Sound Transit Proposes Night Owl Service

91 Replies to “Sound Transit Proposes Night Owl Service”

1. Is there a particular reason why a bus traveling between downtown Bellevue Station and South Bellevue station wouldn’t serve East Main St. Station. It seems like it’s right on the way, it’s just a matter of adding the stop. Unless the idea is that the bus would be serving stops along Bellevue Way instead (like the 550 does).

   1. Yeah I thought that was odd. The eastside doesn’t currently have any night owl service, right? If Bellevue Way merits 24/7 service (I don’t think it does), why not just run the 554 24/7, to also provide overnight service to Issaquah? I think staff is anchored on the 550 routing, which is a route that won’t exist anymore. Serving Bellevue Way with 554 will be more coherent after the 550 goes away and 554 is rerouted.

      Also for the eastside, why not run the S1 & S2 overnight at 30 minute frequency?

      1. The top priority for a Bellevue night owl network is connecting downtown Bellevue to downtown Seattle. The (proposed) 554 doesn’t do that. That leaves the question of which route to take between downtown Bellevue and South Bellevue. Ridership-wise, I honestly think just following the 550 route, serving stops along Bellevue Way is best. But, if the goal is to be a Link shadow, serving East Main St. Station is more legible.

         One thing I hope Sound Transit doesn’t do is have the bus follow the 550’s route, but without the 550’s intermediate stops. Night owl service is not the time to skip stops a bus is going by anyway to save 20 seconds of travel time. You don’t want to spend excessive time on detours, but to the extent possible, when a bus is traveling on a surface street, it should serve regular stops. And, most stops, the bus will just end up blowing right by anyway.

      2. I agree that the night owl routes should also stop at the local stops along the way. For the north and south routes there are very few since they stick to the highway. For the east route, I assume it will follow either RR B’s path or 226’s path between Overlake Village and Bellevue Downtown. Either way, it should stop at the local stops.

      3. Sorry, to be clear I meant for a 554-night service to be in addition to an East Link shadow that would service just the Link stops.

      4. The proposal doesn’t say where the bus will go between Link stations or if it will make any other stops. When I looked at the report last week, I thought it was taking 405 and skipping both East Main and South Bellevue. But this map shows it serving South Bellevue, so I may have misread that. Still, it could get on 405 and I-90, go up to South Bellevue station, and get back on I-90. That could explain why it’s skipping East Main. A similar thing seems to be happening with Marymoor Village: skipping it probably means it will get on 520 right after Downtown Redmond station. An it explains skipping Judkins Park station, if it would take too many turns on local streets to get to a bus top.

      5. Just to back up here, the 550 and 554 will go away. The 556 will be truncated at Downtown Bellevue (and thus run between Issaquah and there). It won’t run late night but it will run a lot later (and more often) than it does now.

         As Mike pointed out, it isn’t clear where these buses will stop. But I agree, if a bus runs on the surface it should make stops along the way. Assuming it is will to this, serving Bellevue Way instead of 112th Avenue SE is quite reasonable.

      6. No, the 554 is rerouting to take over the 556’s route on Bellevue Way. Potato/Potahto perhaps, but the future service maps have been clear the STX route between Bellevue & Issaquah will be numbered 554, even if in your mental map the routing is 556 truncated at Bellevue TC.

      7. Oh never mind, looks like ST switched numbering vs KCM:

         https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/planning-future-service/2026-service-plan/east-king-county#556
         vs
         https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/programs-and-projects/east-link-connections#gallery-4

   2. Because there is no reason for East Main to exist in the first place. East Main is the most useless station in the entire Link system.

      1. That’s short sighted. The zoning allows some pretty large development in the East Main area. It could be quite a different place in 10-20 years.

2. As we discussed in last week’s open thread, this’s very good! I’m unsure these corridors are the best places to use the money, but this’s good!

   That said as I pointed out there, it’s a shame this skips more local Link stops – like, especially, Capitol Hill. What’s more, the south route feels like it spends too much time on I-5 for too few riders, though I might be wrong. So, I suggest we end the Eastside and South routes in Capitol Hill after serving downtown? Also, have the South route stop at TIBS; it shouldn’t be too much of a delay given that it’s already serving the airport.

   Perhaps Sound Transit could also chip in to fund the Route 7 owl, so Metro can redirect service money elsewhere?

   1. Given what a late night destination Capitol Hill is, seems like a miss, yo say nothing of the huge population there.

      If they coordinated the 48 owl better with those first Link runs around 4:15 AM that would be an easy win for accessing those early SeaTac flights. Right now there is about a 30 minute wait between the 48 arriving at Mount Baker TC and the first southbound Link train.

