Elections 2025:

Ballots are out for the August 5 Primary Election. Guides & Endorsements: WA Voters’ Guide (official), The Urbanist, Transportation for Washington, Progressive Voters Guide, The Stranger, The Seattle Times ($), Real Change.

In Seattle, the City Council is looking to codify deference to district representatives regarding issues in their district, which would make district-level elections even more impactful (The Urbanist). Case in point: Rob Saka’s effort to earmark $2M of the transportation levy to make an illegal left turn less difficult on Delridge.

Local Transit News:

Other Transportation:

Land Use & Housing:

This is an Open Thread.

125 Replies to “Midweek Roundup: transit to avoid traffic”

  1. We’re still working through the implications of the ST Express restructure postponed to late 2026, months after two Link openings and Metro bus restructures and the World Cup. Assuming possible dates (unofficial):

    2025 December: Federal Way Link.
    2026 March: Federal Way Metro restructure.
    2026 April : Crosslake (2 Line Lynnwood-Redmond) and Metro restructure.
    2026 June-July: World Cup.
    2026 September: ST Express systemwide restructure.

    In the gap between the Link changes and the ST Express changes, I think most areas would see an advantage of more transit choices (both Link and express bus), but the biggest loser would be Issaquah.

    LYNNWOOD CITY CENTER (1 & 2 Lines): 515 Lynnwood-Seattle peak express continues. 510 Everett-Seattle peak express (bypassing Lynnwood). Route 512 continues 15-minute all-day service to I-5 stops north of to Everett. Route 513 peak express to other northwest stops. Ross has suggested the 512 drop Ash Way P&R stop and I speculated ST might switch the stop to the 513 (if it makes the 513 all-day and lowers the 512’s frequency has hinted at in a report), but there’s no indication ST might do this; it’s still just armchair suggestions/speculations.

    ROOSEVELT/SHORELINE SOUTH (1 & 2 Line): Route 522 continues serving Roosevelt and Lake City. No transfer at Shoreline South.

    FEDERAL WAY (1 Line): Routes 577 and 578 continue all day to Seattle, and 578 to Auburn/Puyallup. Routes 59x continue between Tacoma and Seattle (bypassing Federal Way). Route 574 connects Lakewood, Federal Way, and SeaTac. Ross has lamented not consolidating the 574/594 to a single route stopping at Federal Way, but there’s no indication ST would be willing to do this; it’s still just an armchair suggestion.

    BELLEVUE TC (2 Line): Route 550 continues to Seattle, Bellevue Square. and south Bellevue Way every 15 minutes weekdays/Saturdays, 30 minutes Sundays/evenings. One-seat riders to Bellevue Square and Bellevue Way rejoice.

    REDMOND DOWNTOWN and REDMOND TECH (2 Line): Routes 545 and 542 continue to Seattle. Those wanting a peak express to SLU will have to wait.

    ISSAQUAH (bus to 2 Line): Issaquah loses its proposed 15-minute 554 to Bellevue TC, Bellevue Square, and south Bellevue Way. Instead it keeps its 30-minute service to Mercer Island and Seattle. All runs serve Issaquah Highlands P&R (uncertain if all will in last proposal). The Gilman Blvd retail district has no bus service because neither the 554 nor 208 serve it. The Issaquah Highlands P&R has 15-minute daytime Metro expresses to Mercer Island station, and 30-minute 554 to central Issaquah and Mercer Island station and Seattle. Central Issaquah has only the 30-minute 554 to Mercer Island station and Seattle. Trips between central Issaquah and Snoqualmie/North Bend, currently on the 100-180 minute 208, will instead take the 30-minute 554 to Issaquah Highlands P&R and transfer to the 90-minute 215 to Snoqualmie/North Bend, but they’ll have new Sunday service that doesn’t exist now.

    1. For what it is worth I wouldn’t recommend ST change the 512 until after East Link gets across the water. At that point they would likely get rid of the 515 and make several other changes. They might even use the 515 as a way to provide extra peak-only service between Ash Way and Lynnwood (although I think there are better ways to do that).

    2. I won’t complain too much about the slowness of the ST Express changes, if it means the Link extensions get opened faster, and in the meantime we elect a county executive and Seattle mayor who will side with having the new downtown stations where connectivity will be enhanced rather than destroyed.

      Months of data on how much ridership on the existing routes will drop is useful for transit planners from elsewhere to study.

    3. “I wouldn’t recommend ST change the 512 until after East Link gets across the water”

      I shouldn’t have put those in there because they’re irrelevant to the pre-restructure situation. I was mainly trying to say that ST hasn’t given any indication that it ever drop the Ash Way P&R stop or add a Federal Way stop, just like it hasn’t given any indication that it would ever support a “Metro 8” line (Uptown-First Hill line). So even if the restructure happened this year, there’s a less than 50% chance you’d get your stop changes, so in that regard it doesn’t matter if the restructure is now or later.

    5. Does it not seem possible that ST will implement a different set of ST Express changes than those described in East Link Connections? They have process to go.

      Has ST released Express bus concepts for the South Corridor? Is your paragraph paraphrasing ST or your recommendation?

      1. ST hasn’t released anything route-specific about the south corridor, so we don’t know which way its leaning, beyond the Title VI report, which is cryptic to interpret and we don’t know if it’s what ST will propose. I asked if you could look at the report and tell us what you think it means about the 57x, 59x, 51x, 554, 512, and 513, and whether this report means ST will propose exactly this.

        My list of route details is about the interim situation after Link and Metro have restructured but ST Express hasn’t yet: what will be the transit options on the ground.

        I’ve made a separate list of the 15 questions we’re waiting on in the south and Issaquah corridors, and we’ve also discussed uncertainties in the north corridor. We’ve been waiting for the first proposal to see which way ST is leaning on these, but it didn’t come this spring, it didn’t come in June, and now ST is indirectly saying fall. So all these questions and uncertainties are swirling in our heads.

    6. “BELLEVUE TC (2 Line): Route 550 continues to Seattle, Bellevue Square. and south Bellevue Way every 15 minutes weekdays/Saturdays”

      Do you mean 550 service hours will remain the same or it is actually reduced to run every 15 minutes during the day? It currently runs every 10-15 minutes the on weekday. There is a good period of time it is coming every 10 minutes. In the morning peak period, Seattle-bound 10-minute headway lasts for 3 hours and Bellevue-bound also has 10-minute headway for roughly an hour, which are really helpful because that’s when most people are going to work.

      1. I meant keeping the current service level. I focus on off-peak because it covers most of the time and agencies/politicians tend to neglect it. Peak service takes care of itself.

  2. I saw a kinkishayro train testing on the 2 line. It had an updated display with a circular blue 2 on front and side display signs with South Bellevue listed as the destination. Nice to see they’ve updated from the scrolling.

    1. I’m hoping they improve the line identification on the Siemens trains’ headsigns as well, from the blank colored squares (green or blue, with no line number) that they currently have. At least put a white line number inside the square.

      1. They will. It just requires a physical modification to the signboard to be able to display the number.

  3. “the 2 Line will have two special night trains at 11 pm”
    Night trains at 11pm? What a joke.

      1. Run trains until midnight daily. This thing gets the ridership of a decent rapidride line. What rapidride bus just ends at 9:30?

    2. I struggled whether to call it evening, late evening, or night. I was afraid “evening” might sound too much like “early evening”. I settled on “night” because that seems to be the agencies’ trend. Metro has redefined “night owl” as starting at midnight instead of 2am, and I think it’s using “night” even for 10pm now.

