CityNerd looks at South Lake Union, its walkability and bicycle lanes, the notoriously unreliable route 8, the wide stroads, and Big Tech’s hidden motives for “colonizing” downtown areas.
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This is an open thread.
Still no countdown clock to the opening of FWLE? What gives?
The opening of FWLE will be the biggest thing to happen in local transit since the opening of DRLE, and probably since the opening of LLE. FWLE will be a huge improvement in transit for the people of south county. Finally they will be connected to the LR system in a truly meaningful way.
Can’t wait to try it out.
I think you are one of the few people who enjoys the countdown clock. No one who writes for the blog seems to care about them. The lack of a countdown clock for Federal Way Link is a general reflection of this disinterest in countdown clocks, not a reflection of Federal Way Link. That being said, we will probably add one at some point.
probably because it isn’t a push area like East or an urbanism elitism area in Seattle
The old editorial staff who made the fancy clocks aren’t around anymore, and we don’t know how they did them. I don’t see the point in them, and I wonder why Lazarus is so obsessed about it. With Lynnwood Link and the 2LSL, somebody (Sam?) eventually made clock links to a clock-making site, and we put the links in the weekly roundup. For me, I just have an image in my head of four months to December (Federal Way), and four more to April (the full 2 Line); I don’t need the exact date or the minutes to it. There will be plenty of publicity a few weeks ahead when people make their actual opening-day plans.
@Mike Orr,
“ The old editorial staff who made the fancy clocks aren’t around anymore, and we don’t know how they did them.”
You guys have the old clocks. Just resurrect one of them and change the date. It should be pretty straightforward.
“I don’t see the point in them, and I wonder why Lazarus is so obsessed about it.”
The opening of FWLE will be the biggest thing to happen in regional transit this year. Ya, DRLE was great, and really improved the ELSL, but FWLE should blow that out of the water.
I get that there are a lot of bus fans around here that would rather not deal with Link and the changes it brings (forces?) on Metro, but just ignoring FWLE won’t make it go away. It’s coming, and coming soon.
There are precious few real improvements in regional transit. We should celebrate them whenever we can.
Mike wrote:
“I don’t see the point in them, and I wonder why Lazarus is so obsessed about it.”
Lazarus wrote:
The opening of FWLE will be the biggest thing to happen in regional transit this year. …
Holy cow, Lazarus, the comment was about the CLOCKS. Why are you so obsessed with the clocks?
You are having a giant pity party over the issue. This is just nonsense:
I get that there are a lot of bus fans around here that would rather not deal with Link
As we explained — that has nothing to do with it. Holy cow, can’t you read? Let me repeat the first comment I made to you on this thread:
The lack of a countdown clock for Federal Way Link is a general reflection of this disinterest in countdown clocks, not a reflection of Federal Way Link.
Got it?
@Mike Orr,
“ The old editorial staff who made the fancy clocks aren’t around anymore, and we don’t know how they did them.”
Interestingly enough, I used the STB search field and within 10 seconds had found the old DRLE countdown clock. Here it is:
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?iso=20250510T1030&p0=1244&msg=Downtown+Redmond+Link+Extension+Opening&font=serif
Two things are of note:
1). The old countdown clock actually includes a link so the user can make a new one.
2). The old DRLE countdown clock is still running, but now it is counting up!
The old clock now indicates that it has been 128 days and 20 hours since DRLE opened. It’s amazing to think how much ridership patterns and overall total ridership on ELSL has changed in just those ~129 days. People have really come to rely on the ELSL as valid travel option.
FWLE will have an even bigger impact on regional travel. It’s going to be great for the region, and huge for South King.
@Lazarus — Ian already made you a clock: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?iso=20251206T11&p0=234&msg=Federal+Way+Link+Extension&font=cursive&csz=1.
Enjoy. Feel free to make other clocks as well. In fact, I’ll put you in charge of making clocks. As soon you make one, let us all know and we can try and enjoy these clocks as much as you obviously do.
Lazarus, I’m sorry, but Federal Way Link Extension, all three stations of it, is not going to “blow that [DRLE] out of the water.” Its only relationship to anything wet will be “a damp squib”.
My guess is that after the dust settles 65% of the riders will be A Line short-cutters, and 25% will be forced transfers from the 574. The remaining 10% will be “new riders”. Now new riders are new riders. YAY! But until Federal Way undergoes the desired transition into being “South Bellevue”, the train will be populated by, yes, grateful bus riders. Spending a couple of billion to cannibalize two succesful bus lines is a questionable use of public funds.
It is also going to make Everett Link Extension (“ELE 2?”) look p-r-e-t-t-y dicey.
It is tough to predict Link ridership for some of these extensions because there are holes in the data. With Lynnwood Link it was Community Transit ridership. We didn’t know how many people rode the express buses after the pandemic. Turns out, not that many. In this case it is stop data for ST Express buses. We used to know these, but ST hasn’t released numbers for years. In any event, the first step in estimating ridership is to look at existing ridership that will likely switch. Here are some examples for Federal Way Link:
1) Park and Ride trips from Angle Lake. Angle Lake had over 6,000 riders in April. Since then ridership hasn’t been quite that high but it has still topped 5,000 every month.
2) People transferring from the RapidRide A at Angle Lake. There are about 400 riders on a northbound bus who get off near the station. I have to assume most are transferring to Link. Many will transfer further south.
3) Riders who don’t bother transferring but take the A for their entire trip. There are about 1,600 riders who use stops next to the new stations. But obviously not all of those riders are headed to Link destinations. Hard to say how many are taking trips that are now much better on Link.
4) 574 riders headed to the airport from Federal Way, Star Lake or Kent Des Moines (as well as riders using other combinations north of Tacoma). The 574 has recovered better than most transit in the area. It gets about 2,000 riders. Back in the day, a little less than 25% of the riders were traveling this section. So figure about 500 riders there.
5) 574 riders who ride the bus from Tacoma and Lakewood to Star Lake, Kent Des Moines and SeaTac. For now it appears as if ST will not force a transfer. I’m not sure how many will decide it is worth it to transfer. About 60% of the riders used to make this sort of trip in years past. But it isn’t clear how many will bother to transfer (and instead just decide to stay on the bus).
6) People taking ST Express buses downtown from Federal Way. I don’t think that many people will switch. Maybe during peak, but even then there may be quite a few who stick with the bus. I’ve been surprised at the ridership of the 515 which seems to offer nothing that Link doesn’t offer. In any event the 577 (from Federal Way) gets about 800 riders now. The 578 (from Puyallup) gets about twice that. In the past most of those riders were from Federal Way. Figure about 500 riders from Federal Way for that bus.
7) People taking ST Express buses downtown from Tacoma, Auburn, Sumner and Puyallup. I don’t see many riders switching.
8) Other express service. Metro is cancelling a lot of their express service (unlike Sound Transit — go figure). This means these riders have to either switch to using ST Express or Link. The 162 carries about 300 riders. You can count on those riders switching. The 177 carries 200 riders but some of those riders will just switch to ST Express.
Just by looking at the numbers, it appears that most of the potential comes from Angle Lake. Angle Lake has 6,000 riders — this is quite high for a station without that much around it. My guess is you will see a substantial drop in Angle Lake ridership with that ridership going to the other stations. You are bound to get some sort of increase in overall ridership but I don’t see a lot to work with. The express buses are faster to downtown. The A Line is fairly frequent and fast. More importantly it isn’t dominated by trips involving new Link stations. At least at this point there isn’t a lot of “forced” service onto Link (unlike U-Link, Northgate Link and Lynnwood Link). My guess is as follows:
a) Angle Lake drops by about 4,000 riders, which are then spread out amongst the other stations.
b) Another 1,000 or so riders switch their transfer point for the A or stop using the bus entirely.
c) More than 500 riders will use it instead of (or in conjunction with) the 574.
d) Another 1,000 riders will use it instead of the express buses.
Round up to account for those who would otherwise drive or find Link more appealing than the buses. So about 7,000 riders on the three stations and a net increase for Link of about 3,000. I’ll bookmark this prediction to see how far off I am. For what it’s worth I was pretty close on Lynnwood Link even though I had to guess the Community Transit express numbers.
“Spending a couple of billion to cannibalize two succesful bus lines is a questionable use of public funds.”
It’s called improving the transit network. By your logic, we could never have anything better than what we have now, and American cities would continue to fall further behind their international peers. Link serves a different transit market than the A: people who want to go faster and further and are either starting/ending at a Link station or willing to the last mile to a Link station (possibly on the A). The large chunks of people going to the Highline College area, downtown Federal Way, or the airport, will be going to/from a Link station anyway.
Adding a Link overlay may depress ridership on the A temporarily — or it may not — but over the longer term ridership on both will probably increase because the total transit network will be better and meet people’s needs more — some people going faster between the highest-density nodes, and other people going slower to places between them, and others transferring from one to the other.
Link will eliminate the 574’s detours/turns/stoplights between the freeway exit and the bus stop: the train just sails in and stops in-line on the track. That should make it faster. Our concerns about south Link being slow are based on comparisons with the 577 and 594, not the 574.
I’m not saying ST will necessarily truncate the 574 because we don’t know that yet: ST is planning a systemwide ST Express restructure next fall but has not released a first proposal yet, so we don’t know which of earlier concepts it still supports or whether it has new ones. And there will be a big delete between those who want to truncate the 574/577/594 et al to avoid redundancy and save money vs those who think Link’s long-distance travel time is too slow to truncate them. That’s a necessary debate in the restructure. My suggestion is, if ST doesn’t truncate the 574, at least delete the Star Lake stop. ST has also suggested extending the 574 to Westwood Village to backfill a segment Stride 1 will abandon. So who knows what would be in the final proposal. In any case, there’s more redundancy between the 574 and Link than the A and Link, because that’s the comparable transit market. Some people now are using the A reluctantly because proper transit for mid-level trips doesn’t exist yet.
The fact that ST won’t modify the express buses for at least the first nine months of Federal Way Link means we’ll be able to see how people vote with their feet when it opens, in a way we couldn’t do with the 511/512/513/4xx or the 41/71/72/73/194.
I think your close on the riders, Ross at 7000 boardings at the new station and a 3000 net increase.
I’m not quite that oessimjstic because of three other factors:
1. I’m thinking that there will be new SeaTac demand from these stations. That maybe adds another 1,000.
2. I’m expecting a slight shift from Sounder riders. There is a decent population in between the two lines. Plus Sounders schedule is focused at peak hours so some may shift just to give them more flexibility when returning. I’ll say 1,000 will shift but it may be more like 500.
I’ll also add that Angle Lake differs from Northgate (which lost about 4,000 riders) because it’s not a bus hub like Northgate. Instead people complain about the garage filling up early. I’m thinking that it may just drop by 3000.
Both EQC and Muckleshoot have existing tribal bus service. It wouldn’t surprise me if they end up serving the Federal Way Downtown station. I’m thinking that it would be far less than 1000 a day combined. I’m just mentioning it as another small contributor to the ridership.?
So I’m thinking 9000 for the new station boardings or a systems net increase of 6000. It’s still a far cry from the ST forecast of 29-34K riders and much closer to Ross’.
The fact that ST won’t modify the express buses for at least the first nine months of Federal Way Link means we’ll be able to see how people vote with their feet when it opens
Yes, but by retaining the current schedule it becomes an odd test. For example, imagine that the vast majority of riders prefer the 594 from Tacoma to Seattle. But they also want it to run every fifteen minutes (which was the plan before the driver shortage). Riders won’t have that option. Instead they will only have the 594 every half hour. Some riders may decide to take the 574 and transfer. But they could run the 594 every fifteen minutes (at no extra cost) by making a handful of other changes. So it is really only a test of preference based on bus routing that at this point is clearly flawed.
For trips to Seattle from Tacoma it seems to encourage Link. But for other trips it is the opposite. Consider someone from Tacoma, heading to Highline or SeaTac. Nothing much has changed if they want to take transit. Yes, they can transfer to Link half way through their journey but the hard hard part is timing the 574.
It is an experiment of sorts to see whether people prefer one mode or the other but the service on the buses is so poor it discourages both one-seat bus rides and bus-train trips. The one thing it does is encourage park and ride use. Thus it is quite possible that a lot of people will drive to Federal Way even though they would prefer taking a bus there (simply because the options for the buses will be poor).
@Al — Just like with Lynnwood Link and North Sounder, I don’t expect to see any noticeable change with South Sounder ridership once Federal Way Link opens. Link will replace trips taken by the I-5 express buses, not Sounder. As I mentioned, the 177 is a good example. For some people in the area, this is a better bus than Sounder. Most of those riders will take Link instead. Some may end up changing their habits but that cuts both ways. Some may prefer Link — some may now prefer Sounder. This goes for other buses (like the 162) as well. I think the impact on Sounder (either way) will be minimal.
