pierce and South King county and city politicians.

    3. Sound Transit runs the 512 busses in both directions all day. Community Transit runs the 201/202 along Broadway, which connects to the 512 express and also goes all the way to Lynnwood, with good frequency. Colby would use better service though. Everett Transit also needs to merge into Community Transit, unless the city is willing to adequately fund their busses with good enough frequency.

       1. Is it really necessary for ST Express 512 to serve Ash Way P&R any more?

       2. 164th area residents just want a frequent express bus to Lynnwood station; it doesn’t matter the color.

          Swift Gold will probably replace the northern half of the 201/202, and the southern half may go away too. CT hasn’t addressed what will happen to the southern half. If it does, something will have to provide frequent express service from Ash Way P&R both north to Everett and south to Lynnwood.

          Everett Transit is in talks with Community Transit about merging, after having refused for decades. This would presumably increase service in Everett. The sticking point is CT’s higher taxes and higher fares, because Everett thinks it’s a lower-income area whose residents can’t afford that. But now ET is likely to collapse in a few years if it doesn’t merge, so that’s impelling merger talks anyway.

       3. Is it really necessary for ST Express 512 to serve Ash Way P&R any more?

          No.

          I would also extend the 512 on Colby up to the college/transit center. When the Gold Line gets here I would shift the 201/202 over to Colby. At that point you could truncate the 512 in Everett to where it ends now.

       4. CT can’t provide express service from every P&R to both Lynnwood Station and Everett Station, much less for the entire day, 365 days a year.

          Besides, in a few years, much of that giant surface parking lot will become a staging area for light rail station construction.

       5. “CT can’t provide express service from every P&R to both Lynnwood Station and Everett Station,”

          Not CT in particular. It’s more ST’s responsibility. The fact that the 201/202 even has an express tail to Lynnwood is unique among CT routes. Its purpose is clearly to give Smokey Point/Marysville acceptable travel time to Lynnwood-area destinations, and now to get them to the Link terminus. I’m worried that Swift Gold transferring at Everett to the Link terminus and Lynnwood might degrade travel time to much, especially if the Gold is only every 20 minutes and the successor to the 201/202’s southern half is still up in the air.

          And Ash Way P&R isn’t just any P&R. It’s probably the most significant one after Lynnwood station and Everett Station, and it has dense housing to the west and Mill Creek to the east, and some people use it because Lynnwood P&R is full.

       6. CT is abandoning the peanut-butter frequency improvements the Board approved in 2023, in favor of more focus on Swift (since those three lines are about half the ridership), plus a couple more Zip white elephant zones. Expect the peanut butter to become more trips on each Swift line.

          If I were living in Marysville, I would beg to get rid of the Ash Way stop on the 512, and get the Gold Line up and running as soon as it can reasonably happen.

       7. The 201/202 is a solid route. It alternates between express and local service. It runs down State Avenue in Marysville, Broadway in Everett and Ash Way in Lynnwood. Not just the park and ride, but the street itself, from 128th to 164th. It takes full advantage of the HOV infrastructure between the Ash Way Park and Ride to the Lynnwood Transit Center.

          In contrast the 512 Sound Transit Express is, well, an express. It makes only a couple stops in Everett before exclusively serving park and ride lots near the freeway. Obviously it ends at Lynnwood Transit Center. It also serves South Everett Park and Ride, which is easy because there are HOV ramps both directions. The problem is Ash way. You can’t serve it in an express manner from both directions. There are no ramps to or from the north. Thus the bus has to get out of the HOV lanes, exit the freeway, wait for the traffic lights and loop around to the transit center. All the while it isn’t serving any riders. There are no stops along that pathway (nor should there be). So while the 201/202 elegantly combine the trade-off of an express and local, the 512 wants to be a freeway-based express but fails at Ash Way. This clumsy behavior of the 512 would be understandable if this was the only express from Everett to Ash Way or from Ash Way to Lynnwood but that obviously isn’t the case — the 201/202 does that. The 512 should skip Ash Way.