    3. Not a lot of nightlife in Bellevue for local service. It all changes in about 6 months with the Seattle connection when it gets full 21 hour service.

    4. Once they start simulated service for the CRC then the 2 line will get the same level of service as the 1 line, from lynnwood to downtown Redmond (exclusive of judkins park and Mercer island of course). 5 am – 1 am Monday to Saturday, 6 am to midnight Sundays. This is coming soon.

  4. With regards to the I-line, the Urbanist doesn’t say exactly what construction is needed that involves acquiring property. Are there some stretches with just narrow sidewalks and pole-in-the-ground bus stops where they want to put in a proper bus shelter, and are businesses really up in arms about losing maybe 1-2 parking spaces in what’s probably an already oversized parking that that never fills up, to build such bus shelters?

    It also raises the question why the rest of the I-line can’t just go ahead without these four parcels. I’m guessing the answer lies in a bunch of bureaucracy and minutia around federal grant money, in which case, it’s another example of the federal government micromanaging transit.

    1. I don’t know if this will lead to the delay of I Line opening, but it is not like light rail or STRIDE. They should start running 160 at I Line service level whenever the date they planned to regardless all the roadway projects are finished or not.

  5. When there’s a right side bus/turn lane, and also a “No turn on red” sign, sometimes I’ll hop into the lane to turn right, then the light turns red, there’s a bus behind me, and by the time the light turns green there’s pedestrians crossing, forcing me to wait and forcing the bus to wait. Bad combo.

    1. In the case of Pike st and Bellevue/Summit (I forget which) there’s actually a bus priority signal, and when I was in the lane waiting to turn right a couple months ago, I saw the bus priority signal change while I still was not legally allowed to turn to get out of the bus’ way. 😳

      1. Yeah that happens all the time on Pike/Pine. That’s just one of the downsides of BAT lanes. I would have liked to see a transit mall or contraflow there but I imagine BAT lanes are much easier to implement politically. Westlake/Denny has a similar issue.

        NTOR makes it worse for sure but pedestrian volumes are so high on those intersections I’m not sure it would be a good idea to remove it. Personally I’d prefer to see NTOR removed citywide, I don’t like it when drivers inch into crosswalks, and I don’t trust them to consistently check for people on the sidewalk before swinging right.

    2. yes, some are concerned that NRTOR slows transit in BAT lanes.

      Check out the SDOT situation on NE 43rd Street at University Way NE. Westbound general purpose traffic must turn north or south to University Way NE; that traffic must wait for pedestrians; any buses behind the gp traffic are delayed. Seems like a good candidate for an all-walk cycle in the signal (Barnes Dance).

    3. Yes such setup works better if RTOR is permitted or the right-turn is channelized. Right-turn shares lanes with bus at signalized intersection won’t give bus much of guaranteed priority, which will only lead to less reliable travel time.
      If it even has a transit signal, it is more problematic. The traffic signal shouldn’t have any phase that only permits the passage of part of movements of a lane. This is just wrong, but there might be an exception for transit signal because general public cannot read transit signal.

  6. They’re tearing up the intersection at Fairview and Eastlake right now, and digging up hundreds of wooden sleepers in the process. I sure hope (though I have little hope) that the result will be conducive to someday extending the streetcar all the way to the U District along that corridor. Unlike the Westlake/SLU portion of the line, that area is actually a really good candidate for streetcar service, IMO.

    1. Streetcars on Eastlake? Brilliant idea!!
      But it’s not a good idea to connect with the SLUT which seems to be the second slowest mode of transit after the L8.

      1. The replacement Fairview street bridge was designed to potentially handle streetcar weight, if the streetcar network was ever expanded back to its former coverage through Eastlake into the U-District.

      2. @Nathan Dickey
        That’s awesome news! Planning for the future in our current infrastructure projects is one of the best things we can do.

      3. Why would an Eastlake streetcar not connect to the already existing streetcar that stops at the south end of Eastlake?

        The streetcar doesn’t have to be fast per se, if it could at least be frequent. It’s not the kind of thing you would ride end to end, it’s more for quick hops a few stops in a dense urban neighborhood (e.g., Westlake to Whole Foods), and if it’s not frequent, walking is going to be faster for those trips. It could be faster with some signal preemption, but that would also affect pedestrian traffic. Best solution IMO is an expansion (Culture connector and/or Eastlake extension) and an increase in frequency–it needs to run every 5-10 minutes.

      4. The Fairview bridge is for the concept of extending/upgrading the SLU streetcar to the U-District or Northgate. In Seattle’s 2014 Transit Master Plan, streetcars were recommended on Eastlake, Westlake-Fremont-Ballard, and Jackson-Rainier to Mt Baker. Murray downgraded these to BRT, and RapidRide J came out of that. The bridge is future-proofing in case the city wants to pursue the streetcar concept sometimes later. I doubt it, since it’s investing in RapidRide J right now.

      5. “it’s not a good idea to connect with the SLUT which seems to be the second slowest mode of transit after the L8”

        The extension would come with transit-lane upgrades and better signal priority so it wouldn’t crawl in the Denny Triangle and SLU. Many are skeptical it would really get acceptably fast (e.g., Westlake-UDistrict in 15-25 minutes). And since then, real transit-only lanes have been added to parts of Westlake Ave, so that changes the current situation somewhat. But do those just show that the Denny Triangle/SLU is a bottleneck that can ever get fast enough? Why are buses faster than the streetcar on the same street?

        Part of the Denny Triangle’s problem is the streetcar gets caught at a red traffic light every single block between Stewart Street and Denny Way. This is on top of the excessive stations every two blocks. Can Westlake Ave ever get robust signal priority? Or is it impossible with all the demands on the cross streets including other bus routes?

      6. During off peak hours, I can often walk the streetcar route way faster than the streetcar by running red lights when no cars are coming.

        This begs the question of could the lights be timed better to make the streetcar move better? But, the problem is, every signal phase has to be rather long to allow pedestrians time to cross the street, so I don’t see a way to shorten it without making pedestrians press beg buttons and endure long waits. Such a move would not be worth it, as walking is a travel mode we want to encourage, and far more people walk through South lake Union than ride the streetcar through it (walking includes people traveling east/west, not just north/south). Even the streetcar passengers themselves become pedestrians the moment they step out into the platform.

      7. It’s not just the streetcar that gets stuck waiting for lights in the Denny Triangle. The way Westlake cuts across the grid creates a lot of large off-angle intersections with long pedestrian crossing times. This isn’t a problem signal priority can fix. It’s bad for pedestrians who are out in the intersections a long time, almost as bad for bus riders and drivers who have to wait, and quite bad for cyclists — bike routes have to avoid the tracks on Westlake, excessive crossing/re-crossing of the tracks on Westlake, and the larger arterials that get the most signal time.

        The best way to improve this is to continue what was started with Westlake Park and Westlake Mall: remove as many blocks of Westlake, and as many of the associated intersections, as possible. What happens to the streetcar? I don’t really care. For streetcar fans, the Westlake terminal doesn’t really offer a good continuation down to 1st Ave, so diverting off of Westlake at some point might ultimately the best way to complete that project. For streetcar haters, obviously rip the whole thing up and put all the energy into making the 40 and 70 bus routes worthy of the neighborhoods they serve. As far as I can tell there’s no real reason for Westlake to exist inbound of 7th. Outbound of there (where it provides direct access to several buildings) it could be a smaller, simpler, more pedestrian-friendly street than it is today if the street grid were simplified and fewer people were trying to use it to go through.