Here you go. I went with 11am since that’s when Lynwood link opened
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?iso=20251206T11&p0=234&msg=Federal+Way+Link+Extension&font=cursive&csz=1
I see FWLE mostly like LLE. I’m expecting that there will be lots of riders at peak commute times but not so much at other times.
I think there will be a mindset change towards Link in Federal Way, Kent, Auburn and much of Pierce County. As much as we pan the I-5 alignment, it is like a flashing billboard for I-5 drivers to let them know that it’s an alternative mode to use. While Angle Lake Station has been open 9 years, there wasn’t even a I-5 freeway sign suggesting to use Link.
I’ll also be curious if FWLE will see an uptick of riders from the new stations going to SeaTac. Terminal traffic there is reaching epic congestion! A friend volunteered to pick me up last Sunday night at 9 pm. It took him 20 minutes to go from the cell phone lot to my pick up door next to baggage claim. I even told my friend that it may make it faster for both of us if I get on Link, text him when the train pulls out, and have him rendezvous with me and my luggage at my nearby SE Seattle Link station. In particular, the Federal Way Downtown station is a short walk from different food service businesses where Link riders from SeaTac can wait to facilitate connecting with rides.
There are some significant differences between Federal Way and Lynnwood.
With Lynnwood, the parallel buses being replaced were all expresses, pretty much only used by commuters.
With Federal Way, the parallel bus is RapidRide A. Link will be a significant improvement over that for longer distance travel along Highway 99. I don’t imagine it will get that much Seattle-Federal Way traffic, because it will be significantly slower than the express buses. It’s not really supposed to replace those anyway.
It will be more like what Lynnwood Link would be like if Lynnwood Transit Center served both the I-5 and Highway 99 / Swift Blue corridors..
I see FWLE mostly like LLE.
I agree. There are a lot of similarities:
1) Mostly freeway stations. This means relatively few walk-up riders. The exception being Kent Des Moines (which has a college).
2) Lots of feeder buses.
3) Lots of big parking lots.
Because of these last two, I expect a lot of ridership to move south (just as Lynnwood Link moved ridership north). When Lynnwood Link opened, ridership at Northgate went way down. When Federal Way Link opens, I expect ridership at Angle Lake to do down. People will simply drive (or take a bus) to the closer station.
4) Excellent terminus station for transfers (replacing second-rate ones). Northgate is a decent station (it has a college nearby and some medical offices and residential density) but it is not very good for bus transfers. In contrast Lynnwood is great for it. Buses from the north can access the station without ever leaving the HOV lanes. The same will be true for Federal Way.
5) Lots of miles, not that many stations.
With Lynnwood, the parallel buses being replaced were all expresses, pretty much only used by commuters.
That’s not true. The 512 ran all day (still does). In Shoreline there were a bunch of Metro buses serving the area. They tended to funnel riders to Northgate; now they funnel riders to other stations.
Obviously they aren’t exactly the same. The biggest difference is that from Lynnwood Link you are fairly close to Seattle. You are especially close to the UW (a major destination). From Federal Way you are farther away. But from Federal Way you are close to the airport (a significant destination). A lot of people work at the airport and commute from the south. My guess is a fair number of frequent flyers live to the south as well.
“The 512 ran all day (still does). In Shoreline there were a bunch of Metro buses serving the area. They tended to funnel riders to Northgate; now they funnel riders to other stations.”
The two corridors were extremely separate though. If I wanted to get from Everett to Shoreline, the trip planners would always suggest to me the 512 to downtown and then the E back up to 185th and Aurora, which is a two hour undertaking. A lot of the local routes were/are circuitous, infrequent or both.
The 512, however, even though truncated, is designed to be a freeway express for longer distance trips along freeway destinations. Replacing part of it with Link got you a few destinations like UW, but it doesn’t help speed up RapidRide C the way Federal Way Link does the A. To have the same impact, you’d have to have Lynnwood Link intersect the C at both end plus a couple busy middle spots. Say, have Lynnwood Link and the C also cross paths at UW, to give the equivalent of both serving SeaTac Airport, and move Aurora Village Transit Center as well as Highway 99 to Montlake Terrace or 185th to simulate what happens at Federal Way with the A, Link, express buses, and locals.
Every time I’ve taken the A, it’s had to be for fairly long distances, and I’ve always wound up grumbling about how busy and slow it is. Federal Way to TIBS should be much faster with it.
“I’ll also be curious if FWLE will see an uptick of riders from the new stations going to SeaTac.”
I live down in the Tacoma area and have mentioned to family that they won’t need to come to the airport much anymore for pickup once Federal Way Link opens as I can be easily picked up in Federal Way or take the 574 to Tacoma Dome Station from Federal Way Downtown station. Which i know my family will be happy for as its a genuine PITA to get to/from SeaTac nowadays.
If I wanted to get from Everett to Shoreline, the trip planners would always suggest to me the 512 to downtown and then the E back up to 185th and Aurora, which is a two hour undertaking.
Not since Northgate Link. The 512 never went downtown after Northgate Link. It ended in Northgate. So at worse riders would go to Northgate and then take a bus north from there. The 512 also stopped in Mountlake Terrace. So Lynnwood to Northgate Terrace was already handled. Even some of the Shoreline to Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood trips were possible with a transfer. Take a bus to Mountlake Terrace and then very quickly get to Lynnwood.
Replacing part of it with Link got you a few destinations like UW, but it doesn’t help speed up RapidRide C the way Federal Way Link does the A.
I assume you mean the RapidRide E. I get your point but I think you are ignoring the local buses that used to run through the area. If anything this suggests that Lynnwood Link was a bigger deal. The RapidRide A — which serves every station in Federal Way Link — is frequent and reasonably fast. In contrast the various buses connecting the stops existed before but weren’t nearly as good.
Nor should we assume that the RapidRide A is highly successful because it does what Link is about to do. That is partly the case but travel between the new stops doesn’t dominate. SeaTac is a very popular stop but the most popular stop is in Tukwila. That Link combination already exists. The reason the bus is so popular is because demand is spread out along the entire corridor. There is no question that Federal Way Link will speed up a lot of those trips but Lynnwood Link sped up a lot of trips as well (probably more so).
For example imagine I live near NE 180th & 15th NE. This is one of the more urban centers in Shoreline. With Northgate Link I could take a bus down 15th and get to Pinehurst or Northgate. I could transfer to a bus to get to Roosevelt or the UW but it was often easier to just stay on the bus to Northgate and take Link. No matter what, it took a while. But now I have a much easier trip to most places. I can still take that bus to Pinehurst or Northgate but if I want to get on Link I just take a bus to the 185th Station. That saves me quite a bit of time if I’m headed to the UW. It saves me even more if I’m headed to Capitol Hill.
Lynnwood Link was a big improvement for a lot of mid to long distance trips. Federal Way will be a big improvement for a lot of mid distance trips, but it won’t be that great for long distance trips. It has never been easier to get from places like Everett and Mukilteo to major Seattle destinations (e. g. the UW and downtown). In contrast getting from Tacoma, Auburn or even Kent to major Seattle destinations won’t be much better.
I live down in the Tacoma area and have mentioned to family that they won’t need to come to the airport much anymore for pickup once Federal Way Link opens as I can be easily picked up in Federal Way or take the 574 to Tacoma Dome Station from Federal Way Downtown station.
Can’t you just take the 574 now?
Also, do you even take Link south to Angle Lake (just to avoid the mess around the airport)? Or is that just trading one mess for another?
I’ll also be curious if FWLE will see an uptick of riders from the new stations going to SeaTac
Definitely. I expect a lot of riders shifting from Angle Lake to stations to the south (just like they did with Northgate).
The 574 is not terribly reliable. I’ve been ghosted. It’s been early. It’s been very late. Traffic on I-5 just screws up their schedules pretty thoroughly. I suspect the Lakewood leg the most.
The transfers aren’t great. On weekends, both the frequency and span of the T-Line are pretty shitty.
Unless you have time in your schedule to be 3 hours early for your flight at Seatac if everything goes perfectly, it’s stressful.
It’s not that I don’t do it, I just give myself a lot of time, and hesitate to recommend it to others.
I’ve used Angle Lake a few times, but not for Seatac. For day-trips to Seattle. But I’ve also been shutout with the parking structure full. Even on the weekends. The 24 hour rule make it so it could only be used for kiss and fly, and if you are getting a ride 9/10ths of the way, it’s usually not that much more of a hardship to deal with the airport loop. Especially with luggage involved.
Even going downtown from Angle Lake, it honestly makes more sense to park-n-hide in SODO, because that avoids the painful crawl through Rainier Valley. And I have a old, beat-up truck and don’t mind leaving in a sketch industrial area on 4th or 6th a block or two from the station.
It will be interesting to see if ir how Federal Way Downtown Link station evolves for bus transfers and pickups/ dropoffs:
1. It’s going to be the end station for at least nine years. TDLE is delayed to at least 2035. So bus operators are not going to wait.
2. How Metro, ST and PT serve the station will likely be tweaked. It depends on demand and rider interests.
3. I could see a market for shuttle routes. Both EQC and Muckleshoot (now with hotels) will be close enough for casino shuttles. A State Fair shuttle seems possible too. I know there are some potential legal issues with shuttles laying over or being signed, but technically a shuttle would seem to be allowed anywhere there would be designated dropoff/ pickup areas.
4. It seems like a good stopping point for intercity services too. I could see a bus stop there that goes to Olympia or Portland or Mt Rainier every hour or two/three. As I mentioned, there are places to eat or get coffee there that would make waiting an hour or two more palatable.
If there they manage an STX route from Commerce in downtown Tacoma that has good frequency (every 10-15 minutes) and span (running early enough for SeaTac workers and at least until 11pm), I think it will be very well used.
Every half hour, or hourly after 9.pm That just won’t cut it.
It is weird that the 574 doesn’t run through Downtown Tacoma. That is an obvious weakness that is hard to justify. Even with the current (flawed) routing a lot of people have said the 574 should run every fifteen minutes.
They also need to make Commerce Street station less creepy. Very desolate, with no businesses around, and a Canyon-like feel.
Or move the terminus station someplace else.
The 24 hour rule make it so it [Angle Lake] could only be used for kiss and fly
SeaTac gets about 1,000 riders from Angle Lake. My guess is a lot of these people are employees. But there could also be long-distance commuters or people flying just for the day. For trips to Portland (and to a lesser extent San Fransisco) this is pretty common.
But yes, getting picked up or dropped off there (kiss and fly) is what you described so I was curious as to whether you did that from Angle Lake. I guess not and that isn’t surprising.
They also need to make Commerce Street station less creepy. Very desolate, with no businesses around, and a Canyon-like feel.
I thought the streetcar was going to make that street spectacular? Oh well.
Or move the terminus station someplace else.
Creepiness aside, it does seem the 590 (which ends at 9th & Commerce) should be extended northward. A stop at 4th (https://maps.app.goo.gl/v2sAvE6pV5tbWTwV8) would likely get more one-seat riders. The problem is that the streetcar has center stations (but without any grade separation — WTF???) and there are bike lanes on the outside. This makes it tougher to add bus stops. The easiest way to extend it would be to turn on 9th and then go north on Market/Saint Helens. Or you could turn and head towards the hospital. Either way you need to have a place to turn around as well as layover (along with comfort stations). The best bet might be the hospital. It seems like a one-seat ride from Seattle to Multicare (with a stop at Federal Way along the way) would be quite popular.
Multi-day parking is a curious need. Right now, SeaTac has that available with several nearby private lots and garages. However they’re not cheap. Meanwhile there are a few free and almost empty public lots (Redondo Heights; 324th next to I-5) that could accommodate multi-day parking.
And if there isn’t a public interest in such a parking area, the private sector marketplace may fill the void. The question is whether or not the marketplace would try to use Link or just try to locate close to the airport terminal.
“Creepiness aside, it does seem the 590 (which ends at 9th & Commerce) should be extended northward. A stop at 4th…”
That is apparently the least used station on the T-line. By a lot. TNT ran the numbers by station today.
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article311974889.html
4th is next to a cliff on the eastside, and on the west, it’s one of the steepest hills in the city. Yes, there are many apartment buildings around there, but it’s really hard to access.
The Stadium Station (the most used of those on the extension) is much friendlier, with a flat-ish walk for most folks, restaurants and bars, a grocery store, Stadium High, a drug store, and a lovely park all within a block. And several Pierce Transit routes going right through there. That might be the ideal terminus. Via St. Helens, I would suggest. And take over that triangle parking lot for layovers.