          The only good argument for keeping the current pattern is that it is valuable to have lots of buses from the Ash Way Park and Ride to Lynnwood, as the park and ride serves as an overflow lot for Lynnwood. But there are a number of better ways of solving that problem. The 513 runs every half hour (during peak). It could run every fifteen minutes. Or the 119 (which runs every half hour) could be extended to Lynnwood TC. Those four half-hour buses (the 119, 201, 202, 513) could be timed to provide 7.5 minute headways between Ash Way Park and Ride and Lynnwood Transit Center. This wouldn’t cost much, either. It is quite possible this change would be revenue neutral. It might even save money.

          I know that is a bold statement, but hear me out. Imagine you extend the 119 to Lynnwood TC. This takes about five minutes. The bus runs every half hour so the cost per hour is ten minutes. Now imagine the 512 skips Ash Way. It runs every fifteen minutes. So if the detour to Ash Way take 2.5 minutes, you’ve broken even. But wait. The 119 extension only takes place during peak. In contrast the 512 runs all day long. So now it is obvious. This change would save a bunch of money. Of course it would shift the burden from ST to CT, and since the various agencies don’t cooperate and are generally dysfunctional it likely won’t happen — but the point remains. Brent is absolutely right. Without spending additional money we could provide much better service for everyone. Riders from Everett could get to Lynnwood (and Seattle) much faster. Riders from 148th and 18th could get a direct ride to Lynnwood (on the 119). All of this could happen while saving money. Will it? Probably not.

          That doesn’t mean that ST won’t eventually skip Ash Way, but whatever solution they come up with won’t be as elegant.

       8. “The problem is Ash way. You can’t serve it in an express manner from both directions. There are no ramps to or from the north. ”

          I timed it when I went to Everett two weeks ago, because somebody said the overhead was an awful 5 or 10 minutes or so. The overhead of getting to the P&R stop compared to a freeway station was, from the southern exit, 1 minute both directions. From the northern exit it was 2 minutes northbound and 3 minutes southbound. So that’s a total of 3-4 minutes; not much. It may be worse peak hours.

       9. Another reason to keep the 512 Ash Way stop is the 201/202 combined drop to 30 minutes weekends.

       10. “The 513 runs every half hour (during peak). It could run every fifteen minutes.”

           The 513 doesn’t run on weekends.

           From the Title IV report we’re making guesses from, it appears ST might shift some hours from the 512 to the 513. Maybe ST is also thinking about dropping Ash Way P&R from the 512?

           “Or the 119 (which runs every half hour) could be extended to Lynnwood TC.”

           My friend in north Lynnwood would love that. I asked her about it after you suggested it, and she thought it’s a great idea. Right now she walks 20 minutes, takes the 119 one mile to Ash Way P&R, and transfers to the 512/201/202/Gold to Lynnwood Station, to Link. That’s a 3-seat ride from north Lynnwood to Seattle.

           The 119 does go the other way to Mountlake Terrace station, so I suggested she could take that if she misses it the other way, but she said both directions come at the same time. The Mountlake Terrace way takes 30 minutes in a meandering C shape, so it adds significantly to travel time.

           The 119’s frequency went up to half-hourly weekdays in the last service change, so she’s very happy about that. She tries to do her trips on weekdays now as much as she can, to avoid the hourly periods.

18. Considering that we were promised that it would open last year, it should be accelerated. However, I don’t believe this is going to happen. I think that the South King County hating Dow is just taking this stance to improve his standing while knowing that nothing is going to happen.

19. I would like to update my proposal for the all-day ST Express 594.

    It would still add the stop at Federal Way, which is the central point of the proposal.

    It would switch to entering downtown Seattle via the Seneca St exit, and then turn north on 4th Ave. This is what ST Express 577 and 578 do today. Southbound, the 594 could take the Edgar Martinez bridge to get onto I-90, then I-5 southbound, just as the 577/578 do today.

    The 594’s frequency would be enabled mostly by absorbing hours from discontinued routes 574, 577, 586, and 590.

    The 594’s period of 8-minute peak headway and 10-minute all-day headway could be extended further by eliminating the downtown Tacoma loop (except tor the stops on Pacific and Commerce when buses are entering service or headed back to the barn).