      8. The extension would come with transit-lane upgrades and better signal priority so it wouldn’t crawl in the Denny Triangle and SLU.

        The problem is that transit-lane upgrades are extremely expensive with a streetcar. Consider the Metro 8 and the bus stop at Denny and Yale. While this is clearly not sufficient for the corridor it is still a huge improvement. Once the bus (finally) manages to slog its way past Fairview, it is smooth sailing to that bus stop. This was a very good fix and yet all it required was some paint and a new bus stop. It was cheap. In contrast if it was a streetcar it would require moving the tracks which would be extremely expensive. Spend time time mulling over possible changes along Broadway and you can see the same issue. It would be pretty easy to get rid of some parking here and there and add some BAT or bus lanes. The hard part is moving the train tracks.

        Or consider Jackson. The corridor should have BAT lanes at least as far east as Boren. But that would require moving the tracks. The buses could move to where the tracks are, except that would require adding buses with doors on both sides for all four routes that use corridor. Keep in mind some of the buses are trolleys, some aren’t; some are big buses, some aren’t. That is a lot of new buses that must be ordered, all to support a fairly short stretch. If the corridor was just buses it would be so much easier to fix. Either add BAT lanes (which are really cheap) or have center running buses but with platforms on the right (still fairly cheap). But making otherwise cheap and easy fixes becomes extremely expensive because there is rail.

        You really have to get everything right from the beginning with a tram and that is certainly not the case with either streetcar. Both are too short but there are other flaws. The button hook with the First Hill Streetcar is an obvious one but the South Lake Union Streetcar route is also flawed. Start with the obvious one: it doesn’t go to the south end of downtown. There are over a dozen buses (including two RapidRide buses) that approach downtown from the north. They all travel much further than the streetcar. But all of them go to the other end of downtown. Yes, I realize that there are plans to extend the streetcar south, but that is extremely expensive — not counting the additional service time. In contrast extending a similar bus wouldn’t cost anything (other than the additional service time). It would be done by now.

        There are other flaws. As Al pointed out, going up Westlake is a bad idea. You end up dealing with a huge number of traffic lights within a very short stretch. Notice that no other bus does that. This means that any improvement along the south end of the corridor only help the streetcar.

        Other transit does share the corridor though, north of Blanchard. But like Jackson or Broadway, the situation is made much worse because you have a mix of buses and a streetcar. Around Denny you have major congestion. Transit shares the lane with cars turning right and there is no easy fix — because of the streetcar. For example one solution would be to run transit in the middle lanes. There is room for bus stops. But again, that would be extremely expensive (since it is a tram).

        The same thing is true north of Denny. The city muddles along but again, the streetcar makes it more difficult to provide an ideal solution (center running).

        Meanwhile, the tram runs northbound on Terry while the C runs northbound on C and 40 run northbound on Westlake. This creates a more generic routing problem. There is a concept called “common market”. This means that multiple routes can provide the same functionality in certain areas. I can catch the 1, 2, 13 or RapidRide D if I’m trying to get from Uptown to Downtown. But if I want to get from Thomas & Westlake to Aloha & Fairview I have to make a choice. I either walk to the streetcar stop or walk to the bus stop for the RapidRide C. Both involve roughly the same amount of walking because both are close to each other and end up at about the same spot. But they serve different stops. Even the reverse is just as bad. That’s because the streetcar and bus stop use different stops (even though they are on the same street). This means someone going from Fred Hutch to anywhere the streetcar goes has to decide which stop to stand at. The C Line is a little bit more frequent but not so frequent that riders wouldn’t at least want the opportunity to take the streetcar when it arrives first. Yet they can’t easily do that. Again, fixing this is not cheap — and only because it is a streetcar.

        Then there is the section between Westlake and Fairview. The streetcar runs along the waterfront. This leaves no room for the bike lanes, so they run on the adjacent street (Valley). This leaves no room for BAT or bus lanes on Valley, the pathway of the C Line. Thus the C (which has a lot more riders than the streetcar) is considerably delayed heading towards West Seattle. Thus it is worse for transit riders and worse for bike riders. Speaking of which, the rails are also worse for cyclists. People have died because of them. It also makes it more difficult to add needed bike lanes in the area. Consider the various corridor. Westlake is a major transit corridor as is Fairview. The three streets in between Eastlake and Fairview (Minor, Pontius and Yale) are blocked off by the freeway to the north. Boren dead ends at Denny. There is only one good option for bike lanes between Eastlake and 9th: Terry. It connects right up to the waterfront in the north and could easily cross Denny — exclusively for bikes and pedestrians — and continue until Olive. Thus Terry could be an essential part of a bike network in South Lake Union, running north-south along the corridor and crossing Denny in a safe manner. Except Terry has the damn streetcar! Adding bike lanes is problematic, to say the least.

        There is no point in trying to shine up the turd that is the South Lake Union Streetcar. It should be replaced. This would be better for transit riders as well those who bike.

    2. Of course, there were streetcars there before 1940. Between 1940 and 1963, there was very frequent electric trolleybus service on routes 7 and 8 that served University Way NE. The overhead was taken down. Route 70 was electrified in about 1997, but they did not rewire the Ave.

    3. In addition to the streetcar, there was also quite a lot of industrial railroad track through there. There were some remnants still visible as late as 2012.

      The line that runs northeast from the Interbay yard ends soon after it goes under the Ballard Bridge, but if you know where to look you can see where it ran along Lake Union. There were still a couple of old wooden trestles along Westlake as of a few years ago.

      As best as I can tell, the furthest freight lines went down Eastlake was to approximately Newton street.

      Anyway, some of the old track and ties might be from all those industrial lines.

    4. I like the idea of the SLUT going up Westlake Ave and Fremont Ave to serve Fremont, Upper Fremont and the Woodland Park Zoo with a streetcar terminal on the southeast corner of the Zoo property enabling a well designed Freeway Flyer style transfer for the E to the streetcar terminal. This enables the streetcar to serve the neighborhoods bypassed by the E as it runs over the Aurora Bridge but with a strong streetcar-E connection at the zoo.

      1. “I like the idea of the SLUT going up Westlake Ave and Fremont Ave to serve Fremont, Upper Fremont and the Woodland Park Zoo”

        The streetcar would go north on Westlake to downtown Fremont, then turn west on Leary Way to Ballard. A large streetcar investment would connect the largest urban villages and corridors. Secondary streetcar lines like to the zoo would only come after that. And nobody official or public group has talked about reviving the zoo streetcar.

      2. That’s a better idea.

        I dislike sending the Eastlake route down Westlake Ave because Westlake is slower than Fairview and the east/west jog adds a few minutes. For the 70/SLUT combination scenario, even if frequency was increased to 5 minutes, it still wouldn’t make up for the time penalty of the Westlake route.

      3. Mike, that’s replacing the 40. I believe that was part of the streetcar plan. I’m suggesting the 40 stay as is and have the streetcar take this route as I proposed. Its as much if not more about the E line connection than serving families and visitors going to the zoo. As part of this plan, I’d rebuild Westlake Ave on the west side of the lake with shared 40 bus/streetcar transit-only lanes ideally in a center median, the right of way is there, just now its a 4 lane boulevard next to city owned parking lots.