At some point though, you are basically replicating a good portion of the T-Line. So WTF is the T-Line for. Either trash that, or go all-in and actually connect the 1-line into Tacoma, rather stop a mile short. Around and around we go…
“If I wanted to get from Everett to Shoreline, the trip planners would always suggest to me the 512 to downtown and then the E back up to 185th and Aurora”
The agencies can’t be blamed for the stupidity of trip planners. The trip planners are probably programmed to prioritize Link/RapidRide/Swift. But the trip planners had a point: there wasn’t any good way to get from the 512 to the Aurora corridor between Everett and downtown. At Lynnwood station, the routes were 15 minutes only weekdays. At Mountlake Terrace, the 130 was never frequent. The next stop was 145th, which had no east-west transit, and the stop was closed for the last several years for Link construction. The next stop was Northgate, but only after Northgate Link started. That has the 40, which is frequent, but it’s circuitous and not particuarly fast, so a 3-seat ride with the 40 in the middle wasn’t definitely good. And that’s still miles south of Shoreline.
What I ended up doing was taking E+Swift the whole way to wherever I was going in the Aurora/99 corridor in north Seattle, Shoreline, Edmonds, or Lynnwood, even if that took 1 1/2 hours. It was frustrating not to be able to take Link or the 512 at least part of the way, but that was the state of things. That’s why people were SO eager for Lynnwood Link.
The only time I took the 512 to the 99 corridor was to Edmonds CC, because that was about the best 2-seat ride it could do. But I usually took Swift+E back rather than deal with that twice and all the depressing concrete.
It’s like night and day now. Swift Orange goes from Lynnwood station to 99 and Edmonds CC. Swift Blue goes from Shoreline North station to other places along 99. Shoreline South has the 333 to Aurora running every 15 minutes daytime every day, and the other end goes to other parts of Shoreline from Mountlake Terrace. Shoreline North has the 348 running every 15 minutes weekdays. (And that’s better than the 20 minutes in an earlier proposal.) Northgate has the 40, and Roosevelt has the 45, which are both frequent, though not particularly fast or straight, but they do go to Aurora.
“I thought the streetcar was going to make that street spectacular? Oh well.”
You can only do so much with blank walls and looming parking garages. A block either way and it’s much nicer, though still needs some more active business.
Really it’s just a hangover from the urban renewal 50-70 years ago, where they demo’ed all the buildings and built parking garages to compete with the mall. But the parking garages were supposed to support the businesses. But the businesses were largely in the buildings they demolished to build parking.
So. Creepy.
I mean, in what demented brain was this a good idea:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/9z6CdeohYTfVSdWL6
This is the heart of downtown Tacoma. A sea of parking lots. Who did they think was going to parking there if they removed all the buildings? I mean, there are a few buildings as well, but if you look closely, they are mostly … parking structures.
I need to talk to the guy in 1963 who was the genius behind this.
“Lynnwood Link was a big improvement for a lot of mid to long distance trips.”
If you say so.
Currently, if I put my friend’s place near 190th and Stone Way in and ask to get to King Street Station, it’s preferred route is still an hour long slog on the E, just as it has been for the past 10 years.
For a while, there was a bus running on Meridian going to Northgate that was somewhat faster than the E, but that went away with the Northgate Link restructure. It wasn’t too coordinated with the express to downtown, so the times I tried it was a 15 minute wait there to get further south, making it comparable to the E.
The other option which was occasionally faster than the E was a long winding route (maybe 372?) that went to UW station from Stone Way and 185th, which went away with one of the post-Northgate restructures.
I know it improved a number of trips, but over on the highway 99 corridor things are still slow, due to the separation between it and the I-5 routing.
Ross, could you expand on your statement about the T Line’s 4th St Station where you wrote, “but without any grade separation — WTF?” I would like to know what your preferred arrangement would have been there.
Broadly speaking, while I’m glad the T Line is providing some enhanced transit service to Tacoma, I agree that its existence does complicate many logical transit plans. It is such a “design by committee” product, as they say.
“Lynnwood Link was a big improvement for a lot of mid to long distance trips.”
If you say so.
Yes, I do. I didn’t say all the trips are now better. Just a lot of them. Even though Link runs down the middle of the city (more or less) it benefits the eastern side a lot more. Things are basically unchanged in Greater Ballard. Yet everything north of the ship canal and east of I-5 has been influenced by Link. Partly this is because of RapidRide E. It runs express for a huge portion of its route. It can compete with Link. There is no equivalent to the E Line to the east. Of course the E does not run in Snohomish County. The only thing similar (Swift) forces a transfer for most Seattle destinations. But it connects to both RapidRide E and Link. While the RapidRide E is pretty fast, Link is faster. The E Line is generally more frequent, but fairly soon, Link will be more frequent most of the day (if not all of it). Thus to the north, Lynnwood Link has expanded its reach to the include western areas. This means there are a lot of people who can save quite a bit of time on long trips. These are trips to major destinations (the UW and downtown especially).
In contrast I just don’t see that with Federal Way Link. From Federal Way Station — and everywhere south — the express buses remain faster. To the east you have a similar dynamic as you do in parts of the north end — the existing buses are faster (even if they aren’t as fast). It takes about an hour to get from Kent to downtown. With a combination of a feeder bus and Link do better? Probably not. To be clear, there are definitely places that will benefit. Places to the west of the Star Lake and Kent Des Moines stations are better off — even for long distance trips. At least midday. But not that many people live there compared to the numbers up north.
Of course a lot depends on the buses. Feeder service to Link isn’t great. That is another reason why buses like RapidRide E are often competitive with Link. From 155th & Aurora to the UW the best option (most of the time) is to just take the E Line and then slog your way on the 44. This is to the UW! (To get downtown the direct bus is significantly faster.) That’s because the crossing bus is so infrequent. It gets worse. At Bitter Lake (130th & Aurora) to Link not only requires a lot of waiting but a long time on the bus as well. The Pinehurst Station will fix this but again, it depends on how Metro serves the corridor. Current plans aren’t great (but I guess they could be worse).
“Can’t you just take the 574 now?”
I don’t take it to the airport now for a few reasons
– Frequency isn’t great, especially on weekends where hourly service is common despite how busy Sunday nights are.
– Not reliable, it gets stuck in the same SeaTac traffic as everyone else which is the largest chokepoint for reliability on said route.
– The bus isn’t really intended for airport passangers. ST doesn’t allow for luggage storage in the undercarriage of their coach buses, compare this with Denver where i lived for a time, RTD Skyride allows for storage of luggage underneath. Otherwise it’s awkwardly schleping luggage into the bus and some bus operators get cranky if you put your carryon in the overhead racks on their low floor or phantom buses. They’ve gotten better in using more articulated buses, but not enough to consider using it as a means to go home on the 574.
Ross, could you expand on your statement about the T Line’s 4th St Station where you wrote, “but without any grade separation — WTF?” I would like to know what your preferred arrangement would have been there.
My point is that having a center station allows you to run unimpeded by traffic. But that isn’t the case here. What is the point of running in the middle? It makes it more difficult for other buses to share the same stops or even the same roadway.
To answer your question, I wouldn’t have spent money on the streetcar. I would have created a “spine” for downtown Tacoma instead. I would carve out as much right-of-way as I can and consolidated the buses on one of the streets. I would put some extra money into service as well. This would provide better service along the corridor than the streetcar (which isn’t that frequent). For example the 11 and 16 could easily be extended to the Tacoma Dome. Even if you do end up running a circulator bus (with a routing similar to the streetcar) it would better complement the other buses (ultimately saving you money).
Speaking of the 11 and 16, note how close they are to the streetcar but they don’t share the same stops. I realize it is steep to go east-west (just like Seattle) but most of the buildings along that section of Stadium also have a “back door” that connects to Broadway (https://maps.app.goo.gl/adAxCcqEwDZeeLDp9). It is still a climb to get up to Saint Helens from there, but at least it is pretty close. There should only be one transit corridor through there and Stadium is a poor choice. I’m not sure which would be better (Broadway or Saint Helens). Broadway is narrow (go figure) so if your goal is adding BAT lanes, I would go with Saint Helens. I realize either Broadway or Saint Helens would require a dogleg at some point (if you wanted to get closer to the water). That’s fine. Other buses (coming from the other direction) would serve the streets farther west (e. g. the 48 on Yakima).
I’m not sure I would have any transit on Commerce/Stadium north of 9th. I would probably just focus on the bike lanes there. Speaking of which, that is the advantage of running the trains in the middle (you create room on the sides for bikes). But it would be better for bikes if the streetcar wasn’t there. I’m not a fan of two-way protected bike lanes but it might be the right choice between the SR-705 ramps and Division (since no one can head east on a car through there). The bike lanes could be better protected while still leaving room for cars (and a turn lane).
Yeah, the streetcar with bike lanes is not ideal on Stadium. Ignoring the tires-in-tracks problem, bikers just aren’t cognizant of how wide the streetcar is. I went on a ride with politicians last year to tour the streetcar line, and we almost lost one of them under the streetcar. I mean, most politicians only get on a bike to pose for pictures, but still. It’s a bit sketch.
St. Helens would be a pretty obvious choice for transit, but I’m not sure the tram could climb the steep hill anywhere along the route to actually access it.
I do frequently use St. Helens on bike. Once you are on it, it’s a long, slow, mid-grade climb. But the 2 blocks to actually get on it are steeeeep. Maybe if you demolished the ST garage on commerce street station you could make it gradual enough for steel wheels to climb.
St. Helens would be a pretty obvious choice for transit, but I’m not sure the tram could climb the steep hill anywhere along the route to actually access it.
Yeah, I wouldn’t have a tram. I would just have a bus instead. The bus would be designed to complement the existing buses. Right now there aren’t a lot of buses that go from the hospital to downtown (we only have the 11 and 16). They each only run every hour. Still, if you extended them to the the Tacoma Dome it is better than nothing. You would need to run this circulator bus four times an hour to get a combined ten minute frequency. This is better than the streetcar even though you are running less often. If Pierce County gets more money and we run the 11 and 16 every half hour it would be a big improvement for those riders. But it also means you only have to run the circulator twice an hour.
It is a pretty common approach. For example the 3 and 4 both combine on Jefferson to provide very good headways (7.5 minutes midday) along the corridor. Even though it doesn’t have a different number, there is a version of the 4 that just ends at 23rd. Same idea. That bus is just filling in the gaps.
“most of the buildings along that section of Stadium also have a “back door” that connects to Broadway”
Once when I was exploring Tacoma, I went up to the old PT “transit center” at 9th & Commerce, and right near it I came across Sanford & Son, a large antique store with a sci-fi robot statue inside one of the doors. I went in to explore the store, and found it had three levels (maybe only stairs), and the top level had a second entrance to Broadway.
Until they make an official announcement about the schedule of opening day events, there’s not a specific first through train time to countdown to.
Regarding Metro’s 106 Survey
In a supposable future where the 2 Line is fully functional, Graham Street Station is completed and there is RapidRide service on the length of Rainier Avenue, what is the purpose and mission of the 106, particularly north of Mt. Baker Station?
Although the Mt. Baker to Downtown segment is technically outside of the study’s scope, I suggested re-routing the 106 to 23rd Avenue to allow connections to the 2 Line using the east portal of Judkins Park Station (near Jimi Hendrix Park) instead of making riders use the dark, dirty, noisy stops on Rainier Ave. under I-90. Where it would go north of JPS, I didn’t offer a comment.
The current 106 is impacted by bad traffic between Jackson Street and Mt. Baker Station and the seemingly perpetual roadwork in Renton. Eventually the work in Renton may be completed (let us pray), but Rainier Avenue will likely continue to be a mess and may deteriorate even further. There is a need to connect riders who live near MLK (like me) with the 2 Line, but I would rather make the connection through the east portal of JPS.
The mission of the 106 is the in-between stops between Rainier Beach and Mt Baker. North of Mt Baker has never been clear because many routes serve it, but one use case is continuing to Judkins Park to transfer to the 2 Line. Metro has floated replacing the part south of Rainer Beach with a route to the Renton Highlands (106+105), so I expect that will eventually happen. There’s a crying need for routes that go through downtown Renton rather than just terminating there, because most of the residents live east of it and most of the destinations are a 2-3 seat ride away for them.
There have been suggestions for a “reverse 43” from downtown to John Street and south 23rd to Mt Baker, so the 106 could subsume that. That and reviving the 43 could replace the 48. It would break trips from; e.g., Montlake to Rainier Valley, but it would help a whole lotta trips to shopping or urban-village destinations, since 23rd doesn’t have much on it.
The challenge of splitting Route 106 is that there is not a prominent turnover point. Rainier/ Henderson area, all the Link stations (including Judkins Park next year) and Renton are or will be reasonably active. There are also a number of ethnic communities that rely on Route 106 as a connection between residences and community businesses and services (it would be interesting to see those mapped in some way).