    The remaining portion of ST Express 578, terminating at Federal Way, would get frequency bumps, but some of the saved hours might also go to the 594.

    .

    About all that can be done with ST Express 595 is to truncate it at Tacoma Dome, and turn the buses back to Gig Harbor, so tolerable frequency can be restored, from the current three runs separated by an hour. This could enable some reverse-peak service. Renumber to ST Express 585.

    .

    ST Express 592 is still a puzzle. It is not time-competitive with taking Sounder south in the afternoon. But it is time-competitive in the morning.

    1. Like I wrote, there are a bunch of different ways of doing it. When I sat down to write this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/02/25/regional-transit-after-federal-way-link/ I figured it would be a quick proposal. The only major difference between that proposal and yours is I would get rid of peak service to Seattle. I’ve moved away from that idea, in part because we don’t run that many peak buses and I don’t think ST is clever enough to propose that. They have a clear preference for peak-service even when it is extremely expensive and trains have replaced it (e. g. the bus from the Tacoma Dome to the UW). But the main ideas are the same, and every proposal I’ve seen starts with this basic idea:

       1) Get rid of bus service from Federal Way to SeaTac. Link is faster and the bus service is costly.

       2) Retain express service from Tacoma to Downtown Seattle (during off-peak if not all day long).

       3) Have those buses stop at Federal Way. This saves money while providing additional functionality.

       There would be no 577 — it simply gets absorbed into a more frequent bus from Tacoma/Lakewood to Seattle. There would be no 574 — it gets absorbed as well. Thus you don’t spend any extra service from Lakewood/Tacoma/Federal Way/Seattle even though you run the buses every fifteen minutes along the pathway. At the same time, you save money by not running buses from Federal Way to SeaTac.

       Beyond that, it gets complicated. You have the peak routes and non-peak. Apparently the bus from Lakewood to Tacoma is often late, even in the middle of the day. Handling that gets tricky. Then there is Puyallup, Sumner, Auburn and Kent. It makes sense to connect them to Link but there is value in giving them a Sounder equivalent for when Sounder isn’t running (i. e. an express bus to downtown). How frequent does it have to be to be worth it? There are a lot of variations and different options (such as skipping SoDo as you’ve suggested).

       1. pretty good. A consolidation between Tacoma and FWTC could lead to very short waits. Could keep schedules balanced and rely on Sounder to handle peak direction loads.

          over time, perhaps the state and ST could combine to buy more BNSFRR time slots. I wonder about some BNSFRR freights shifting to UPRR ROW to free up capacity.

          Is WSDOT extending I-5 HOV lanes through Fife?

    2. I wonder if there’s any opportunity to restripe the I-5 HOV lane up to Seneca St. It seems to me there is enough room for the northbound HOV lane to reach all the way up to Seneca St while retaining 3 lanes for general traffic. There are already exit lanes at James and Madison St; it seems unnecessary to have another at Seneca.

       1. Because the Seneca exit is one lane until just before the signal, the entire ramp would need to be HOV. If not, traffic would block buses from even getting to a short HOV lane before the signal so that wouldn’t save much time.

          There’s also the issue of how to handle the express lane toggle for traffic. It’s a lane drop when it’s closed.

       2. Ah yeah looking at it more closely it doesn’t look like there’s room. At the very least the HOV lane could extend to the express lanes though; there’s an odd 3/4 mile gap from the I-90 exit to Jackson St

          Yeah I am suggesting making the Seneca St exit HOV-only

       3. Better yet, HOV-3. Otherwise I’d much rather get off at Spokane Viaduct and take 4th or 6th, after the busway goes kaput, which are usually moving okay.

       4. “At the very least the HOV lane could extend to the express lanes though; there’s an odd 3/4 mile gap from the I-90 exit to Jackson St”

          They need that gap so non-HOV can weave to the left lane and enter I-5 express. You may be able to implement a time-restricted HOV restriction during AM hours when I-5 express doesn’t open on the direction, but it makes things more complex with little value return. Buses probably will exit in SODO anyway.