      4. Delta, Poncho: The Westlake streetcar would follow the 40’s path. The Eastlake streetcar would follow the 70/J’s path. The 40 was created around the same time these streetcar corridors were identified. Before that there was no Westlake-Leary-Ballard route.

        Phinney Ave and the zoo aren’t large enough corridors for a streetcar, not unless we’re going to put streetcars everywhere like in the early 1900s. Phinney could upzone to give itself a more justifiable case for a streetcar or RapidRide.

    5. They considered a streetcar for Eastlake when they looked at the corridor. They made the right choice and went with buses instead. A streetcar would have been slower, more expensive and less flexible in the long run. It took forever just to build what they are building now. But this is just the first stage. Eventually it should go up Roosevelt and connect to the Roosevelt Station (by turning around north of 65th). This would provide a nice compliment to those who walk to the U-District Link station (if they are headed downtown) while still connecting to Link (for those who are trying to get from the North End to Eastlake or South Lake Union). There are a number of other, smaller issues like the amount of bus and BAT lanes. It is quite possible that we will want to fine tune things — make little tweaks to allow the buses to go faster. This is much easier with a bus than a streetcar.

  7. I can’t find a single trashcan on this new Montlake lid. Also it’s absolutely covered in goose poop🤮
    $1 billion wasted.

    1. For what they spent on it, there should at least be restrooms like at the waterfront park.

  8. Eastside probably will fund more eastside routes. SDOT will fund Seattle route, but who will fund 271?
    Something needs to be done during the summer intern season. I’ve never seen any routes that has capacity issue as regular as 271. On these days, if you get on from the stop across from Bellevue Square between 4 and 6pm, there is a good chance you will be asked to take next 271.

    1. They’re deleting the 271, so good luck getting anywhere. It’s being split into three or four different routes, and no longer taking the shortcut through Medina but instead wasting time in Bellevue Way and SR 520 freeway stops. No UW to Bellevue Square service either. Lake Hills and Eastgate commuters forced to waste time making a transfer. Oh right and no more Seattle to Eastgate office park / business park service. For a route that gets so “full” every evening, it’s shocking Metro is completely wrecking it and making it unusable.

      1. The only people who can use the proposed 270 are people transferring to Bellevue station. And it’s actually worse than the current 271. Watch it get stuck in even worse traffic, run late more often. Also lower frequency promised than the current 271.

      3. The 270 will serve more people. There are apartments all along north Bellevue Way. My relatives and I have lived in two of them, at NE 17th and NE 28th. It has a chance of being faster than the 271 because Bellevue Way is a larger and faster street than west 8th and 24th, and it would get on 520 at Bellevue Way (104th) rather than 84th. It’s not fair to give Medina a one-seat ride to the U-District when a much larger area doesn’t, nor does it make sense to take surface streets through low-density neighborhoods to the last possible freeway entrance before the bridge. The reason it does that is that’s what all Metro local routes did in the 1970s, and it has just remained that way via inertia and Medina squeaky wheels.

      4. You have to drive through the “slower” streets you mentioned first to even get to Bellevue Way. Most of the loss of time happens near the TC.

        Medina is much faster since there are few traffic signals and stops, so you can move at a constant 20-30 mph speed (light rail level). The bus is already full from UW or the TC itself, and cannot support more riders unless it has higher frequency and larger buses (which I doubt it will). 271 should remain a longer distance commuter express instead of trying to act as some high density Bellevue service (which should be a separate bus). This is what the 556 does and commuters have to struggle through an hour long “express” ride.

        Ideally you have a feeder pattern. Multiple routes that serve a variety of low ridership areas then merge into a higher frequency higher ridership line (such as 270). This provides a one seat ride to commuters while also still offering more options for the main portion of the ride.

        As for duration: Bellevue Way will have longer signal waits, and also goes further north to the top of the 520 curve, adding more miles to the route. The freeway stop will also eat time, so entering the freeway early doesn’t actually save time (hopefully they skip those stations that are already adequately served, and DEFINITELY do NOT loop back to hit the first freeway station).

      5. The 270 needs to stay on Bellevue Way until NE 4 ST, with a stop AT Bellevue Square (NE 6 ST), rather than make the turn at 8th and require a much longer walk and crossing at a large intersection to get to the actual entrances of where people are going.

    2. Really they should be using articulated buses for more 271 runs. It has a serious capacity issue and instead Metro looked at it and decided to reduce frequency and split the route. 👏

      1. ELC Route 270 will have 15/15 headway; current route 271 has 10/15 and is supplemented by Route 556. (Peak/midday).

      2. “ELC Route 270 will have 15/15 headway; current route 271 has 10/15 and is supplemented by Route 556. (Peak/midday).”

        If that 15/15 headway is run 100% by 60-ft artic model, then I think it is probably gonna be okay.
        Another thing that is delaying 271 U-District-bound on these days is the intersection of Lake Hill Connector at SE 8th. There is no proposed transit improvement at that intersection as part of K Line project. So this intersection probably continues haunting 220 and then K Line in the foreseeable future

      4. The big annoyance of the 270 is that the proposed 15/15 minute headway happens weekday daytime hours only. Evenings and weekends, the bus will run every 30-60 minutes, essentially unchanged from the current 271, even though it’s a shorter route and covers only the section of the 271 that gets the highest ridership.

      5. The only thing delaying the 271 all day is any city street in Downtown Bellevue. Bellevue Way will be one of those delay areas. It may serve more people but it will kill ridership because it no longer efficiently takes people anywhere. Congrats to anyone living on Bellevue Way, but anyone trying to get to work (Seattle/Eastgate) or school (UW/Bellevue College) outside of there is screwed. People trying to connect from light rail may have to wait 5-10 extra minutes slugging through the extra stops and traffic lights.

        The worst delays are between Bellevue Square and Bellevue Transit Center, so taking Bellevue Way does not avoid anything. The 556 is also being deleted, which makes no sense to me either.

        I don’t recall Lake Hills Connector causing any issues outside of peak hours. But that’s why we should supplement 271 (truncated to Eastgate) with 270, instead of getting rid of it.

      6. The Bellevue-Eastgate section of the 271 will still run, just under another route number (I forgot which). Hopefully, it will be more reliable by not being subject to traffic delays on downtown Bellevue like you just mentioned.

      7. @asdf2

        Yeah that’s annoying and KCM probably thinks fewer people will be taking 270 because they will take 2 Line, which nobody can be certain at this point. I think thing could go either way.

        Also, if there is some additional demand along Bellevue Way as Mike mentioned, I doubt they will be served well in the morning as Bellevue-bound 270 will be packed before entering SR 520.
        ST’s plan may not echo with KCM’s, but I think in this case if there will be 556 off-peak direction running between Bellevue and U-District, it will really help 270 during peak period.

      8. @Mike

        I was referring to the one that is south of Wilburton Hill Park. During afternoon peak, Lake Hill Connector westbound (or northbound) experience signal delay at the intersection. westbound isn’t really the peak direction during PM. I think what happens is that the signal there maximize green time for southbound Lake Hill Connector and eastbound SE 8th which minimize all other phases.

        There might be other bottlenecks along the way I don’t notice. Regardless, the reality is U-District 271 often arrives at Bellevue TC in bunches during PM peak. I hope 270 won’t interline with 220 so there is a smaller chance for 270 to be delayed. Otherwise, what’s the point of splitting 271 (Eastgate-U-District pattern) into 270 and 220.

      9. “what’s the point of splitting 271 (Eastgate-U-District pattern) into 270 and 220.”