That’s actually is pretty good for a route to have! The big problem with a long route is reliability. That however could be helped by creating/ scheduling one or two locations on the route for a short (under 3 minute) layover point to help make it more reliable downstream.
The challenge of splitting Route 106 is that there is not a prominent turnover point.
It seems like Rainier/Henderson is fairly prominent. There are a lot of people who get off an inbound bus in that area. There are also a lot of people who get on and off close to the train stations. But if they are using this as a way to connect to Link (e. g. Orcas to Columbia City) then the split is OK. If they are taking a trip from Renton or Skyway to the Columbia City Station then the transfer is not bad at all. They can either transfer to Link or transfer to one of the fastest, most frequent buses in our system (the 7).
If you split at Rainier/Henderson you would want some overlap (as explained in the other comment). The northern section could take over the 7’s looping tail. The southern section would end at Rainier Beach Station (not Rainier Beach). I could see this working out just well, especially if they did as Mike suggested and extend the southern part further east to other parts of Renton. I could see the 105 receiving a frequency boost and connecting with the southern 106 for one-seat rides from the Renton Highlands to Rainier Beach.
“The challenge of splitting Route 106 is that there is not a prominent turnover point.”
“It seems like Rainier/Henderson is fairly prominent.”
It’s a good transfer point for passengers. It may be harder for Metro to find layover points. There’s a subset of people going from Renton to further on MLK specifically and vice-versa, but probably not that many who strictly need a one-seat ride beyond Rainier Beach. Metro is planning to terminate RapidRide R (7) at Rainier Beach station, so it would need a layover. And there are lots of industrial parking lots just south of it on MLK, and Metro could probably arrange to lease space from them for a few buses. And upping the frequency to 10 minutes on the surrounding routes would mitigate the impact of forcing a transfer.
The 106 has three sections:
1) Renton to Rainier Beach.
2) Rainier Beach to Mount Baker Station via MLK.
3) Mount Baker Station to downtown.
The first section is essential. It is where there are enough riders to justify running it every fifteen minutes midday. The second section is either redundant (with Link) or coverage by nature. If Link had more stations it be redundant. But there are gaps and it makes sense to cover them. The third is redundant but the first two groups of riders don’t want to transfer.
There are a lot of possible changes but all of them have tough trade-offs in my opinion. For example the bus could be truncated at Mount Baker Station. But that is close enough to downtown to be irritating. If you are going to do that, you might as well truncate buses at SoDo. Transferring to downtown is fairly easy but for a lot of other destinations (First Hill, Bellevue, etc.) you are forcing two transfers.
You can merge with the 48 but that gets a bit long. You can split the 8 into two and merge with the section on MLK. But if we split the 8 in two do we even need that section?
Then there some creative options, like making it the “Boren Bus”. Instead of going downtown it would go to South Lake Union and Uptown (via Boren, Harrison, etc.). But then it is too long again. One place where a split might make sense is Rainier Beach. This could occur after the 7 heads to Rainier Beach Station (and becomes the RapidRide R). By splitting the route you can have the northern half backfill the Henderson/Seward Park/Rainier Avenue loop. The southern half would then go from Uptown to Rainier Beach (the neighborhood). The southern half would go from Renton to Rainier Beach Station.
Mike mentioned some other ideas as well.
To be honest none of those sound great, but then I don’t think the 106 is great right now. The only part that is really essential is that first section (between Renton and Rainier Beach).
I could see a few challenges with splitting Route 106 at Rainier Beach Link. The physical layover spot is the most apparent challenge ; it’s not set up to easily be the end point of a bus route (both layover space and a path to reverse direction).
I also wonder if the split and layover spot should be created at an Othello instead or maybe at the new Graham station. That area is getting new buildings and is a commercial hub. Riders could still use Rainier Beach like today. It would take some analysis of riders and surveys to choose a place to split the route — so I only put it here as a possibility rather than a recommendation.
The next thing is that Route 106 runs mostly through residential areas with activity nodes strung along the routes. Except for the Othello area, MLK is even mostly residential south of Mt Baker — even though its higher density residential. Making sure that there is direct service to more than other residential is important.
They had plans for bus layovers for route 7 as a rapidride The bus layover spots were at the northeast corner of the intersection on the east side of mlk or the north side of s henderson street.
The route 106 could probably use similar spots.
https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-10-06-at-11.09.24-AM.png
A lot of interesting comments on the 106. I hope everyone lets Metro know their opinions.
If the 106 doesn’t run the length of MLK from RBS to Judkins Park Station, then any rider along MLK who wants to transfer to the 2 Line will have to double connect somewhere to get across the lake. I think that’s a huge problem and just as a personal preference, I would prefer to connect via the east portal of JPS.
Years ago, I was a persistent voice against forcing transfers at the wasteland that is RBS. Othello is just a few minutes further and offers many more transfers and a bit of a developing neighborhood. I also promoted the idea of developing SODO into a major transfer node. I haven’t changed my mind.
If the 106 doesn’t run the length of MLK from RBS to Judkins Park Station, then any rider along MLK who wants to transfer to the 2 Line will have to double connect somewhere to get across the lake.
Unless they take the 1 Line and transfer in CID. But yes, the people on MLK *between the stations* will have to transfer twice, just like riders of the 107. Of course some of the riders are better off going the other direction (to Renton) where they can catch an express bus to Downtown Bellevue. But yes, that is one of the advantages of every proposal that we’ve had so far: Riders heading to the East Side avoid a transfer if the bus splits in Rainier Beach.
But depending on how we arrange things, there are other potential problems. For example right now a rider can easily transfer from the 106 to the 48. If the 106 ends at Rainier Beach and the 48 ends at Mount Baker (like it does now) then riders have to transfer twice. You can extend the 48 but you still lose out on the 8 and 14. This is just an example of why you have to consider the network when changing the route and there are bound to be tough trade-offs.
> what is the purpose and mission of the 106, particularly north of Mt. Baker Station?
To placate the ACRS, who will #neverforget Bus 42. That’s why that segment of the 106 currently exists.
Route 8: Extending the bus lane may help but not solve the reliability issues, there is too much cross traffic (incl. I-5) along the line. If Metro wants to address the issue, they may have to look at moving transit above the other traffic (which would also allow for dedicated bike lanes and larger sidewalks)
https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/03/17/slu-to-capitol-hill-gondola/
Oooh what if we make it a MONORAIL‽ I hear North Haverbrook loves their MONORAIL!!
I went to my high school reunion last night. (Bellevue HS, mid 80s.) It was at an event center at 116th & 1st NE.
When people asked where I’m living now and I said southwest Capitol Hill, my god, three people said it’s a high-crime area with lots of homeless and must be unsafe, and the conversations devolved into mostly that until I could change the topic. I said I’ve never had a problem, even if having people sleep on the sidewalk or panhandling is annoying, and the news they saw must make it sound worse than it is.
I’d expected the cultural difference between the Eastside and Seattle to remain, so few people living in Seattle, but I hadn’t expected that. In the end I found one person living in Seattle, and one who had lived there for several years. So the cultural divide I’d noticed in the 80s is still there: many people think of Seattle as unsafe to go to. In the 80s it was because of the decline in the 60s and 70s. In the 00s and 10s, word hadn’t reached them that middle-class people were moving to Rainier Valley and the CD and doing fine. And now it’s because of the pandemic-era problems and their lingering remains.
Eastbound I took the 550 and walked from Bellevue TC. I-90 eastbound at 5pm was fine, but westbound was packed for miles and didn’t seem to be moving. There were two ballgames so that might explain it, or there may have been a lane closure somewhere too. I assumed that by the time I came back it would be all clear.
The “short little walk” from 108th & NE 6th to 116th & NE 1st took 40 minutes. I’d estimated 20. On the way I passed a 271 stop on 116th; I’d forgotten it went there. And I saw the Target and PCC at 116th & NE 4th that somebody had mention in the comments a few weeks ago. In the East Link alignment planning in the 2010s, 116th was still all car dealerships, with councilmember/landowner Kevin Wallace saying it would be redeveloped. That redevelopment has now substantially happened. The Target building and the one across the street remind me of the Ballard Blocks complex: several big-box stores stacked with a garage.
Since the 550 is half-hourly evenings, I’d written down the list of potential return runs. But while I was there I decided to take the 271 back, since it would be a one-seat ride from 116th & NE 4th to UW station where I could get the 1 Line. The 271 is hourly evenings, so I checked One Bus Away. It said the next ones were in 30 and 94 minutes. I figured I’d leave in 10-15 minutes to give plenty of time to walk to the bus stop. But wouldn’t you know it, somebody I wanted to talk to was finally alone, so I asked them some questions, and when I got out there was just 10 minutes to the bus. I didn’t think I’d make it, and I missed it. So I continued to the transit center to take the 550. That gave me an opportunity to walk across the NE 4th Street overpass over 405, which hadn’t existed when I lived there. It nicely has a proper crosswalk signal at the freeway entrance, unlike at NE 8th where you have to walk across slip roads where cars don’t stop and you have to hope you don’t get run over.
I had a vague idea the 2 Line ended at 9:30pm. But when I walked past the station the display said it went southbound in 4 and 14 minutes, so I went in, and a platform sign said the last southbound run is at 9:50-something. My favorite Bellevue transfer point really has become South Bellevue station, even if I have to wait half an hour for a bus there.
When I got to the 550 stop, OBA said it would come in 18 minutes and it was 49 minutes late. The second bus was just 2 minutes after the first one. I assumed that was because of the traffic jam earlier in the day. On the 2 Line I’d seen two people. The 550 had almost every seat full, probably because previous runs were no-shows. I-90 westbound was fine.
At Intl Dist I transferred to the 1 Line, because it’s more pleasant to walk through Cal Anderson Park and Pike-Pine than across I-5. Link was busy at around 11pm. I got the feeling of relief I get when I come back to Seattle from the Eastside or Snohomish County and there are lots of people and pedestrians and walkable destinations around.
As I got off Link and went through Cal Anderson Park, I remembered how in the 80s when I went to the U-District and Broadway, the punks were the primary cultural element. Now when I looked around, a lot of people weren’t quite punk rockers but kinda similar, so if you squint you can see a continuation of the same thing. And that must make it look different from a Bellevue perspective. And when I passed the ballfield, a lot of people were sitting in clusters on the grass. Several had water bottles, and I was angry that there was a cluster of abandoned water bottles a bit outside a cluster of people, and a couple more standing full in a row with nobody around them. I hoped the people were just temporarily away and would come back and clean them up. Wishful thinking, maybe.
An amazing contrast: the 2 Line with 3 people, and the 1 Line with most of the seats full. It reminded me of one Memorial Day in the 80s when I’d taken the 255 from South Kirkland to downtown and I was the only passenger on the bus, then I transferred to the 71/72/73X to the U-District and it was standing room only. Still, you can’t blame the 2 Line: it was never intended to not have cross-lake service, so some people who would have ridden it are on the 550 instead. I’ll just point out that if the full 2 Line were running now, I could have had a one-seat ride from either East Main or Bellevue Downtown station to Capitol Hill station, running every 10 minutes until 10pm, and every 15 minutes until 1am.
“ The “short little walk” from 108th & NE 6th to 116th & NE 1st took 40 minutes. I’d estimated 20.”
Even though East Main Station gets sometimes panned as wasteful, if you could have ridden a 2 Line train your journey would have been much faster.
You graduated a year too early to take the 2 Line to your reunion! Lol
“You graduated a year too early to take the 2 Line to your reunion! ”
There are reunions every 5-10 years. This is my fourth one, and I think I missed the last one. One was even in Belltown so it was easy to get to. I need to look into my college reunions, because I haven’t been to any of them and haven’t gotten any announcements about them.
Once U-Link opened, it felt to me like Capitol Hill nightlife shifted in include more college students from UW. I see small groups of people on the street but not going into bars probably because many are under 21.
Is this the case, or do people just look younger now that I’m older?
People of all ages generally look younger than they did decades ago due to both advances in cosmetics and a realization that “dressing your age” is really as restrictive as you want it to be.
Remember that in the Golden Girls, the youngest one of them is 55. Jennifer Lopez in 2025 is 56. Now not everyone is a celebrity with oodles of money to spend on cosmetics and fitness and surgery, but a lot of 55 year olds no longer look that rough.
A lot less people have the cigarette smoking habit.
Smoking 🚬 does the aging.
I meant to mention, with the full 2 Line, that traffic jam on I-90 would have been a non-issue. Just sail past it. I-90 has HOV lanes, but the westbound 550 doesn’t always use it, and sometimes the HOV lane is as slow as the regular lane. I’ve had that happen repeatedly going westbound in the PM peak.