20. “Or look at the 515… It runs from Lynnwood Station to downtown… it carried 1,400 riders a day in April. Again, it only runs during peak. Yet it carried about a third of the ridership of Lynnwood Link station and more than either of the Shoreline stations. ”

    This is news, and we haven’t covered it before. I thought the 515 was practically empty, as it has been the few times I’ve seen it.

    I wonder how much this is due to Link crowding, perceived crowding, or the bus stop being closer to a P&R space. Is there a difference between northbound and southbound? Northbound could be more popular because the Link crowding is when you board and you have to stand.

    My friend in north Lynnwood says the P&Rs at Lynnwood and Ash Way are full, and the Ash Way buses are busy with travelers.

    1. Perhaps this suggests a route serving the Howell/Stewart couplet up to Denny and over to Capitol Hill Station might find good ridership.

       1. That is a given. Any bus in the area is going to get good ridership (if you have decent frequency). No one has argued about against a Boren bus based on lack of ridership. The only question is how to afford it.

       2. I got on the first northbound 510 this afternoon and it was crowded by the time we passed Symphony station.

    2. Some people will take an express bus because they assume Link is crowded, without going up to the platform to confirm it.

       1. That would make sense from downtown but not Lynnwood. You can’t filter by direction on the dashboard. They may average the two, which would mean that if that is the pattern, ridership is even higher in the evening.

    3. “I thought the 515 was practically empty, as it has been the few times I’ve seen it.”

       If I were commuting to Lynnwood, I would choose it over light rail every day till it is canceled.
       Personally, I think it is just more comfortable ride this than light rail for this distance, but I totally understand that we cannot afford having both light rail and 515 running forever.

21. https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/07/10/federal-way-light-rail-extension-on-track-for-early-opening/
    The Urbanist quotes ST staff as stating that they have enough LRV for eight minute headway and four car trains. Big news. Link will take 55 minutes between FW and Westlake. That is several minutes slower than the scheduled routes 577-578.

    I would guess ST and Metro will not be able to make bus network changes in fall 2025. What will they do in March 2026? Suggestions? See routes 574, 577, 578, 590, 594. Why has ST retained Route 586?

    1. ST seems to be targeting Fall 2026 for the ST Express restructure. It doesn’t seem to want to do it before the World Cup, perhaps as a fallback in case Link melts down during it. It said its World Cup crowd management strategy is extra service on the 550 and 545 if needed; those would be deleted in the restructure, so it can’t delete them and later add service to them. And presumably extra service on the 1 Line; ST may have thought that was so obvious it didn’t need mentioning.

       So if things happen like that, Federal Way residents would still have their express bus alternative for the first several months after opening, so they could ease into transitioning to Link if the routes are deleted later.

    2. From ST’s Title VI report, which we’re not sure if it’s ST’s intention or just a preliminary study in case they want to pursue these concepts, and it’s hard to interpret what exactly the route chart means and where some unfamiliar route numbers would go or how familiar ones might be truncated, but it looks like:

       * the 594 may be deleted in favor of the 574 and 592

       * the 578 may be deleted without replacement (so no Puyallup-Auburn-Federal Way service). It’s hard to believe ST would drop entire cities that are paying ST taxes, but I don’t see how they’re served. (And of course, Sounder has limited hours, so that’s not a possibility most of the time.)

       * the 512 and 513 would be the only routes north of Lynnwood (the 510 and 515 would be deleted), and the 512 would be decreased and the 513 increased.

       * I speculated ST may want to drop Ash Way P&R from the 512, and that may be part of the reason for shifting hours to the 513. But the 513 has no weekend service, and it would be a lot of hours to add it. I don’t want to see Everett dropping to half-hourly, nor Ash Way for that matter. That would be a return to the bad old days of infrequent north-end service.

       Can you look at the report and tell us your interpretation? I don’t know where to find it, but you probably can.

       1. I really like the idea of the 512 dropping Ash Way, given that the 201/202 serve it.

       2. Again, the 201/201 combined drop to half-hourly on weekends. That’s really bad for a station that functions as “a short extension hub from the Link terminus to extend Link’s reach”. It’s like saying Ash Way P&R and the 164th area is as remote and small as Arlington or Duvall. Ash Way P&R is a candidate for an interim Link terminus in some past phasing plans. Yet suddenly it’s very unimportant and the people there can pound sand?