   2. The ST Owl network is meant to complement other networks. It is worth noting that when Seattle funded extra service within the city they made an agreement with Metro such that Metro wouldn’t just shift their money to the suburbs. Metro is supposed to essentially pretend that the extra Seattle money doesn’t exist and come up with a network. Then the city chips in extra money (mostly in Seattle). But there was no such agreement with ST. So ST is taking advantage of the fact that Seattle is funding the Metro Owl network and shifting service elsewhere.

      It does seem quite reasonable for Sound Transit to chip in money for the Seattle’s night owl service, especially since it can always be improved. I think there is an assumption that because a route on the map is considered “Owl” that it runs 24 hours a day but there are usually gaps. For example, the northbound 65 runs from 5:00 am to 2:20 am. That is good but it still means a gap of more than two hours. The 7 is a little better. It runs 4:45 am to 3:50 am (so there is a gap of a little more than hour). But we don’t know what gaps will exist with ST service either.

   3. Adding Capitol Hill to the south and east night owls should be cheap, a ridership boost, and a better layover location.

      But adding the airport to the north line would also be a ridership boost, and maybe allow the south line to serve Judkins Park and the MLK stations.

      Downtown is a traditional transfer area, but who is actually going there as their final destination at 2 am? And who wants to wait an hour at a downtown bus stop at 2 am?

      Regardless, 24-hour service along the 1 Line is long overdue, and justified by SeaTac Airport’s 24-hour operations.

      1. I concur. To me, there is something nonsensical about going for coverage vs ensuring that the routes that are being set makes sense for utilization of by the ridership, which is the ultimate determinant of whether a transit line is considered a success or failure in the future. Capitol Hill is where the rides are going to/from and where much of the non car owning ridership dwells, not to mention that it’s one of the few places that’s still somewhat got a pulse after hours post COVID. Not having Capitol Hill be a stop on the “express” Nite-Owl and having it be an extra hoop one has to jump through seems like a mistake, one of these WTF were they thinking things that everyone talks about when they’re actually riding/using the system for years because whatever the reasoning for it is now, its going to ring hollow for all of multiple thousands of collective hours lost towhat feels like a dumb reason years from now to all those riders. Just my two cents.

      2. I agree. The airport should have transit service to and from Seattle at all hours, day and night. Just because its two in the morning doesn’t mean your options should be limited to taxicabs and rideshare services.

      3. The 124 is extended to the airport when Link isn’t running. That’s to avoid the A+124 transfer at TIB and waiting 20 minutes, which I had to do a couple times before the 124 was extended.

3. It’s about time that ST provides owl service!

   I’m sure the proposed stops will get tweaked over time. I wouldn’t want any comments on that to disrupt going ahead with nighttime service though. Adjustments can be made later.

4. The diagram doesn’t make it clear if there will be 2 ST lines or 3.

   One of the ST lines (east or south) should indeed end at Capitol Hill like William says. It’s probably the most active late night hub. It seems silly for a long distance service to skip it. If ST won’t do it, then extend the H-owl there.

   I honestly think MLK Link stations plus Judkins Park Route 106 deserves owl service run by ST too. I would extend the north line at least to Rainier Beach, or perhaps the Seatac connection deserves double service with two lines — one on MLK and one on I-5 and SODO busway. Skipping so many Seattle Link stations in the middle of the network seems inexcusable. Note that nothing serves Columbia City Link station even though several surrounding Metro routes are shown.

   I feel like there should be timed transfers for owl service with so many required to maneuver around Seattle. In front of Union Station seems best. No one feels safe standing along an empty street at 3 am waiting up to an hour for a transfer.

   Conversely there are a few stations that seem silly. I would put Star Lake, Wilburton and Belred on that list. The diversions seem more time consuming than the riders that they would probably get.

   That’s my whining on the specifics.

   1. I think the missing Seattle stops are to avoid getting off the freeway. They all replicate existing ST Express routes in Seattle.

      You can put all your suggestions in the survey if there’s a text box, or email them to ST. If a lot of people do, ST might modify the proposal, or at least acknowledge that these concerns exist.

      1. There wasn’t a text box in the survey for me to comment on Capitol HIll night owl. Do you know which email address at sound transit is best for this comment?

      2. The only option I see is the main email: servicechanges@soundtransit.org

   2. The express bus would probably end up taking too long to come from Tacoma and also go through mlk way.

   3. Right. The major advantage of the 594 is it’s only 43 minutes. If you make it an hour 43, far fewer people are going to ride it. You can’t make an express a local.