“I see small groups of people on the street but not going into bars ”
Ironically, I stopped going to Capitol Hill clubs and bars when I moved to the Hill in 2004 in my late 30s. I could see El Corazon across the freeway from my building where I’d gone monthly, but in the first six months I bought one ticket and then couldn’t go because I was sick, and then I haven’t looked into what’s playing. And my beloved Vogue closed and there’s no counterpart. So I don’t know what’s inside the clubs/bars. I haven’t noticed the mix of people outside getting younger. I don’t see a lot of under-21s. It’s just there was a huge wave of millenial/GenY tech workers that filled up the apartments and streets, so that probably lowered the average age, and now GenZ is coming up and having whatever impact it’s having. Since the clubs I went to either don’t exist anymore or I haven’t gone to them for years, it’s hard for me to tell how exactly they might have changed.
Downtown Bellevue is a relief compared to Crossroads and the area east of it. I was so happy when I moved to downtown Bellevue in high school and got a lot of walkable destinations and double bus frequency (30 minutes instead of 60 minutes). And now there are a lot more destinations and some bus routes are 15 minutes. So I don’t want to poo-poo that. Downtown Bellevue has made a lot of strides in the past few decades. It’s just that moving to Seattle made me so much more happy beyond that. And Bellevue has so much more potential to be an excellent city if it would just do it.
Was living in Bellevue safe back then? I thought the Bellevue Squares and Factoria Trash were constantly battling. I’m pretty sure I saw a documentary on KING TV.
Appreciate all the subtle details and history, I live in the lakemont neighborhood but commute to u-district once a week. I’ve been tempted now that route 203 is open to transfer to a 550 bus and then transfer to the 1 line instead of taking my 1-seat 271 route. But I haven’t done so yet, I am enjoying soaking up the 271 nostalgia while it lasts.
Well southwest Capitol hill isn’t exactly the safest place, but in my experience it is a very noisy place to live. Hard to get a good night’s sleep between the post-bar drunks and the screamers at 2 am
But yeah I totally get your point about eastsider’s idea of “safety”… I was talking with a Mercer Islander the other day and I said I don’t think there is such thing as danger on the island, and she regaled me with a story of how she saw a homeless person at a bus stop… not doing anything, mind you, just being homeless 🙄🙄🙄
I think people are getting this idea that Seattle is dangerous from Youtube/Tiktok videos. If your only exposure to Seattle is through viral crime clips you see on your phone, that’s what you think Seattle is.
In a sense this is the same as the the crime reports people used to watch on local TV news, but everyone has a camera in their pocket these days, so I think you can see more of it now.
Although there was one time that a guy who had actually spent some time in Seattle tried to convince me it was dangerous. I tried to explain that I used to live in Philadelphia, which is, statistically speaking, far more dangerous, but he wasn’t having it. I think for people like him, it’s all the fentanyl addicts smoking, stealing stuff and sleeping on the street – that has exploded in recent years. To me, that behavior is annoying, not dangerous. But Downtown Seattle definitely looks worse than it did 10 or 20 years ago.
People see any interactions w the homeless as undesirable. Locking eyes with them can be too emotionally difficult for many people.
But yeah you don’t gotta deal with much yn’s here, so that’s nice.
What would Bellevue have to do to be excellent? Some thoughts. Go back in time to 2010 and eliminate parking minimums, so that the multistory buildings built since them would be more pedestrian-friendly. Double bus frequency across the board. Don’t widen 120th and 124th to 5 lanes. Make more areas like the remarkable Old Main Street aesthetic. Encourage big box stores to follow the Ballard Blocks/Northgate North stacked model like the Target/PCC on 116th. Make the Overlake Village retail area walkable. Allow Crossroads to grow into a more pleasant place to walk in, with more destinations. Have density taper down from the highrises over a larger area rather than stopping abruptly at Main Street and 100th. Encourage 116th and 120th to evolve into something better that a car-oriented blitz. Make Factoria/Eastgate into a more walkable commercial area like downtown Bellevue. Have more smaller, narrow storefronts, where people can have a wider variety of choice per block. Focus less on national chains and more in independent stores and local chains. Look at what people like so much in Pike-Pine, Ballard, and Fremont, and build some neighborhoods like that on the Eastside so people don’t have to go to Seattle for it or do without.
Some of these require time travel or unidentified money sources, but these are what would make it more like a European city, or a collection of “15-minute neighborhoods”.
I wish Bellevue can have its own regional transit reach that gets to more part of Puget Sound without going through Seattle. It has some direct service nowadays but I am thinking it should have more.
Some destinations that Microsoft shuttle system covers but ST and KCM haven’t could be something to start with.
If the sounder had more frequency, Bellevue to Tuwkila station might be popular.
To the south, I think the big problem is the dispersed nature of the Renton-Tukwila corridor.
In theory, you can take the all-day every-day 560 south from Bellevue and connect to buses everywhere. But in practice, it only serves downtown Renton, Burien, and the airport. It goes by Southcenter and TIB Station on the freeway. Worse, it’ll often get stuck in traffic in Renton and the airport, so you might well miss your transfer. And then, because of this, it runs low-frequency.
We’ve talked about improving the 560 before, but I think getting better connections and frequency there will help a lot. 405 BRT is set to improve the frequency, but it won’t do all that much for the connections.
I think the big problem is the dispersed nature of the Renton-Tukwila corridor.
Agreed. It is also often awkward. SR-99 (in north and south Seattle) is a very straight corridor. It is pretty easy to serve with buses. But Renton-Tukwila is very messy, which is why the RapidRide F Line is messy. This messiness contributes to the relatively low ridership and ridership-per-service-hour numbers for the F.
To put a concrete example, my dog’s babysitter in Kent (a long bus 183) is 35 minutes from me (in Kirkland) by car, or nearly 2.5 hours by bus. STRIDE will help the bus option a little bit, but not enough to be even remotely competitive with driving.
Part of the problem is that the bus taking so long can’t be attributed to one specific thing, but rather a whole bunch of little things adding up, a detour here, a transfer there, a walk there, etc. Because the land use is so sprawly out there, getting a decent transit trip is essentially impossible, short of running a special express route, tailored to that specific trip (which doesn’t scale when there are 10,000 different other trips would also need their own special express route to be time competitive with driving). The result is buses that are only capable of producing a time competitive trip for but a small portion of trips to specific destinations.
That’s why micro transit solves all these problems. But everyone on this blog would rather have people drive instead of suggest better micro transit options in suburbs. More DART routes as well.
Micro transit is hard to implement as a public service and can be expensive, but with the growth of autonomous vehicles… It is something to consider in the future.
The main goal then is to create light rail / commuter rail and express buses that serve the entirety of our major highway corridors. Currently that is not happening. Even Stride forces a transfer in Bellevue, adding to the woes.
Routes like SR 900 from Renton-Issaquah is neglected too. Try driving it during peak. There is definitely demand.
There’s got to be a better way than microtransit from Kirkland to Kent. Are there any additional local or express routes possible from the future Renton TC or a 1 Line station that could substantially improve trips to more parts of south King County? It would require more money, but what are the missing routes?
For this particular trip, microtransit would just make things worse. The destination is only a 5 minute walk from the 183, and a microtransit replacement for the 183 would likely end up being just as much waiting, but with a less direct – and less predictable route, once the vehicle finally arrives. Even if it does avoid 5 minutes of walking at the end, it would still not be worth it.
The address Mike Orr’s question, the hypothetical express route that might make the most difference would be if ST 566 ran all day, 7 days/week, rather than only rush hour. That would eliminate one of the transfers, and also a bunch of stoplights and bus stops between Renton and Kent. But, even with that, it would still be a 3 seat ride. There would still be a grand tour of Renton. So, you’d still be looking at well over an hour, best case. But, the best case would require a route that ST isn’t even willing to run today at all, outside of rush hour, to not only run all day, but run frequently. Because, as the middle leg of a 3 seat ride, frequency is really important to minimize wait time. You’d also need a major frequency improvement in the 183 as well, as the time the 566 would actually reach Kent Station would be too unpredictable in traffic to enable a timed connection. And then, of course, Kirkland-Bellevue is also a slow bus.
This is what I’m getting at. There isn’t one single bottleneck that makes the travel time so bad, and there isn’t anything that can be done to get the trip down to even 3X the drive time without spending huge amounts of money, and even then, I’m driving anyway because the car is still 3X faster.
If we want to continue to indulge in fantasy service upgrades, I suppose another scenario to consider would be if Sounder ran all day. That would create an option to go through Seattle: 255-Link-Sounder-183. This option is still a 4 seat ride, and would be a bit longer in distance than a 405 bus. But, at least Sounder is not only fast, but also reliable enough that, even if both Sounder and the 183 ran every half hour, the schedules could be coordinated to offer a short wait time.
It would still not be a quick trip, and it would still likely be an hour and a half, at least, with all the connections. But, it would at least be reliable and insulated from traffic jams on the freeway. But, a full hour time penalty each direction, compared to driving is still too much for getting people out of their cars.
Or, fantasy scenario 3, which has takes all-day Sounder and adds the following upgrades on the 405 corridor
– Both STRIDE route thru-route at Bellevue Transit Center, avoiding the transfer overhead
– Dedicated ramps are added to get the bus in and out of South Renton P&R quickly.
– The 405 bus adds an additional stop at Tukwila Sounder Station, again, with special ramps built to allow the bus direct access to the station, without needing to fight traffic and wait at a bunch of stoplights.
With all this, the trip looks something like this:
– Walk to 405 bus (20 minutes)
– Wait for bus (5 minute)
– Ride to Bellevue (5 minutes)
– Ride to Tukwila Station (20 minutes)
– Wait for train (10 minutes)
– Ride train to Kent (10 minutes)
– Wait for 183 (5 minutes)
– Ride 183 (10 minutes)
– Walk to destination (5 minute)
Even with all of these huge investments going into the trip, in both capital and service, the grand total still works out to be 90 minutes for what, by car, is a 35-minute drive (maybe up to an hour, if traffic is really bad). I don’t see how it’s possible to get better this without some really niche express routes, tailored to one specific trip.
The reason why transit performs so poorly for this trip comes down to:
1) It’s a long distance, so a time-competitive trip requires a transit vehicle to spend a lot of time moving without stopping to pick up passengers
2) There’s a lot of interchanges along the way where demand goes off in a bunch of different directions, rather than along one single demand corridor.
It is 2) that any transit route must either be extremely niche (take all the paths of one particular trip) or have stops at each of the interchange points to allow anywhere-to-anywhere travel, which slows down the service and adds connections penalties to get anywhere.
For a city to really be able to allow for time-competitive transit, it can’t be spread out to the point where lots of people are making trips like Kirkland-Kent. It needs to be much more compact, so the distances are shorter, and transit doesn’t need to travel as far.
That’s why micro transit solves all these problems.
No it doesn’t. Unfortunately micro-transit is not a cost effective form of transit. You can’t serve a lot of riders unless you spend a lot of money. If you willing to spend a lot of money then you might as well run regular transit. Think of one van serving all of Edgewood. It is not a huge area. It might be just fine in the middle of the day. But at 5:00 pm you have a dozen riders who want to get a ride. Half of them are heading towards Tacoma. A couple riders want to go to Green River College. One guy wants to go to Bellevue, another Seattle and the rest to Federal Way. As someone who used to deliver pizzas for a living, I can tell you this is a mess. This is the point where the manager of Pizza Haven tells you it will be at least an hour before your pizza gets there. This is common with microtransit. The waits can be really, really long. The only solution is to hire a lot of drivers which means spending a lot of money. If you are going to do that, then you might as well run a lot of buses.
It goes back to what WL wrote: The big problem is the dispersed nature of the region. I picked Edgewood because a close friend of mine used to live in a trailer park there. But it is typical for the area. It is a city of about 12,000 spread out over about 8 square miles. There are a few apartment complexes here and there as well as some places that could be considered rural. But mostly it is houses spread out everywhere. This means that a high portion of the 12,000 people live in areas that are hard to serve. It is just about the worst possible density level for transit. If the area was lower density it would mean that fewer people would be living there. Transit would suck but fewer people would be hurt by that. If there were more people then transit would be a lot more cost effective. It is in a very difficult middle-ground.
To put that 12,000 people in perspective, consider Census Tract 28 in Seattle. It is bordered by North 70th, North 85th, Aurora and Greenwood Avenue. Like Edgewood it is mostly houses with only a handful of apartments. But the houses are packed much closer together. It is a fairly typical Seattle neighborhood. It has a similar population to Edgewood but is about a third of its size. It is also surrounded by other, similar areas.