       3. Again, the 201/201 combined drop to half-hourly on weekends.

          That is unfortunate but the 512 doesn’t really help. If you live along Ash Way you are out of luck. I guess you could walk to the parking lot but for a lot of people that is a really long walk. For those riders, they still have the Orange Line. The folks at the park and ride lot are not much worse off — the folks on Ash Way itself are.

          The main thing the 512 provides is an express for those that park at the park and ride. It is essentially an overflow lot. I think this is mostly an issue on weekdays but I don’t know. Does the main Lynnwood lot fill up on weekends? If not then it seems like the 512 connection to Ash Way doesn’t add much.

       4. “Again, the 201/201 combined drop to half-hourly on weekends.”

          “That is unfortunate but the 512 doesn’t really help”

          It adds four more runs per hour. That quadruples the service.

          “For those riders, they still have the Orange Line.”

          The Orange line takes longer because it’s not an express.

          “The main thing the 512 provides is an express for those that park at the park and ride.”

          And walk-ups. My friend takes the 119 to Ash Way P&R when it.s coming, and when it isn’t, she walks 40 minutes to the P&R.

          “If not then it seems like the 512 connection to Ash Way doesn’t add much.”

          It helps all the people who live along 164th and north of it.

       5. @Mike — The 512 doesn’t serve Ash Way. The 201/202 serves Ash Way. The only thing the 512 serves in the area is the Ash Way Park and Ride. The vast majority of riders this benefits are those that drive. This isn’t that important on the weekends (when the 201/202 runs less often). Those riders also have another transit option that is only a bit slower — the Orange Line.

          But if ST insists that riders at the parking lot have both a frequent express *and* a frequent limited-stop express it wouldn’t bother me. Go ahead and stop at Ash Way on the weekends. The money would be much better spent on better service elsewhere but whatever.

          The main point is that ST should not spend a lot of service hours and slow down through-riders just so that riders from the parking lot have an *additional* express to Lynnwood. Service from the park and ride to Lynnwood is outstanding by Community Transit standards even without the 512 serving it. Even on weekends it is better than most places. There are plenty of riders who would love to be served by the half hour 201/202 and the fifteen minute Orange Line — on a weekday, let alone the weekend.

       6. “The 512 doesn’t serve Ash Way.”

          I meant the P&R.

          It would make more sense for the 201/202 to drop its Lynnwood tail.

       7. It would make more sense for the 201/202 to drop its Lynnwood tail.

          No, it wouldn’t. You have it backwards. Compare the two:

          201/202 — Serves a lot of stops in Everett as well as stops north of there.
          512 — Serves only a couple of stops in Everett.

          201/202 — Coverage from 128th to the park and ride (via 4th, 134th and Ash Way).
          512 — Only serves the park and ride.

          Clearly a lot more people are able to have a one-seat ride with the 201/202 then the 512. Not only that, but it provides that one-seat ride *without backtracking*. Either bus has to use a regular on-ramp once either way. But in the case of the 201/202 it picks up a lot more people along the way. It makes the most out of its time spent away from the freeway. Yet even with the extra time picking up additional riders (and giving them a one-seat ride to Lynnwood) it is competitive with the 512.

          This is not a fluke: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RBmHcxCVs4pGPP9s9. I’ve noticed this repeatedly. Obviously there is some luck here with the timing but there isn’t that much difference between the travel time of the buses despite the fact that the 201/202 serves a lot more people along the way. If the 512 skipped Ash Way then the 512 would be significantly faster from Everett to Lynnwood. It would also be more reliable (especially during rush hour). Those looking for an express (which is literally what the bus route is called) would use it.

          The 201/202 take an elegant approach to serving the park and ride while the 512 is clumsy. It is a relic of the past. It made sense as a way to give park and ride users a direct connection to Seattle. Now it doesn’t.

       8. “It would make more sense for the 201/202 to drop its Lynnwood tail.”

          That’s likely to happen when SWIFT Gold replaces 201/202 in 203X.

       9. “It would make more sense for the 201/202 to drop its Lynnwood tail.”