        To prepare for the future splitting of RapidRide B, and RapidRide K. The B has a long-term plan to split into a north-south line and an east-west line. The latter would start at Crossroads, go west on NE 8th Street to Bellevue TC and Bellevue Way, then north on Bellevue Way to 520 and the U-District. The K is to replace the 250 from Totem Lake to Bellevue TC, and the 220 to Eastgate. Both of those are severed from the Issaquah tail of the 271, which is being given to a new route 203 next month to Newport Way-Factoria-South Bellevue station.

        This is partly to prebuild the RapidRide corridors and generate ridership patterns on them, so that when RapidRide starts the travel patterns will already be there. It did that in the RapidRide I corridor in a South King County restructure in the mid/late 2010s. This has another advantage for skeptics, in that if they turn out to be unpopular and little-used, Metro can simply reroute them again before spending on paint and concrete.

      10. Yeah it makes sense that they would split 271 west of Eastgate into 270 and 220 in preparation for future B Line and K Line, but if 270 will keep interlining with 220 for the next 5 years, what’s the point of splitting it now.

      11. The 220 does not run to the Eastgate office parks, like how select 271 runs do today in the morning.

        At least if they interline, that is good enough for me. Once the K Line is open, I assume the best transfer is to Route 255.

      12. note UWBus comment. Both routes 271 and 217 are being deleted; they provide service to office parks on SE Eastgate Way east of the park-and-ride.

    3. “Eastside probably will fund more eastside routes. ”

      Why didn’t they start in 2015 when the Metro measure failed and Seattle set up its own TBD? What makes you think they’ll start now?

      1. STM expires at the end of 2026; I am hoping for a King County transit measure in 2026 and I suspect that one would pass. Transit seems more popular now than ever before, especially with Link connecting across to the eastside

      2. King County has dithered on a Metro Connects levy since 2016. It was going to do it in 2020 but covid hit and the county wanted the Harborview expansion levy to be alone on the ballot.

        Now it’s talking about a countywide levy to replace Seattle’s levy and do the same for the rest of the county and fund Metro Connects. If Seattle’s levy ends in 2026 and the vote is November 2026, that creates a several-month gap until levy spending can ramp up and drivers can be hired (that’s what happened with Seattle’s), and if it fails then there will be no county or Seattle levy and we’d have at least a year with reductions in Seattle.

        Whether a countywide Metro levy would pass is a 50/50 question.

      3. Dow led the region to ask for ST3 authorization before the Metro local option. The latter had been the legislative ask in 2009-14, inclusive. today, ST3 is a mess. South King County has a huge local service need.

  9. WSDOT sure seems happy about the Airo trainsets leaving the factory. But if testing is going to take a full year, that means the new trains won’t be in service until after World Cup 2026. I see that as a major disappointment.

    1. It’s crazy the testing is going to take that long, since these are supposedly just warmed over versions of the stuff the Northeast Corridor and Brightline Florida already has.

      1. The FRA ‘testing’ regimen taking as long as it does is the result of several poison pill legislative additions that anti-transit people in congress slid in over the years. There’s no need for a full year of testing, especially for something that, as you said, is a variant of an already-approved product, but it’s just another way that regulations quietly make transit less appealing and push car ownership.

  10. I was up at Shoreline South/148th Station today and Phase II construction on the 148th Street Non-Motorized Bridge has started. All the trees in the construction zone on the west side of I-5 have been removed. This is very good news as this ped bridge will be a major addition to the Light Rail Station.

    However, they have also removed most trees to the south of where the west landing of the bridge will be. I was surprised by the extent of this.

    Is such a large clear area required for ped bridge construction staging? Or were these trees removed in advance of WSDOT’s Thornton Creek salmon passage program?

    The start of that project shouldn’t be too far off, but I haven’t seen a firm date yet.

      1. @Mike Orr,

        It is not salmon vs trees. Trees will need to be removed during construction, but at least some will be replanted later. WSDOT and Shoreline are coordinating the replanting schedule.

        It should also be noted that the WSDOT fish passage project is a massive undertaking. 2000 ft of dual 6 ft culvert will be deactivated, and Thornton Creek will be daylighted to flow in a new stream bed along the west side of the freeway (roughly from 148th to just south of 145th). And this point it will pass under I-5 and exit in a reconfigured stream bed on the east side of I-5.

        This routing will require underpassages of two on/off ramps for 145th St, and a complete new undercrossing of I-5. And the west side of I-5 is mainly a sloped bank, so lots of earth will need to be moved.

        The I-5 undercrossing will be particularly disruptive as it will require lane shifts during construction and probably the long term closure of the HOV lanes (this is how they are doing it on I-90 for the Sunset Creek project).

        The good thing is that Link will be mainly unaffected by WSDOT fish passage construction, and the buses that used the HOV lanes through the project area have been mainly discontinued. So not much impact to transit.

        There is also another fish passage project at McAleer Creek, but that project shouldn’t start for at least a few more years.

        So lots of traffic and congestion on I-5 over the next five or six years. And probably a long term closure of the HOV lanes. Glad we have Link.

  11. Regarding the urbanist article, is condemning property the same thing as taking it via eminent domain?

  12. Last night, I was returning from a flight about 9 pm. When I got to the SeaTac Link platform, I noticed almost as many riders headed south to Angle Lake as were headed north. Some appeared to be airport employees. I also noticed how awful the arrivals congestion is. That made me wonder: What’s behind the surge of SeaTac to Angle Lake riders? I don’t remember that many boarding that way previously. Also, are they paying fares to ride one station, or are they confident that they can ride without being fare checked?

    I also noticed more “security” (green uniforms) on the trains than normal — one team getting off Link at SeaTac and another team boarding at Othello. They were not fare checking. Is there a newer interest on more security? Perhaps in the evenings?

    1. Maybe they have figured out it’s quicker to get picked up by friends and family (or an Uber) to go one stop south. Could make sense, especially if your destination is south of SeaTac.

    2. “What’s behind the surge of SeaTac to Angle Lake riders? ”
      Maybe you happened to ride link during airport shift change or maybe finally everybody finds out it’s a lot cheaper to get Uber/Lyft there.?

      “I also noticed more “security” (green uniforms) on the trains than normal”
      I’ve seen that much of security present since last year even on 2 Line.

  13. RE the “Freight Infrastructure” Item:

    It’s a cute article! However,
    I take issue calling cargo bikes “freight infrastructure”. Homeless shopping carts or air traveler rolling bags or Door Dash delivery cars could then be called “freight infrastructure” too.

    The article seems to attribute the term to carrying food donations — or food that isn’t meant for that traveler. Volunteerism is admirable and worthy of being highlighted — but it’s no more “freight” than a Door Dash or Amazon fresh driver. If a bicycle lane is considered a freight facility, so is every public street in Seattle that’s used to deliver Amazon or USPS package vans.

    I don’t consider transporting personal or donated items nor lightweight delivery items significant tas “freight infrastructure” even though they need to be accommodated. It’s a semantics thing.

    Freight movement planning should focus on the use of heavier vehicles carrying tons of weight. There are important and unique challenges to transportation maintenance, maneuvering and safety. The topic shouldn’t be diluted by local delivery systems no matter if they are for-profit or for-charity.

    1. > If a bicycle lane is considered a freight facility, so is every public street in Seattle that’s used to deliver Amazon or USPS package vans.

      Yes, public (and private!) streets for package deliveries are considered freight infrastructure.

      >It’s a semantics thing.