The low-density, sprawling nature of the South Sound region makes it difficult to serve. Even with an unlimited budget, ridership is bound to be low. There just isn’t much density. The relationship between density and ridership is not linear, either. As density increases, ridership increases even more. That’s because a lot of people feel like owning a car isn’t worth it. Not when you can walk to most of your destinations.
But dense areas are also easier to serve. You have to travel farther to pick up the same number of people. Consider it the “mail carrier problem”. If I’m trying to deliver mail for that part of Seattle I can do so fairly quickly. But Edgewood is just a lot, lot harder.
Then you have destinations. These too are spread out. You could say that for anyone in the city but it is more likely to be an issue in areas like this. Most of the people in Seattle work in Seattle. With Edgewood, 12% work in Tacoma, another 5% in Federal Way, a little less than 5% in Edgewood itself, etc. What is true for employment is true in general. Hospitals, clinics, schools, retail — they are all spread out.
Thus you have to spend a lot more money to get the same quality of service offered in Seattle. When you do, you are bound to get a lot fewer riders. This is one of the fundamental issues with low-density areas. It costs a lot more to get a lot less. We tend to assume that transit — like so many services — should be distributed evenly. That everyone should have the same quality of service, regardless of who they are or where they live. If not, we assume that someone is getting screwed. (Given our history, this is understandable.) But in the case of transit it is just geography. Areas like the South Sound have to spend a lot more money to benefit a lot fewer people.
To some degree I think this could be alleviated by putting more buses on those expensive new lanes we’re building for Stride.
Similar to how the old bus tunnel and the SODO busway and I-5 do not dedicated “all stops” buses, we should consider adding the service patterns we can run using the HOT and BAT lanes.
Some thoughts might include:
* an S1A, getting off at 405 to serve Renton Landing, Downtown Renton, and Southcenter
* an S1B towards Seatac instead of Burien
* an S2A that diverts via Downtown Kirkland
* an S2B from Lynnwood to Redmond via 85th
* an S3X express from Bothell to Shoreline
More pedestrian but through paths to allow for more direct walking routes.
I was thinking about how there’s no night owl service on the Eastside, and how that should ideally change. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t be the best use of money in terms of ridership, but it’s an aspect of coverage that I think shouldn’t be totally neglected.
Previously, there was the 280, which ran a one-way loop from Downtown Seattle – Montlake Freeway Station – Downtown Bellevue (via Bellevue Way) – Renton – SODO – Downtown Seattle. I agree the 520 path crosslake is better than I-90 given you can stop at UW. Also, I agree the two downtowns are the important points to serve, though nowadays I’d add Crossroads.
So, I suggest two new night owl routes:
* Night owl runs on the 106, between Renton and Rainier Beach only, connecting to the existing owl runs on the 7.
* A night owl route from Downtown Seattle – 520 – Bellevue Way – Bellevue TC – NE 8th to Crossroads. It would serve the Montlake ramp station, by exiting and then reentering 520, which should be possible given light traffic overnight. (Westbound, it may have to take the U-turn at Hamlin?) We could get a new layover spot at Crossroads, or we could extend it north to Overlake Village.
Thoughts?
Metro stopped funding the night owls in the 2014 recession cuts. The Seattle City Council picked up the 81-85, and folded them into the Seattle transit levy when it started. The suburbs didn’t pick up anything. RapidRide A kept 24-hour service for equity, low-income mobility, and airport workers. Later late-night or early-morning runs appeared on the 150 and the SeaTac-Kent-Auburn routes (various numbers over time) for the same reasons. The Eastside never got anything, mainly because it tends to be lower- and more limited-span-ridership ridesrship than the other two.
In high school I remember going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the U-District, leaving early, taking the 83 downtown and transferring to the 280 to Bellevue TC, then walking an hour east to eastern Bellevue because there was no transit. Policemen in Bellevue stared a bit.
Now that the Eastside population has increased significantly, it would make sense to have a night owl approximating East Link. I might put it on 8th and 156th to serve Crossroads and the area around it. There’s an existing RapidRide corridor it could follow.
Meanwhile in Seattle, the emerging A, C, D, and H took over the work of the previous 81, 82, 83, and 85 loops, and extended it north of 85th Street. The 11 and 49 took over the 84’s responsibility. A new 65/67 pair brought night owl to Northgate and Lake City. The E brought it to Shoreline. The 44 had long had the latest non-night-owl runs in north Seattle, and it was probably added to.
If any night owl service makes sense on the eastside, I would probably take the present-day B-line and the present-day 550 and thru-route them together. While such a thru-route would be too long and unreliable during the daytime, I think you could get away with it late at night, when the roads are empty. In return, you get a one-seat ride between downtown Seattle and everywhere the B-line goes, which would offer a nice shadow service to get across the lake during the late-night hours when Link isn’t running.
Besides that it hits all of the biggest rider destinations, it also has the nice advantage of avoiding the need for riders to learn a special-route just for late at night, since people are already familiar with both the B-line and the 550, and where they go.
Ideally, such a route would be timed at the Seattle end for other night-owl connections downtown, for instance, route 70 to the U-district.
Yes, I don’t see why you’d want a route on 520 instead of I-90 or skipping Mercer Island. The 280 was on 520 because it was in a loop with a return path through Renton and East Marginal Way, and the Bellevue Transit Center was naturally between the two, and Bellevue Way was the highest-density part of the Eastside.
Maybe it didn’t detour to the transit center because there was nothing running to transfer to; it might have gone straight down Bellevue Way. It was so long ago I don’t remember exactly.
@Mike, I saved a map of the 280 (and most other Metro routes) from 2014. It ran Bellevue Way – 8th – 108th – 4th – 405, stopping at the Bellevue TC on 108th and also at the SE 8th & 405 P&R. Then it took 405 south to Sunset Way, ran Sunset-Bronson-Grady-Interurban with a brief detour to the South Renton P&R, got on 5 at Interurban, then got off at Spokane and took 4th north.
The one part of this I really like is how it takes 520 not 90. And the reason I like that is the UW. At the Montlake ramp stops, you can get sort of vaguely close to the U-District and serve both UW-Bellevue and Downtown Seattle – Bellevue with one route.
I feel that owl service shouldn’t differ much from major daytime routes. That means either scheduling buses overnight on an existing bus route, or running a shuttle bus route that goes by as many Link stations as possible.
It has these advantages:
1. It is easier for riders to understand. It doesn’t require learning a whole other numbering scheme. It doesn’t require a whole other layer of bus stop signage either or changes in bus locator apps.
2. It can begin earlier if needed. If it’s on existing route, it’s not really noticeable. If it’s an overnight route paralleling Link, it’s easy to stop trains earlier in the evening and have people use buses.
3. It’s easier for riders to understand and use when extra buses are added — like on busy nightlife or post-event times.
*****
It’s not talked about much, but the last train northbound leaves Westlake at 12:34 am and the last train southbound leaves at 12:48 am on the 1 Line. The DSTT then closes overnight. For nightlife or late arriving flights or extended events like extra inning games or stages, it could be considered early and sometimes too early. The people I know who are bartenders have a rough time getting home unless they call an expensive Lyft or Uber.
ST has not said what the new Link service hours will be when 2 Line opens. Will it adjust the last train time in North Seattle? Will it truncate the 2 Line at the ID late at night? I doubt that ST has developed the final Link schedules post 2 Line opening.
But there is a more basic point: ST should not simply dismiss any obligation to fund and operate late night service — and expect Metro to do it all. ST should be sponsoring overnight service.
To the specific Eastside needs, I would suggest that ST run overnight buses from ID to as many Eastside Link stations as they can. They’ll have the fleet with ST Express buses and soon Stride buses from their own base. It might get a bit circuitous to run by every station so some stations may end up skipped (like Wilburton or BelRed) just because they’re awkward to serve with an overnight bus.
I would hope that ST also tries to keep ID-C Station open later in the future with later 1 Line Link trains. It’s an open air station and it’s where 1 and 2 Lines come together. Rather than stop trains leaving SeaTac after midnight at Beacon Hill or Stadium as ST does today, just going that extra distance for another hour or two could be the overnight hub to make life transformative for late night bus across the region.
Finally, all of the area transit agencies (possibly even including WSF and Cascades) need to convene a joint, targeted workshop for overnight transit travel. Every operator seems to be doing their own thing. The issues of overnight bus scheduling and operations rarely get closely scrutinized about if connections are timed correctly between operators. Who pays for what service is part of that needed discussion too.
I’d like to see ST fund a nighttime Link shuttle
That could perhaps be pulsed service at CID (all buses meet and transfer at CID). A bus line serving all stations between Lynnwood-CID, Federal Way-CID, or Redmond-CID are all about 1:00 to 1:15. That would only need to run from 1 AM to 5 AM.
That’s 3 routes, maybe twice hourly, for 4 hours a day; I think it would be quite affordable and reasonably popular as a way to access nightlife or the airport.
I like that idea. That way, ST could schedule first and last trains as needed in the three different directions. Plus it offers direct connections to Metro’s highest ridership and most essential owl routes. Finally, ST could provide focused security staff out of the Union Station building for the platforms and for Jackson Street.
The first train leaves Beacon Hill towards SeaTac at 4:09 am as the first stop. However the first train from IDC towards SeaTac leaves an hour later at 5:11 am. That’s cutting it close (5:44 am) for a 7 am departure flight. If the first or second 1 Line train could run north just to ID-C before going south it could serve hundreds of SeaTac flyers and employees better. ST could then run the last owl buses from the north or east to enable catching an earlier train from there.
When the train isn’t running there is no reason to follow the same pathway. Doing so often takes extra effort (for not much reward). Some of the combinations are done by other buses now. For example the 36 covers Othello, Beacon Hill, CID and the rest of the downtown stations. There are some gaps though.
SeaTac is not directly connected to Rainier Valley. The Columbia City and Rainier Beach Stations riders have to walk to the 7 to go anywhere. But the biggest gaps are in the northern and eastern suburbs. The 65 serves 145th but there is no late-night service for 185th, Mountlake Terrace or Lynnwood Stations. Nor is there anything for East Link.
It does take a long time to backtrack from SeaTac to Rainier Valley. I could see running late night service between SeaTac and Rainier Beach Station. Once you do that you might as well run down MLK to downtown (thereby serving the other stations more directly). I can’t see Metro serving 185th — not when the RapidRide E serves all the stops on Aurora. I could definitely see Community Transit (or ST) running late night buses from Lynnwood though. It is really easy to serve Lynnwood and the Mountlake Terrace freeway stop on your way into Seattle. To avoid backtracking you would want to stop at the freeway station at 45th before going to downtown. Likewise it would be nice to have late night service for the East Side, especially across the water. Maybe a late-night version of RapidRide B that just kept going after reaching Downtown Bellevue. It would stop at South Bellevue and Mercer Island (might as well) before running express to CID (and the rest of downtown). I think that would pretty much do it.
@Ross Bleakney
Following the same route is much simpler for riders. I think the additional system legibility is worth it alone, but serving every stop can also save riders from having to transfer in the middle of the night. There’s some duplication and it will take longer but I think that is fine.
Google Maps says that a CID-SeaTac express is 15 minute. Stopping at every station is 35 minutes.
Following the same route is much simpler for riders.
In one sense, yes. If you planned on taking Link and the “Link-Bus” showed up, you would take that. But it won’t run where you are standing. It will run on the street, near the station. So the idea is that the Link-Bus is simpler than a regular bus. I suppose in some cases that is true. But consider the stops between Federal Way and TIBS (inclusive). It would be very confusing to use bus stops that are different than the RapidRide A. That would put you in position of having to figure out which one is coming next (an A bus or a Link-Bus). So you have to pretty much know what the A Line does anyway (i. e. where there stops are). Except this isn’t a normal A Line. You know where the A Line stops by the airport. You used to take that all the time (maybe you still do, on occasion). So where does this Link-Bus stop by the airport? It seems like you’ve actually added a level of confusion by not just leveraging the existing bus. And what have you accomplished? Faster travel times? I suppose, but you would be better off just running the A Line more often late at night.
What is true for the South End is true for a lot of places. It is highly likely someone who is used to taking Link from Mount Baker is familiar with the 7. But now there is a different bus that shows up late at night and makes what appears to be very weird detour (https://maps.app.goo.gl/FZcKDivsxUyZFhSk9)*. All so that riders from Mount Baker to Beacon Hill avoid a transfer? That seems like a big waste. Again, I would just put more money into the 7 and 36.
Just to be clear, I definitely could see a late-night bus that connects SeaTac with Rainier Valley. The 574 tends to have a lot of late-night ridership. It wouldn’t surprise me if the same thing exists for Rainier Valley. I could also see a North End late-night bus serving Snohomish County. But it would probably be more useful (and easier to understand) if that was an extension of the 512. But it doesn’t need to stop at every station. Likewise it would probably be easier to understand if the B Line extends to Downtown Seattle late at night than some sort of East-Link-Bus that only appears late at night.