   4. Perhaps the airport would be a better split point between the north and south night owls. Where are people actually trying to get to at 2 am?

      That would allow the status quo on night owl 574.

      1. “Where are people actually trying to get to at 2 am?”

         Home from the bars.

         To or from swing-shift jobs.

5. This is unmitigated good news. Thank you, ST, for making this commitment to providing a twenty-four hour network for the largest collection of Americans in the northwest quarter of the country.

   Al’s idea for extending the north line to Sea-Tac via MLK Jr Blvd is excellent.

   Ditto starting the South line on Capitol Hill or even better the U-District.

6. I see alot of empty rail and buses already afyer 7pm. Who will fund the buses shuttling one to two people per bus or rail? Is it a smart use of our in the red sound transit budget?

   1. Sound Transit will fund this just like they fund other express bus service. Some of the buses carry a lot of riders, some don’t. It is worth noting that late night service often has a “loss leader” effect. You give people extra security knowing they have a way home. Think of someone who works late. Maybe they catch a bus at midnight, but just barely. They have missed it enough times that they end up driving. But if there is a bus at 12:30 am as well they just take the bus.

   2. I was on a nearly full train at 11pm last Tuesday. You clearly are seeing what you want to

      1. I would assume late night light rail ridership varies considerably depending on what events are happening in Seattle on any given night?

   3. The other thing is that it’s likely an hourly bus for late night and they are limiting it to the easier stations accessible by freeway. It can likely be done with just a couple buses

   4. “I see alot of empty rail and buses already afyer 7pm.”

      Take off your opaque glasses and then you’d see the passengers. Even at its lowest times, the 1 line gets one or two people per station, not zero or one people per train run. From inside a train car you can’t see all the people getting on or off other cars. The 550 is even standing room only westbound some evenings.

      Even the lightest-used coverage routes usually get 10+ passengers per hour. None of the all-day ST Express routes are coverage; they connect regional centers as per their mandate. It looks like less because the observer usually sees only part of the route, and doesn’t see the people who get on after they’ve gotten off and vice-versa.

      Only the 2 Line approaches what you describe, but that’s because it’s only five miles and doesn’t connect its primary trip pairs yet.

      A transit network only works if people can use it both day and evening, even if daytime service has to subsidize evening service. No metro in the world shuts down at 7pm, not even San Jose VTA which comes closest to what you describe. If you can go somewhere but can’t get back, you’re less likely to use transit one way in the first place. Especially if you have a car but it’s too big to carry on the bus, so you’d have to leave it home and pay for a $10-30 taxi ride back.

   5. Which rail?
      Which buses?

      Sure, the 24 is usually empty at the end of its S curve through Magnolia, but there’s not much there. None of these buses go there.

      Sure, neither Seattle streetcar route get many passengers, but they don’t really very far. None of these buses go to those locations.

      I’ve been on some pretty packed buses at 1 am, and I’ve taken the E at 4 am and it was fairly busy.

   6. You must not see the trains from SeaTac. Many flights land in the evenings and every Link train headed north has at least a dozen riders boarding there — often three or four dozen. It’s the transit equivalent of a routine 9 or 10 pm SeaTac traffic jam.

      There is plenty of other activity too. There’s everything from people working at different times (working at places like hospitals and restaurants and even cleaning crews for office buildings) to night class students to nightlife like games and shows and merely dining out and other things. We no longer live in a daytime world.

      1. That’s a really low estimate for airport ridership. I’ve arrived at 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, and 11pm and I have never seen fewer than 15-20 people boarding per car (so 60-80 total for the train), and it’s usually double that. About 1/3 of the seats are taken immediately and occupied until at least Mt Baker. Riding through downtown / Capitol Hill almost every seat is taken.

   7. 550, 574, 578, and 594 are rarely empty I can assure you as a frequent rider for over a decade. I’ve seen plenty of express busses at 8,9,10, or even 11 leave Seattle full or mostly full and became standing room only. Lot of Hospitality workers get off around that time.

7. For Rainier Valley, the span of service gap is shorter than elsewhere as mentioned, from 1-4:30am, and only Columbia City Station would lack any connections at all. This could be most easily solved by a restructure that 24/7 extends both the 48 to Rainier Beach via MLK AND the non-Prentice 7s to Rainier Beach via Henderson AND either eliminating or truncating the 106. The Rainier Valley–SeaTac connection is adequately served by the extra 5 northbound trips the valley gets between 12-1:00am and the 10 extra early morning southbound trips between 4:30-5am. I have heard ST is thinking of taking those late night trains out of service due to low ridership, but they’d be deadheading anyway, so it’s just needless service loss to not let passengers board them. Intentionally cutting ridership to zero because of *checks notes* low ridership is truly galaxy brain agency thinking. 😵‍💫🙃

   1. It’s to allow for more maintenance on the tracks

   2. There are gaps within the owl network. Some are bigger than others. For Rainier Valley there is the 7 and Link. The 7 is relatively consistent. Early morning southbound buses do start at CID but otherwise they cover everything between downtown and Rainier Beach.