      OK, then, you might want to get used including “lightweight delivery items” in your definition of “Freight” as opposed to three-axle trucks and trailers. It’s basically the same concept as the “last mile” in mass transit planning. UW’s Urban Freight Lab has a lot to say the subject.

      We’re not really building any new “heavy” freight infrastructure. The roads are as wide as they’re going to get. The ports are about as big as they’re going to get. We’re not building new freight railways. The only thing the private sector is building are new distribution centers, where freight is transloaded from the Big Rigs to smaller delivery vehicles that can navigate busy city streets.

      > Freight movement planning should focus on the use of heavier vehicles carrying tons of weight.

      This is equivalent to saying “mass transit movement should focus on the use of heavier vehicles carrying tons of passengers”. Which some people might agree with, but it misses the critical function of the topic.

      1. “The roads are as wide as they’re going to get. ”

        Freight issues often involve maintenance (like warping pavement or rail track siding and signals), safety (sight lines and stopping distances, for example) and maneuverability (like turning radii) more than lane capacity. Thinking that it’s mainly about lane capacity is pretty naive.

      2. How many box trucks could carry the “freight” moved by all those bicyclists? 1? Maybe 2?

        If even a bicyclist drive to the event, the environmental benefit and vehicle reduction benefit could have actually been negative!

      3. I’m not saying all freight has to be moved via bike lanes, I’m saying the distance between the distribution center and the recipient has to be covered somehow, and perhaps it’s not all that stupid to consider non-box-truck movement as a reasonable option.

        The same way that buses and trains don’t often move people to and from their actual destinations – passenger movement needs pathways after the stations, freight movement needs pathways after the distribution center/store.

    2. If Seattle is serious about bike network’s role in commute and freight movements, they need to be more serious about bike traffic analysis and build certain bike lanes wider with extra width for passing. I believe currently most of the traffic engineering works associated with bike lane projects are more about its impact to existing streets rather than focusing the its own demand and capacity.

      A lot of bike lanes and multi-use trails were planned and built with a goal improve connectivity and coverage. I’ve seen some well-utilized bike lane having the same typical section as some poorly-used bike lanes. In foreseeable future, there might be bike congestion somewhere which requires widening or even grade separation to mitigate all sorts of traffic problem the city has with vehicular traffic.

  14. I see that “Stride open house” link has more rendering on the proposed inline stations than they had before.

    For Brickyard station, I still couldn’t find any rendering that shows the ped crossing connecting each side of the platform. The rendering shows a symmetric side platform and continuous concrete barrier separating northbound and southbound without any at-grade crosswalk. However, the layout from project’s RFP (https://ftp.wsdot.wa.gov/contracts/9727-BrickyardToSR527ImprovementProject/ConformedRFP/04_Appendices/M/M1/M1_09_Pavement_Marking_Plans.pdf, which may or may not be the latest design) shows that Brickyard station platform will be staggered. Southbound platform will be south of the ped bridge and northbound station will be north of the the ped bridge, but even the pavement parking plan doesn’t show any crosswalk striping. Will there be a ped underpass beneath the inline station?

    By looking at the rendering of NE 85th station and compare that with latest Google Earth imagery, it looks like the construction has made good progress. Future second levels of NE 85th for local bus and ETL access has taken shape. Westbound NE 85th has temporarily shift to that second level while they are excavate the future ground level that connects to general-purpose ramps. This is probably will be the first piece completed along S2 Line.

  15. The 1 Line is a great way for many to avoid I-5 traffic super congestion during Revive I-5…

    …except when the downtown tunnel is shut down for East Link testing Saturday, August 9.

    1. We need to start protesting this shit. 100,000 people rely on this system daily, they can suck it up and test at night.

    2. I thought so until the past Monday Link was having signal issue again and every northbound train was running 15-20 minutes behind schedule.

    3. “100,000 people rely on this system daily”

      Is it really that many now? That’s 1/8 of Seattle’s population. While some riders are suburban, it shows the magnitude.

      In the 1990s I remember reading that BART got 600,000. That was more than Seattle’s entire population then. It was amazing to me to think of a Seattle-sized population taking BART every weekday, and I hoped we’d someday have something like that.

      1. Trips are not people. Mist people who ride Link or BART board a train at least twice a day.

        So 100K boardings on Link are coming from 50K population roughly.

        Keep in mind too that the 1 Line serves Shoreline, Montlake Terrace, Tukwila, SeaTac and Lynnwood in addition to Seattle — and many other cities have residents that use it. It’s also carrying UW college students and visitors from and to the airport.

        When I flew last week, I chatted with a visitor seated next to me that stayed in Downtown Seattle. He shared an Uber with a few friends but said it was $80! They got some traffic congestion. He said he’ll use Link at $3 next time.

      2. When someone says “100,000 people rely on this system daily”, I would interpret as population than ridership counts as well.

        I doubt BART ever got 600k. Ridership in the 1990s never top 300k. This is basically a regional rail system with expensive fare. This kind of system won’t general metro level ridership number because people don’t casually travel by BART.

      3. Yeah, unfortunately it isn’t that many people. Transit ridership peaked at about 650,000 riders a day before the pandemic. In 2016, we had about 600,000 riders. Yet modal share for transit was only about 10%.

        Note: The modal share numbers are from census data that is referenced on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share). The ridership numbers are from Apta. About 2/3 of the ridership was from Metro. Various other agencies (and modes) contributed the rest. Link now has a higher portion of the ridership but overall ridership is down.

        Apta numbers are for “unlinked trips”. This means that if you take a bus and then a train it counts as two trips. Modal share is a better measure of the overall transit system but the modal share numbers are rough. They aren’t all taken at the right time and since different countries do the polling it is quite likely that they use different methodologies.

      4. Just for clarity, it’s important to understand that these two similar sentences are saying different things:

        1. “100,000 people rely on this system daily”

        2. “The Line reliably carries 100,000 people daily”

        It’s easy to post comments that confuse the terms. I try to use “boardings” or “riders” but not “people” when looking at the data — but it’s easy to pick the wrong term.

    4. Once again, Sound Transit shows that Link is not a reliable mode of transportation, because they keep shutting it down.

      1. Exactly! And Sound Transit doesn’t count planned disruptions in their reliability statistics, so they have no organizational motivation to minimize these outages.

        If I had a car that wouldn’t work for 10 days each year, I would replace it, regardless if I knew those days in advance.

        Transit planners expect Seattleites to ditch their cars for transit, but won’t be honest about its actual reliability. Actual reliability looks like 1-2 outages per year MAXIMUM. If Link isn’t up to that task, we shouldn’t be truncating bus routes to depend on it.

    5. Sound Transit must have read your comments because the August 9th Link closure is postponed.

      “The work schedule for August 9, 2025, has been paused due to the on going Revive I-5 work and other events taking place in the area. Work will be rescheduled at a later date; updates will follow when work is rescheduled.”

  16. Saw the August 8 date at the top of the round-up. Isn’t the election Tuesday, August 5? That’s what my voters guide says.

    1. Wow, that’s a bad typo on my part. Thanks for pointing it out. The election is definitely on Tuesday, August 5. Corrected.

  17. Link was unusually busy today at 2:30pm at Westlake. Northbound took longer to unload/load than usual. A few people had suitcases but they weren’t going to the airport; they were going the other direction. The train itself wasn’t fuller than usual midday though: standing room only but not packed.