*OK, it wouldn’t go exactly like that. It would go down the SoDo Busway. But otherwise that would be the path.
I think it needs to be said that 1 Line is carrying well over 100K riders each day. That alone makes it the most appropriate owl service to operate in concept. Like I said, maybe not every Link station can be easily served, but most can. And MLK signals are set to green for MLK overnight and the crosswalks are not giving long green time unless the beg button is punched (unlike during the day). A bus can travel on MLK pretty fast at 3 am.
The owl service would only be running a few hours each night. So the transition periods to regular bus service are just as important to consider as a stand alone owl service is. Stranding riders halfway along their journey is cruel.
And a Link owl service is just one kind of owl service. It would not replace valuable owl service that parallels higher volume Seattle Metro bus routes. It would be in addition to those other routes.
@Ross Bleakney
There are a few stops that might be worth skipping as you mentioned (for example: 185th, SODO, Stadium), but at the end of the day they add a few minutes to a trip. I think the route should be treated as an infrequent coverage service, not a major route or an express.
I wouldn’t skip Beacon Hill. Beacon Hill-SeaTac alone seems worth serving, and timed service to other locations along Link (Cap Hill, UW for example) seems worth it to me.
This would come out of Sound Transit’s budget. Maybe sending money to Metro would be better, but I’m not sure there’s any precedent for that.
I don’t think there will be additional confusion. Signage at the station should direct riders to the relevant bus stop; bus stops should be reused as much as possible; a bus schedule should be posted; routing apps should direct riders to the correct location.
The reason Link doesn’t have 24-hour service is it uses the gap for maintenance.
Thinking some more about the thread around bus lanes in Lake Forest Park, I think it’s also worth asking the question whether every single inch of the bus route really needs dedicated lanes, or whether there are sections of the route that can do without, without impacting peak-hour travel time too much. In general, as long as the bus stops are in-line (meaning the bus doesn’t have to wait for a gap in traffic to merge over after it finishes loading/unloading passengers), the only time you really need a dedicated bus lane is when approach a traffic light, so the bus doesn’t have to wait in the line of cars to get through the light.
Looking at the expensive creek crossing, just north of 153rd, for example, the southbound bus is approaching a traffic light, but already has a bus lane in the present configuration. So, this whole widening is just for the northbound bus, and the benefit the northbound bus really gets is not needing to wait for an opening in traffic when pulling out of the 153rd St. bus stop. It would be tempting to just extend the curb to eliminate that pull-out and let the bus just block traffic while serving the stop, but that would remove space for a u-turn, which is needed to access some private driveways.
But, even here, there are solutions that don’t impact the creek. For instance, what if, when the bus ready to leave the stop, it had the ability to briefly turn the 153rd light red for northbound traffic, giving the bus the opening it needs, which would only be a few seconds for a bus that only runs every 10 minutes or so. That seems like a much simpler and cheaper solution than widening the entire roadway with expensive retaining walls.
I’d rather have full transit-priority lanes everywhere rather than guessing where spot improvements might be enough. Inevitably those will miss some things, either every day or whenever there’s an unexpected bottleneck. Those don’t happen just peak hours; they happen anytime. It’s better to guarantee the bus can always run full speed than let it have to hit-and-missed where you guessed the spot treatments would be needed. The old center streetcars had right of way over cars, not just at a few spot places but everywhere. Full transit lanes gives something comparable, something like grade-separated rail. Even if it’s overkill in some corridor, it’s better than the chronic underkill that has been at the root of most of our transit problems for the past seventy years.
Having said that, I don’t have a particular opinion on the 522 segments, since I don’t know them well enough to know or weigh all the tradeoffs. But when you see other cities with full transit lanes, and we have to put up with spot treatments, and it’s like pulling teeth to get even that, it really feels like transit isn’t getting enough political/administrative priority, and we should aim higher for an excellent transit network that really zips you around rather than just an OK or mediocre one.
I get the argument. But, sometimes you have a relatively short section where the cost and impact of construction to widen the roadway is very high, relative to the benefit, so it’s good to be reasonable and make compromises. The same goes for car interests as well; just because more people drive than ride the bus doesn’t mean that every single possible car movement has more people making it than ridership on every single nearby bus route. For instance, a bit further north, the 522 is missing a bus lane in order to preserve a center turn lane that avoids a short detour to access maybe 50 houses. That leaves the number of people benefitting from that turn lane very tiny, probably much less than the daily ridership of the 522 bus. Those turn lanes should go, and be replaced by bus lanes.
I’m with asdf2. There’s a real danger of watering things down, but the advantage of bus/BAT lanes is that – unlike rails – you don’t need to do them for a whole route at once. With the money saved, we can build more bus lanes elsewhere.
Sometimes I dream of making explicit the tradeoffs and saying “We have this much money to make bus lanes; which blocks on which routes do people want them on?”
But, sometimes you have a relatively short section where the cost and impact of construction to widen the roadway is very high, relative to the benefit, so it’s good to be reasonable and make compromises.
Yes, but SR-522 is not a good example of that. You don’t need to widen the road at all. You can have BAT lanes the entire way, while spending very little. In contrast, that is an issue with RapidRide G. It is why the bus shifts from center running to side running north of 15th. The roadway narrows to four lanes. Making the street wider in some cases is cheap but in other cases would be very expensive. They could do other things — like making it a transit street or have only one lane for cars (one-way) — but given the driveway and alley ways that can be problematic. You might end up with a lot of messy left turns (with traffic lights) and that gets expensive as well.
The same goes for car interests as well; just because more people drive than ride the bus doesn’t mean that every single possible car movement has more people making it than ridership on every single nearby bus route.
Exactly! And that is the case with SR-522 in Lake Forest Park. Look, I drive that road from time to time. In fact I drove it yesterday. Yes, it is relatively smooth sailing both directions through there. I enjoy this kind of driving as much as anyone. But so what? I would adjust. At worst I would stick with the right lane, knowing that someone in the left lane might be turning left. Big deal. If I was turning left it really doesn’t change anything. If I’m not turning left then I will encounter a lot of traffic lights (and probably congestion) very soon.
I might add that the problem with SR-522 is the assumption that we can’t possibly make things worse for drivers. This is a common suburban mindset. It pushes up the cost of simple projects. It is also nonsensical. Imagine that those streets didn’t have left turn lanes. Why would we want to spend so much money on left turns there and not in Seattle (where there are a lot more cars)? Yet essentially that is what is going on, even though it is seen as a “transit” project.
That is why the complaint is BS. The transit part of this project is actually pretty cheap (at least for this section). It involves taking left-turn lanes and re-striping. The big cost is making the road wider and the only reason they are doing that is because people insist on having those left turn lanes (along with the two general purpose lanes both directions).
think it’s also worth asking the question whether every single inch of the bus route really needs dedicated lanes,
No, of course not. The future Stride 3 will be running with regular traffic along 145th. But in Lake Forest Park there is no need to water down the project. There is also no need to widen the road. They don’t even need to take a general purpose lane! Just take away some of the dedicated left turn lanes. You don’t really need them. They cause temporary bottlenecks but it doesn’t delay most cars as they experience bigger bottlenecks further on. If WSDOT is concerned about safety just drop the speed limit. If we can live with similar intersections — just off the freeway I might add, where people are more likely to be going way too fast — then we can live with it further north on the same highway.
So yeah, expanding the roadway through there is a waste of money. But we don’t have to just live with a half-ass transit project either.
The problem with eliminating dedicated turn lanes is that all it takes is one car turning left to block the entire lane for a whole light cycle. It doesn’t take very many cars doing this before it has the same practical impact as taking a traffic lane (e.g. everyone not turning left has to merge into the right lane). The only way to avoid this problem is to ban left turns completely.
But, it gets more complicated than that. The left turn onto 153rd also allows U turns, which is necessary to access a handful of private driveways along northbound Lake City Way. To allow trucks to make this turn, you need the pullout space for the bus stop on 153rd, so the U turn can’t just be moved further south. Without the ability to make this u turn, the detour to reach these driveways gets really annoying.
I’m also not sure about a left without a dedicated left turn lane on 522. It’s generally recognized as unsafe on arterials, and SDOT has been converting most instances of that throughout the city (see: 23rd/24th, Westlake, etc)
But I think the point of taking the left turn lane still stands: many of the left turn lanes can simply be removed and replaced with u-turn lanes further down the road. Trucks don’t need to reach every driveway, and on protected u-turns drivers can make a 3-point turn.
If it were up to me I would block them from northbound Lake City Way to 15th. Drivers could take a right onto 80th then a left onto 15th.
Or maybe even better the segment through Roosevelt could lose a lane for a center turn lane. That area is fairly urbanized and a center turn lane would calm traffic and probably be pretty useful to access side streets and driveways.
There is no reason not to eliminate left turn lanes. Put a divider down the middle, and make it so that at the next intersection with a stop light you allow U-turns. Everyone can get to where they need to get to.
I watched the movie and I’m more than a little confused. As far as “the new urbanism” is concerned, South Lake Union really must be the pinnacle, right? Only an outfit like Amazon can pay for this sort of environment. I find it remarkable that non-Amazon people like myself can enjoy much of the this for free. Of course many people dislike this, maybe just because “haters goin’ to hate”. I think some the problem is universities teaching kids to just fling poop at everything. Platform Urbanism? Data Colonialism? It’s doesn’t matter what gets built, some grad students are going trash it, (and make up a few fake words in the process)
As far as route #8 goes, I think there are some changes that could be made to make it run closer to “on time”, but I still doubt it will ever be reliable, at least time-wise. There’s just a lot of people in Seattle now, so getting around is just going to keep getting harder. It’s not like the density has brought along a bunch of good things with it, but nothing is ever going to be perfect.
Fixing the #8 is an urban issue like digging a train tunnel in downtown Portland. Everybody agrees it’s a great idea, but the City just can’t seem to ever find the cash. Every city has issues like this. I think it’s important to love and live in the City the way it is in the present, for move someplace else. It’s a big country after all.
@tacomee
Route 8 is a political issue, not a cash issue. Repurposing two lanes on Denny Way would cost very little.
It doesn’t need to be perfectly reliable along the entire route. The status quo of buses consistently 15-30m late is awful for riders.
Crosstown traffic is a political issue? I rode the #8 the first week it ever ran (dead of Winter 1995… I’d get married later that year in August, so my memory is pretty clear. The #8 was always bogged down by traffic even in the beginning. It was still a huge upgrade however!
As Seattle piles more and more population into city limits, transportation isn’t going to get easier, right? Even if Metro spends the money to upgrade the #8 route, the late times might fall from say 30 minutes to 15 minutes? I really can’t see that bus ever staying “on time” Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for traffic revisions to help the #8. Money well spent I’d guess.
My question is… What should Metro cut back on or eliminate to upgrade the #8? Because that’s what grown up city politics/urban planning looks like. There’s not endless cash for this stuff and Seattle is heading into a period of lean years.
What should Metro cut back on or eliminate to upgrade the #8?
Metro wouldn’t be spending money to make the 8 faster. SDOT would do the work. Metro would actually *save* money if the 8 ran faster. The bus wastes a lot of time being stuck in traffic. If the bus ran faster then Metro wouldn’t need as many drivers and buses to serve the route.
So allow me to rephrase the question:
What should SDOT cut back on or eliminate to upgrade the #8?
Not a lot. BAT lanes are fundamentally really cheap. It is just paint. I realize that a lot of “BRT” projects are expensive but that is because they combine it with water/sewer/street work and ask for grant money. The thinking goes like this: Since we are running buses on the street, we need to make sure the road can handle it. Better put down some new cement. But wait, we haven’t repaired the sewer and water lines for a while. As long as we are tearing up the street, let’s do that. OK, now the project seems pretty big. It will definitely improve transit. Let’s see if we can get the feds to chip in. Sure, this means more money spent lobbying the feds but it will pay for itself. Now instead of a really cheap project you have something costing quite a bit.
But as has been pointed out before (including the recent editorial in The Seattle Times) they don’t need to do any street work. They recently repaved Denny and the buses run there just fine. All they need is paint and some signs. This is dirt cheap. Are there better values for SDOT’s spending? Probably not.
Fixing the #8 is an urban issue like digging a train tunnel in downtown Portland.
That’s absurd. A downtown tunnel for trains in Portland would cost somewhere around 2 to 4 billion dollars. Painting BAT lanes on Denny *and* adding signs would cost less than 10 grand. That is an enormous difference.
Crosstown traffic is a political issue?