      Link is different. Sometimes they only run trains south from Beacon Hill to Angle Lake. Other times it is the reverse and they only run trains from SoDo to Lynnwood. Thus it really depends on where you are going. With that in mind, here are some gaps (all times are based on when a bus serves Rainier Beach):

      7 Northbound gap: 3:50 am to 4:45 am
      7 Southbound gap: 4:33 am to 5:30 am

      Northbound Rainier Beach to downtown gap: 12:17 am to 5:03 am
      Southbound downtown to Rainier Beach gap: 1:01 am to 5:30 am

      Northbound SeaTac to Rainier Beach gap: 1:07 am to 5:03 am
      Southbound Rainier Beach to SeaTac gap: 1:01 am to 4:22 am

      The 7 does a good job of covering for Link. The problem are those trips from Rainier Valley to SeaTac. Getting from SeaTac to Rainier Valley at 2:00 am requires going downtown first. That is a big detour. The same is true in reverse. It seems like this is one of the bigger holes in this plan.

      1. Yes, this is a hole. And frankly I find the excuse that “KCM already provides it with funding from the City of Seattle” rather unfair to Seattle’s hefty taxpayer contribution to ST’s operations unless ST plans to hand KCM a check for the service. .

         For the sake of fairness and equity and system understanding, I feel that ST shouldn’t summarily skip the Rainier Valley in its entirety with these planned routes.

         Finally, Route 7 only goes directly by Judkins Park and Mt Baker. The other Link stations are between 1/4 to 1/2 mile from Route 7.

8. The Shoreline South ramps will both have roundabouts and no “flyer” stop ability…any train stopping there would need to exit and make multiple turns. There is no easy way to serve 185th or Pinehurst, as the former has no freeway ramps (which makes it a great station to hike to) and the latter only has them southbound.

   1. They never took the flyer lanes out at 145th. You’d just have to walk the two block to the station. The roundabouts don’t interfere with the old I-5 stop locations (though they would need to be updated cause they’ve been blocked off and unused for years)

      1. Yeah, from what I can tell the southbound lanes are still there and are pretty much the same as always. The northbound lanes are still there but they blocked them off. Part of it is used for construction. They did remove the bus stop but that is pretty easy to add back in. Part of the pedestrian pathway is still there but part of it has been removed. You can compare old and new pictures on Google (north end, south end). Even if the southbound flyer stop gets removed it would be trivial for a bus to exit at 145th, go through the roundabout, stop at a bus stop on 5th Avenue and then turn to get back on the freeway. The bus would never encounter a stop light (and is really not that different than using the flyer stop).

9. Fyi they are also considering on extending sound transit links maintenance window. Aka starting link later and ending earlier.

   If so I’d probably connect up to Capitol Hill as others have noted. If the Oliver way bus stops still existed it’d be useful as well

10. Nothing wrong per se with an empty bus: https://humantransit.org/2020/04/whats-wrong-with-an-empty-bus.html

    1. Sorry meant as a reply to David

11. I would absolutely use this on the weekend. Not sure how much week day traffic it will get.

12. How would they number the routes? I was thinking just assigning a completely new set of routes in the 800s (Community Transit doesn’t use that anymore, and it’s similar to how King County Metro used the 80s for Night Owl 10 years ago.) I would number them 812, 845, and 894.

    1. I like the idea of commemorating Metro’s 8x night owls. The 58x routes are currently set to vanish next spring, so they can reuse those numbers?

    2. For the 594, I would prefer they just keep calling it the 594 with the expanded schedule. No reason to make things unnecessarily confusing.

       1. Except that the night owl routes will be meaningfully different from the daytime routes. For example, the nighttime Lakewood-Tacoma-Seattle route is going to stop at Seatac.

    3. 8 looks like owl’s eyes turned sideways. I assume that’s why Metro historically numbered the night owls 81-85 and 280.

       ST could number the routes 58x. The second digit tells which highway it’s on, so that could move to the third digit: 581 North, 585 East, 589 South.

       Metro’s 80-series night owls were unique loops that had no daytime counterpart. Echo one strung part of several daytime routes together. Since 2012 Metro has moved away from that model, instead elevating RapidRides and other regular routes to night owls. The RapidRide lines were specifically designed to serve the highest-volume and most strategic/central corridor in their area, so they’re where night owl service should be.