  18. Driverless metro is increasingly common around the world, including in countries you wouldn’t expect. It’s not expensive nor complicated: the train goes in a straight line. Remote controls are not tough to implement and trains can still have an attendant to override remote controls in the event of an emergency.

    Link needs to move towards driverless. The operators in this region clearly do not value timeliness, and that is seen in the bus system, where buses regularly run 10-20 minutes late (and occasionally 30+ minutes) even without traffic. Driverless trains will at least help Link riders make their transfers on time in one direction.

    1. Even just now, a 101 bus running 34 minutes late heading northbound. Another 101 that is 9 minutes late behind it.

      Why do they need to run late? Check OneBusAway any time of day, and all you see is purple.

      People won’t ride transit if they have to be stranded for 10+ minutes for a bus. Why not just get a car and drive and get places on time? Some may be lucky that they can check arrival time before starting their walk to the bus stop, but this fails for transfers or anyone who lives/works near the first bus stops.

      The situation yesterday was an abomination. I get the Revive I-5 situation is causing traffic, but why is one bus running 50 mins late while others are only running 10 mins late?

      1. Has south Seattle and Tukwila traffic somehow got worse lately?
        I’ve noticed that Route 124 often ran behind schedule last week. It usually came to Downtown on time in the afternoon.

      2. Airport Way traffic lanes have been reduced north of Georgetown for a protected bicycle lane) and the street is a traffic reliever for I-5.

    2. If the bus is high frequency, this is not a huge problem. It is absolute torture if you ride a peak hour local bus such as the 102 or 111, which experiences some of the worst delays. Yesterday, people were stranded for nearly an hour waiting for the 102. This same driver is always late no matter what. It is a ritual to be 20 minutes late for this person.

    3. We’ve been telling ST that since at least 2023, and again in 2024 (pointing out the new automated Honolulu line), and in 2025.

      In 2016 in the run-up to ST3, we urged ST to consider automation, and the board mused that it would look into it for Ballard and future lines, but then we never heard anything more.

      Automated lines are now the default standard around the world,. An automated line would both cost less and run much more frequently — every 2-5 minutes like the Vancouver Skytrain, as noted in the articles. The cost savings comes from smaller underground stations and shorter trains, which make the tunnels smaller. If it’s ultra-frequent you don’t need large 4-car trains and large stations. And you don’t have the cost of drivers, which is a significant issue in scaling up to higher frequency.

      But ST hasn’t been interested, at least not yet. Maybe in the future when different people get onto the board and public attitudes continue to evolve, ST will be more open to it then. Delaying the Ballard line has a silver lining, because it allows more time for cooler heads to prevail on automation and on the necessity of short line-to-line transfers downtown.

      1. Hopefully ST looks into this. Higher frequency is absolutely necessary and will reduce the stress from the trips. Currently I have to wait up to 8-10 mins to make a transfer if I get unlucky. And for low frequency bus transfers, I’m sometimes forced to arrive 10 mins early because I can’t guarantee the next train will make it on time for the transfer. Buses don’t bother to wait even if the train is just a minute late. If the train arrives every 2 minutes in downtown, and 4-5 minutes elsewhere, that’d be amazing.

      2. I think it is probably important to break to ST that there are different levels of automation they can choose from if they didn’t already know.
        It is not just train without driver is considered automated. Vancouver SkyTrain is the top tier in the train automation hierarchy, which can operate without staff onboard like an elevator. However, if the cost of having such level of automation doesn’t make sense to Sound Transit and the goal is simply to push the frequency as high as 2 minutes per train, a CBTC signal upgrade can do it, too.

        Before the original version of CBTC was developed, the 1960-1970s metro system like BART, MARTA, and WMATA are all automated depending how you define it. The system took care of the speed, acceleration, and deceleration automatically. The train operator only open/close doors at station and interfere the operation during emergency or other special circumstances although the special circumstance probably occurred very often. They were designed to run 25-30 trains per hour per direction, but the demand is never quite there.

      3. ST’s long-term intention is to run the Tacoma-Ballard line every 6 minutes all day if I’m interpreting its plans right. The other two lines will each run every 8 minutes peak, 10 minutes off-peak, for a combined 4 minutes peak, 8 minutes off-peak betwen Intl Dist and 128th/Mariner until 10pm (when they may revert to 15 minutes on each line). That means all Lynnwood-SeaTac/Tacoma transfers will be maximum 5 minutes, as will all Lynnwood-Ballard transfers. The remaining tails with up to 10-minute transfers are Eastside, West Seattle, and Everett north of 128th.

        And ST could later increase the frequency of the West Seattle-Everett and Redmond-Mariner lines to eliminate that 10-minute worst-case scenario. Under existing plans DSTT1’s peak frequency will be 4 minutes (15 trains per hour). ST says it can go up to 3 minutes without needing capital improvements (20 trains per hour). If it adds two runs each to both lines, that’s… my math is failing… 60 / (15 + 2) = 3.5, does that mean 3.5 minute frequency on each line?

      4. “Under existing plans DSTT1’s peak frequency will be 4 minutes (15 trains per hour).”

        I guess this is the combined frequency of two lines at DSTT1? If that’s the case, going up to 3 minutes frequency at DSTT1 means running 20 train per hour or 10 trains per hour per line. So each line will have 6 minutes frequency, right?

    4. I wholeheartedly agree with you.

      It’s not like Seattle doesn’t already have automated trains. They have run under SeaTac terminals for decades. And Vancouver’s has been running for decades just 120 miles away.

      I attribute this situation as symptomatic of a larger problem: elected officials thinking that rail transit is something to plan (inspire) and to construct (inspire) rather than operate (serve). There are countless examples where this has happened in the design of ST Link. From the lack of escalators (especially down escalators) and redundant elevators to the deafening silence about automation to building lines that don’t make transit faster than today’s buses to locating stations in awkward places to sizing parking garages per an arbitrary number listed in a referendum, ST puts out plans and images like a start-up corporation driven by a hopeful future — complete with mitigations like deep tunnels to keep from offending anyone that doesn’t intend to ride.

      The 2026 Link system will more fully shift its focus fully the system from planning and construction to daily operation. The only people excited about the next extensions will be only those living in or daily visiting the corridor being built, except for the SLU and Seattle Center portion of Ballard Link. Goodbye renderings; hello reality. Plus it’s going to be about a decade before any of those new extensions will be opening anyway (only West Seattle is promised earlier and it’s expanded tunneling and tall bridge building in addition to its huge budget gap will push its completion way past 2032).

      I do believe that automation is a matter of when rather than if for trains. Maybe a few years of constant service disruptions, riders complaining about station access and plateauing ridership once opened will teach ST some valuable lessons that they need to learn the nuances about what’s actually important to running a system — so when automation conversion planning and construction starts, they’ll fix the other problems that only become apparent with daily operations.

      1. ST does focus too much on expansion and not enough on operations, but I think that’s not the only reason this is happening.

        The reason the down escalators were deleted at some stations was to save money and keep the project within a desired budget. ST thought it was being fiscally responsible there and reining in cost overruns like people keep hounding it to. It didn’t do it because it favors expansion and is thinking only of ribbon-cuttings, because it doesn’t affect overall expansion or timelines at all whether a station has down escalators or not. So it could keep them in without jeopordizing its precious ribbon-cuttings. What it does affect is the cost of the project, which it has to explain to stakeholders, and gets it slightly closer to the debt ceiling. Obviously a down escalator has a major impact on passengers and how many trips mobility-challenged passengers can do in a day [1], but ST thinks that’s insignificant (or seems to think so, or doesn’t know about it), so it doesn’t affect ST’s decisions.