          That’s likely to happen when SWIFT Gold replaces 201/202 in 203X.

          I still don’t see it. There is still a value in running a bus like the 201/202 from Everett to Lynnwood. My guess is it would shift to Colby and then end at the college. It would then just be one route (running every fifteen minutes).

          The only thing that would make the 201/202 connection (from the Ash Way Park and Ride to Lynnwood TC) obsolete is Link. If Everett Link gets to Ash Way Park and Ride then the bus would most certainly end there. But even as Link goes further north (to Mariner) I still see value in the routing that covers the area in between. Riders in between would continue to have what they have now (a good connection to Link and a direct connection to Downtown Everett). Meanwhile, riders in Downtown Everett would have a faster connection to Link (at Mariner). At that point it is the 512 that is obsolete.

       10. No way they cut service on the 578 south/ east of Fed Way. I fully expect a forced transfer at FWDS (Federal Way Downtown Station), but if anything headways to increase on what’s left of it (every 30 min weekends, 15 minutes weekdays except in the peak direction-use Sounder or KCM 181 instead).

    3. It will be very interesting to see what happens if ST keeps the bus routes the same. There will be a surge in Link ridership regardless. There always is, as people check it out. But if the bus changes don’t kick in for several months it will be interesting to see how many people actually prefer Link for their trip.

22. addendum: for both east and south, ST says the 2026 service implementation plan is pending. stay tuned.

23. The Draft 2026 Service Plan appears to be cut-and-paste salad so far. The same generic criteria for cutting routes is repeated. The North/Snohomish section still claims the train takes 28 minutes from Lynnwood to downtown. I would’t read anything into it yet.

    1. Has it been published? Where is it? None of the STB editors have seen it or gotten any announcement about it. The Title VI report is not it. It’s something cryptic about some concepts ST studied to pass legal review on them, but no indication that that is what ST is certain about and will propose.

       1. https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/planning-future-service/2026-service-plan

       2. That’s not it. That’s an earlier publication after the general survey about what general characteristics you wanted and your suggestions. What we’re looking for is a proposal listing exact routes and frequencies. That’s what we need to know in order to know what the passenger experiences at Federal Way and in the Eastside and Pierce County will be like, and thus whether we want to suggest further changes or whether we have to worry about a bad future.

          Specific questions:

          – Will the 577/578 continue to run from Federal Way to downtown? Less frequently? Peak only?

          – Will there be express service between Puyallup, Auburn, and Federal Way?

          – Will the 594 exist? Will people in downtown Tacoma have to take the infrequent 12-20 minute T Line one mile to Tacoma Dome, and walk a block and up/down down stairs to get to the 574/592 stop?

          – Will the 594 stop at Federal Way? Is there a chance of convincing ST to do it?

          – Will the T Line be more frequent to mitigate the loss of the 590 and 594 one-seat ride to downtown Tacoma?

          – Will the 545 be replaced by a peak-only express to SLU as expected?

          – Will the 574 continue the Lakewood-SeaTac route? Will it be truncated at Federal Way? Will it be be preserved so that it can later be extended to Westwood Village when Stride 1 abandons that part of the 560? Can the Star Lake stop be deleted? (My wish.)

          – Will the 554:

          * Implement the Issaquah-South Bellevue Way-Bellevue TC proposal?
          * Will all runs serve the Issaquah Highands, or only a few “select runs” that continue to Sammamish?
          * Will there be bus service from the historic center (City Hall) to the Highlands? No Metro route will provide it.
          * Will it run on Newport Way (current, little walkshed) or Gilman Blvd with more stops (retail area, future growth center).
          * Will it go to Mercer Island or Seattle instead of Bellevue?
          * If so, what will backfill south Bellevue Way service? Metro has only a 30-minute coverage route.
          * Will the Issaquah-Bellevue Way-Bellevue TC route have the promised 15-minute daytime service?
          * Will the Issaquah-Bellevue Way-Bellevue TC route be extended to the U-District? In the last proposal, express Bellevue-UDistrict service was deleted entirely (currently peak-only 566).

          Those are the questions we’re waiting on.

Comments are closed.