Yes! Obviously. Drivers don’t want to lose those lanes. The cost to retake a lane is trivial. Why do you think they didn’t take lanes to build the BRT project in Tacoma? Obviously that would have been much cheaper. The simple answer is politics. They were afraid that too many drivers would complain about traffic.
“Painting BAT lanes on Denny *and* adding signs would cost less than 10 grand. That is an enormous difference.”
While it’s cheaper to do, it’s not that cheap! The signal systems would all need to be redesigned too. New detectors and system logic would need to be developed, tested and maintained too. It’s why the northbound-only new bus lane on Rainier for less than two miles and lots fewer signals cost $6.1M.
Again, Al, that is not why the Rainier project costs so much. There was a lot of extra work done. They “built curb bulbs, raised crosswalks, and repaired the sidewalks” at various places. They also added new crosswalks with new beg buttons and walk signals. That is because this wasn’t “just” a transit project. This was a complete makeover on one of the most dangerous roadways in the city. These various changes add up. I don’t know about sewer/water work but I’m pretty sure there was a lot of repaving the main roadway (along with the rest of the work). Those are all worthy things.
But that is not what we are proposing for Denny. We just want BAT lanes. That’s it. No change to the traffic signals, sidewalks or any of that. Just BAT lanes. That is really all that is needed.
For an examples of the type of work done:
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/VisionZero/Rainier_2019_Improvements.pdf
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/VisionZero/2020_Rainier_Mailer_11x17.pdf.
Ross Bleakney
Well, SDOT has a commitment to both cars and transit. So if you’re Greg Spotts (he’s gone now, right? I don’t know who the new one is) taking away lanes for transit isn’t going to be politically easy.
And let’s be honest…. even if the Mayor did decide reassign lanes for transit use…. the next Mayor could just reverse the whole thing. I could see Katie Wilson doing this because if she wins the election, she’ll have this big socialist mandate and absolutely no budget to do much of it. But then when Katie loses the election after that… the new, more car friendly mayor flips it all back…
Just look the “Westlake Center care free zone”. Or the 30 year struggle of 2 blocks of street outside Pike Place Market. I’d guess the #8 just struggles along like it always has. Seattle has been so blessed with gifts like South Lake Union (other cities only dream about this sort of investment!) and yet there’s this general unhappiness in among many of Seattle’s urbanists..
Ross, where do I begin?
The $6M in improvements were between Walden and Grand in a 2024 project; not the one in your reference from 2020. It’s instead here as Phase 2:
https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/transit-program/rainier-ave-s-bus-only-lane#whyareyouaddingbusonlylanesnow
We don’t live in a third world country where the mayor can order a paint truck and crew to change whatever marking and signage they want in the middle of the night. It opens up the City to litigation from traffic accidents. A single payout from a design mistake (paint, signs, signals) could easily be greater than the cost of doing the proper review.
And finally, signal timing and sight distance and spillback and signal head visibility and maybe special new timing plans since buses can move faster and maybe needing to move bus stops are all factors in developing a cost to do the work. I can tell you as a frequent corridor traveler that SDOT changed some other poles, striping and signal timing when they did this project.
I’m surprised that you think it’s just paint and a few hours of labor. We live in a civilized city where renegade cowboy street painting and signage and signal timing isn’t done — even for transit.
The $6M in improvements were between Walden and Grand in a 2024 project
Yes, and according to the link you referenced, that included:
New traffic signals, new ADA curb ramps, new street light and new crosswalks. This is great, but again none of that is needed for Denny. We aren’t trying to “fix” Denny, the way we are trying to fix Rainier. No new traffic signals, no new ADA curb ramps, no new street lights or crosswalks. Just paint. That’s it. Just paint.
We don’t live in a third world country
And yet you think changing traffic signals requires millions of dollars of effort. Dude, they just change the software program. The work you are suggesting — which isn’t even necessary — is all just programming. You run the various models to determine where the traffic problems are. Then you apply the software to the traffic lights. Just like that you have some people experiencing more traffic and other people experiencing less. The idea that adding a bunch of paint somehow costs millions is absurd.
It also run contrary to everything everyone has been saying for years. Look at this critique of “BRT”: https://marcochitti.substack.com/p/down-with-the-brt-long-live-the-bus. Is the author against adding bus lanes (or BAT lanes)? No, of course not. He is against the sort of overzealous approach that so many cities take in the name of transit just so that they can get the federal government to chip in some bucks. In this case we just do it ourselves. Add BAT lanes. That’s it.
It doesn’t cost that much to paint a lane. It just doesn’t. Keep in mind, cities budget for this all the time. Repaving is expensive. Repainting is not.
taking away lanes for transit isn’t going to be politically easy.
Yes! I’m glad you finally agree. This is a political issue, not a cost issue.
Ross Bleakney,
The problem we’re disagreeing about is widespread with urbanists and transit supporters. I’m all for change, but it has to within the realm of fiscal and political reality. Math isn’t really that hard! Even uneducated dudes like me can do it.
You know Denny is terrible street to drive on right? On a bus, in a car…. crosstown traffic is just bad. And now let’s just play with some numbers to see if that’s ever going to get better. Let’s say better bus service gets a small percentage of drivers out of their cars… but at the same time Seattle is adding population, so the number of overall commuters is rising. So even if a smaller percentage of commuters are driving…. it’s quite possible the number of drivers is flat, or even going up. Traffic is terrible. Forever. It’s called “Big City Life” . I’d suggest embracing it or move, because it just the way Cities work.
Of course Seattle could lose population! And Metro would cut service because of low revenue.
“it has to within the realm of fiscal and political reality.”
What I want is for the politicians to have the right priorities, like Paris. Make a list of projects that would really improve the Denny Way situation. Put the ones improving ped/bus access first, and car access after those. That defines the need. Then get cost estimates for all of them. Then see how many of the highest-priority items we can afford, and what we can’t. Then make a commitment to do those things, and show progress. Also make a commitment to figure out how to do the unfunded things, and show progess in that.
“Traffic is terrible. Forever. It’s called “Big City Life” ”
No, it’s called we don’t have the right transit priorities. Make transit that bypasses the traffic, because traffic is terrible forever. That’s what the rest of the world does to make their cities function together, so that people have a viable choice other than driving.
“Of course Seattle could lose population! And Metro would cut service because of low revenue.”
Now you’re adding unrelated factors.
@tacommee — I’m not even sure what your argument is anymore. You have completely reversed yourself. That’s fine. It is more than fine — it is great! You listened to reason and now realize you had it wrong. It was never a money problem. It was a political problem. Yes! That’s what we’ve been saying all along.
But now you are just rambling. Something about math and big city life. Traffic is inevitable as the sparks fly upward. Yeah, sure. What is your point now?
80+% of the vehicle volume on Denny Way and other streets is personal cars, which don’t scale. These cars per square foot carry on a tiny fraction of the people a bus does. Each car is the size of some 8+ people seated (including hood and trunk), and the cars need space around them to avoid crashing into each other. That’s the core of why Denny Way needs so many lanes and is so congested. A large part of that congestion is cars lining up at the freeway entrance or getting off at the exit.
The solution is to have high-quality transit that bypasses the congestion, whether through grade separation, transit lanes, or closing freeway entrances so that cars aren’t lining up on such a constrained multipurpose street. As Ross points out, red paint is cheap; SDOT’s miscellaneous contingency budget could afford it.
The issue is political: prioritizing cars vs prioritizing transit. Paris prioritizes cars last after peds, bicycles, BRT, freight, and emergency/essential vehicles. The others get what they need, and cars get whatever’s left over. (Although capacity for some discretionary car trips is doubtless included in planning, just not for every idle/lazy car trip that somebody might dream up.)
Seattle does NOT do that: it takes some steps for some transit-priority and bike-lane segments here and there, but it’s too reluctant to deprioritize cars so it works around them. That’s the problem on Denny Way: it’s not willing to prioritize transit and deprioritize cars enough. That’s a political problem, not a money problem. And it should improve transit frequency and reliability, to make transit a more feasible and attractive choice for some of those car trips. Then those car trips would disappear and stop straining the street capacity. Other car trips might replace them, but maybe not, since why would those other drivers want to sit in high congestion? Induced demand fills up low congestion vacuums, not high congestion bottlenecks. But transit will be sailing by past all that congestion, so the drivers can stew in the problem that they’re causing.
Mike Orr,
I think you need to get a realistic idea of what life in America is for people who aren’t living the same lifestyle as yourself. I mean transit with small children and daycare just doesn’t work. You can’t take a van full of tools to a worksite on the bus. The more car-free people in a neighborhood there are, the more cars for hire (like Lyft) and delivery trucks there are going to be. There isn’t really any way to “de-car” even in Seattle or Portland. We’re not Europe, never will be.
Currently Seattle is a difficult city for families, lower income workers and host of other people who aren’t 1. college educated, 2. child free 3. making over 100k a year. I think the #8 bus getting stuck in traffic is the least of Seattle’s problems.
@tacommee
>There isn’t really any way to “de-car” even in Seattle or Portland. We’re not Europe, never will be.
It’s literally approve apartments. it’s not that complicated. and no society will not collapse from townhouses or apartments being built
as an asaide, i think you might have forgetten what the suburbs are like for children either. they are trapped at their house and cannot go anywhere without their parents drivin them. and once one is old enough and have your drivers license taken away cannot drive either.
“I mean transit with small children and daycare just doesn’t work.”
It works in Europe. If we made our city and suburbs more usable, it would work here too.
“You can’t take a van full of tools to a worksite on the bus.”
Only a small percent of the cars clogging Denny Way are workers with bulky tools, emergency vehicles, freight, people transporting bulky items, or disabled people who can’t walk to the bus stop. Those are the essential car trips. And they’re a small fraction of the total car trips.
“The more car-free people in a neighborhood there are, the more cars for hire (like Lyft) and delivery trucks there are going to be.”
Not that many more.
“Seattle is a difficult city for families, lower income workers and host of other people who aren’t 1. college educated, 2. child free 3. making over 100k a year.”
Why don’t we make it easier and faster for them to get around without a car? That would lower their expenses.
System Expansion Monthly Status Report, July 2025 is out.
The forecast open date for east link is May 2026 now without date specified like previous reports did. Forecast float contingency was at some point (May 2025 report) as precise as 24 days, but it jumped back to 100+ days since the report for June 2025.
Will it open for the World Cup — even if it’s a special service just for the games? The dates are getting very close.
Check the schedule on page 35. The forecasted revenue service date is May 27, following 75 days of simulated full-scale service.
(Trying to resign myself to waiting 8 months instead of 7 months, and thinking 8 months is 2/3 of a year.)
The biggest problem with the T Line is infrequency. It should run every 10 minutes at least, like all streetcar/metro lines. Instead it runs every 12 minutes weekdays, 20 minutes weekday evening. 12 minutes Saturday full time, and 20 minutes Sunday full time. That infrequency depresses ridership because it’s a lot of waiting overhead for a relatively short distance or a 2-seat ride. If ST wants to make a Tacoma Dome transfer the only way to get to downtown Tacoma from the 1 Line, it really must increase the frequency. Otherwise it will be a typical American half-assed network and people will bemoan that it doesn’t reach its ridership potential.
Ironically it has the best frequency of any transit line in Pierce County, Pierce Transit’s 1, 2, and 3 are either 15 peak to 30 minute off peak frequency. It was actually supposed to be upgraded to 10 minutes with the Hilltop extension but nothing has come yet of that for budget reasons.
Honestly, if Pierce County was to propose a ballot initiative for various county transit projects like improved T Line service and speeding up the T line TCC extension and Sounder DuPont extension, I’d happily vote for it.
Maybe I am missing something, but Dupont? Why?
I went to Dupont to go for a hike. There’s nothing there except a few sprawly subdivisions and an empty, newish faux downtown. The ice cream was good is the best thing I can say.
Span is also fairly woeful. Coming home for a Mariner’s game at 10pm on a Friday, I’m out of luck. I have to ride my bike or Uber.
Sunday is absurd. I can’t use the T-Line to make the 10:20am Sounder game train. And I can’t get home after a getting a beer with a friend downtown at 6pm.
If you spend hundreds of millions, at least fund reasonable ops please.
“If you spend hundreds of millions, at least fund reasonable ops please”
That’s what RMTransit says. The biggest cost is construction. If you’re going to build grade-separated rail, you might as well run ultra-frequent service on it to fully leverage the investment. Otherwise you’re just wasting part of the investment money. Better than 10-minute frequency is the biggest key to mega ridership, because it makes the line very useful and convenient, and closer to hopping in a car anytime.
Tonight I saw a four car Link train on the floating bridge. It was a Siemens train. It wasn’t moving or was moving very slowly.
I guess the testing is now well underway!
Saw it tonight moving pretty quickly :)