        [1] Because they have to use the elevators since they can’t use the stairs, thus making the elevator lines longer and increasing wear and tear on the elevators.

      2. I totally agree

        ST is focusing on expanding light rail service that ends up not really being much faster than taking the bus.

        The goal should be to improve what they have already. A higher upfront investment to improve operations and efficiency will save money in the long run and allow for even quicker expansion.

      3. King County Metro also needs to rethink about how to offer more service to more places.

        High density/high frequency lines can easily be served all day, but with each bus taking a different deviation (alternating) to medium-lower density communities and other popular destinations. These complement the many buses that won’t take any deviations at all. Once the deviation is served, the bus can return to the main corridor and continue to serve areas along the way.

        This allows for more one seat sides but also high frequency travel along a popular corridor. It also prevents people from having to sit through every stop and just go directly to where they need to go.

        So rather than having local bus shuttles feed into a commuter route (such as ST express), it should just continue as that commuter route. Obviously delays are the main concern of this, but ideally there would be enough runs that frequency saves the day. Plus the regular non-deviating buses can also try to fill in these gaps… Similar to King County rapid rides new technique to reduce bus bunching by timing by headway rather than an exact schedule.

      4. High density/high frequency lines can easily be served all day, but with each bus taking a different deviation (alternating) to medium-lower density communities and other popular destinations.

        That pattern has been around a really long time. There are various routes that branch. For example the 10/12. They have a central core that is frequent and then each branch has less frequent service. There are similar combinations but sometimes one branch just ends. For example the 3 sometimes goes to Madrona but often it just ends at 23rd (next to Garfield High).

        I think you see this less in with Metro express routes mainly because Metro doesn’t run many express routes anymore. A lot of them have just gone away. Some of these have been replaced with Link, others were suspended because of COVID and just never came back. ST now runs a higher proportion of the express service and they do this sort of thing as well. The 590 runs from Downtown Tacoma to Downtown Seattle. But there are also versions that just run from the Tacoma Dome to Downtown Seattle. The 594 can be considered an extension to Lakewood. The 595 is a branch to Gig Harbor.

        Branching (or extending) in this manner is a good technique. But there are often trade-offs. For example Renton has the 101 and 102. They serve different parts of Renton before running express to Downtown Seattle. The 101 runs every fifteen minutes midday. The 102 only runs during peak (when the two buses combine for very frequent service). It provides a nice one-seat ride from Fairwood to downtown. It would be nice to run the 102 all day. But this costs a lot of money. So instead, Metro runs the 148 from Fairwood to the heart of Renton. Riders heading to Seattle can transfer to the 101. It is a hassle for those who have to transfer, but Metro can run the 148 more often. These are just some of the trade-offs.

      5. ST is focusing on expanding light rail service that ends up not really being much faster than taking the bus.

        The goal should be to improve what they have already.

        I agree. There is a lot to be said for pausing at Lynnwood, Federal Way and Redmond. From a regional mass transit standpoint, it won’t get much better than that. Lynnwood and Federal Way are both well outside the urban core. They both have excellent connections to the freeway via HOV-only ramps. This allows great flexibility with the buses. They can serve the stations and layover or they can keep going on the freeway. Any expansion north or south will get you diminishing returns.

        The same is true for East Link. Downtown Redmond is pretty much the end of the road. It is easy to imagine extensions, but they become awkward and not very rewarding. There really shouldn’t be any new rail outside of Seattle once Federal Way Link opens and East Link trains start running across the lake. It just isn’t worth it. The focus should be on operations as well as improving bus infrastructure. For example, folks have argued whether it is worth it to have the 512 serve Ash Way. This would not be an issue if they simply completed the HOV ramps from the north (which would allow buses to reach the park-and-ride without leaving the HOV lanes). It would save a considerable amount of time for those trying to get from Everett to Lynnwood while also saving a lot of service time. There are dozens of similar investments that can be made (some of which are a lot more expensive). These don’t require “BRT”, either. No special buses, just buses running faster.

        Since Seattle has a lot more density and Link doesn’t cover much of the city, there are worthy mass transit projects. But West Seattle Link isn’t one of them. Ballard Link is a worthy project but it is very hard to argue it should be the next thing we build (or even next after West Seattle). It adds very little from a network standpoint, simply because of the geography. With poor station placement in Ballard and South Lake Union, it goes from a worthy project to a dubious one. Given the huge need for better right-of-way around the city, it is hard to see this as a priority.

        For example, consider the Metro 8. It has some of the highest ridership per service hour of any route even though it is very slow. This should make it a major candidate for Link. But it isn’t. There will be a few stations along the way, but they won’t come close to the functionality of this comically late bus. Maybe instead of hoping that ST builds the right trains through the city, they should focus on making the buses and trains run faster and smoother. The 8 is not alone. There are dozens of places throughout the city where right-of-way should be added. Nor is Link without its flaws. Maybe its time that ST bury the lines in Rainier Valley. This would cost about a billion dollars and yet the trains would be both faster and more frequent — providing more value than an extension to those who ride from the south. This in turn would set the stage for automating the lines (which would both increase capacity as well as frequency).

        For a very long time the board has been obsessed with quantity over quality. It is time they do the reverse. Make what we have a lot better.

  19. According to the ORCA Card website, the ORCA LIFT fare on the King County water taxis will drop to $1 on September 1 (from $4.50 on the Vashon water taxi and $3.75 on the West Seattle water taxi).

    Oddly, the RRFP fares will remain at $3 for the Vashon water taxi and $2.50 for West Seattle. The regular ORCA fares will rise to $6 on the Vashon water taxi (from $5.75) and $5.50 on the West Seattle water taxi (from $5).

    The fare for King County Metro buses will rise to $3 (from $2.75), matching Link Light Rail and ST Express fares, and the amount covered by the Regional Day Pass. The ORCA website points out that $2.75 monthly passes will no longer be available. Those whose employers only covered $2.75 can likely look forward to no longer paying 25 cents out of e-purse every time they board the light rail or ST Express.

    Kitsap County Fast Ferries will withdraw from the Puget Pass and ORCA transfers on October 1, while raising its regular fare to $13 (from $12) and reduced fares to $6.50 (from $6) westbound. Eastbound fares will remain $2 regular and $1 reduced, but without transfer value being honored from other services.

    ORCA LIFT cardholders will continue to be incentivized to ride the fast ferries westbound, since Washington State Ferries still does not have ORCA LIFT fares. It is going to take a mandate from the Legislature, probably tying the WSF ORCA LIFT fares to the RRFP fares, to remove that perverse incentive, and give WSF through the next fare increase cycle to set fares appropriately.

    Within the Puget Pass family, ORCA LIFT cardholders will end up with only one service charging something other than $1: the monorail (charging $2).

    1. “Those whose employers only covered $2.75 can likely look forward to no longer paying 25 cents out of e-purse every time they board the light rail or ST Express.”

      I thought employer passes covered all fare levels. Doesn’t the U-Pass do that?

      1. No, the business passport program allows businesses to select a base fare to cover, with additional fare needing to be covered by e-purse. I assume the wealthier businesses choose the maximum fare, though.

  20. “Sound Transit has hired Jacobs to complete “Phase I” engineering design for the West Seattle Link Extension (Mass Transit Magazine). Will they be able to cut $3B off the estimated $7B price tag?”

    Answer: NO

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