    4. ST apparently had early-morning (4am) 512s to downtown Seattle even when daytime service was truncated at Northgate. That’s what the bus stop at Olive & Terry says. I checked the 512 schedule and don’t see any runs to downtown, so they may have been deleted but the bus stop signs are out of date. Still, that’s what a north night owl would look like.

13. Are any of the night owl buses timed with one another? Will the ST routes be timed with one another? Nobody wants to wait 30-60 minutes in the middle of the night for a transfer.

    1. Agreed. The old night owl routes all arrived and departed downtown within 15 minutes. Metro and ST need to coordinate this.

    2. We don’t know whether they’ll be coordinated, just like we don’t know what the frequency will be. We just have a range of possible frequencies. If you have ideas about which routes should be coordinated with which, that would be a good thing to put in the feedback.

    3. “The old night owl routes all arrived and departed downtown within 15 minutes.”

       They all departed 4th & Union at 2:10pm and 3:30pm.

    4. “Nobody wants to wait 30-60 minutes in the middle of the night for a transfer.”

       That’s one reason the RapidRide night owls run every 30 minutes usually. ST seems to want that but is unsure whether it can achieve it due to driver or financial availability.

14. I feel a bit mixed about this proposal. On one-hand, if a nightshift worker can get back home from downtown past 1230a, I’m all for it. I know this will definitely be needed for airport workers whose shifts start 300a-500a.

    On the other hand, many night-owl riders are homeless people who are trying to stay out of the elements. The worse the weather, the more crowded and unsanitary it gets. And safety is a concern for both operators and riders.

    It would be nice to see Link service run until 230a on Friday and Saturday nights.

    1. Certainly homeless on transit is an issue— but it’s an issue at any time of day.

       These are not light rail trains with level boarding and the honor system. They’re buses with a driver in front. That creates more monitoring than what happens on Link. That deters many homeless people from boarding the service.

       Many systems also add security staff at night.

       While it can be an issue, it’s a weak reason to not have owl service.

       1. Unfortunately, homeless on buses has become a growing issue since COVID/BLM. Metro no longer enforces fare payment and security, which is scare, is more off-bus than onboard.

          If you’ve ever ridden Metro at 3a, most riders are homeless seeking shelter. The majority of rides are uneventful. But there’s a reason why there’s a heavy security presence at the end of night owl run and at Pike/Pine bus stops. Which begs the question: should we provide bus service if only the majority of riders are seeking shelter and not actually going anywhere?

       2. Certainly buses are a terrible and very expensive last-resort option for homeless people. However, this happens partly because that’s the outcome of the system. Overnight bus service does not cause homelessness — so not having overnight service would not make the issue abate.

          And homelessness is a condition — not a demographic. It’s a condition that can’t be addressed with a single approach. A woman avoiding going home to an abusive spouse is very different than a opioid drug addict living mostly on the streets is.

          Still, we should expect our governments to deal with it and not let it affect the need for 24/7 transit service. If we do that, what’s next? The end resolution appears to be a full overnight public curfew and that’s unrealistic and dictatorial.

          I’ve even wondered if there should be trained social workers on buses overnight to help compassionately get homeless people off buses each night.

       3. “should we provide bus service if only the majority of riders are seeking shelter and not actually going anywhere?”

          Should we provide a way for night-shift medical workers and janitors to get home without a car, and “early morning milkmen” (the historic stereotype), and people who have been drinking leaving bars at 2am closing time? Yes, yes, and yes.

       4. @Mike… times have changed. As a transit nerd, I’d love to have a train running at 200a or the D, 40 and 44 (my usual buses) run every 30 min rather than 60 min. But the majority of the world isn’t comfortable taking a bus super late at night for the exact reasons I mentioned: personal safety. The bar crowd is taking Uber/Lyft and don’t have the patience to fidget around with planning a bus ride and waiting. They want a ride “now”. That leaves workers who are working swing shifts that often get out by midnight rather than 2a or 3a.

          If these night owl routes are used by *legitimate* riders, I’m all for it. However, based on my years of riding at all hours of the day, I’m doubtful of their usefulness.

       5. “But the majority of the world isn’t comfortable taking a bus super late at night for the exact reasons I mentioned: personal safety. The bar crowd is taking Uber/Lyft and don’t have the patience to fidget around with planning a bus ride and waiting”

          You’re extrapolating from a subset of people to the whole. Safety issues ebb and flow over the months and years.Different people have different thresholds for what they perceive as a significant risk. If we take your argument to its conclusion, then because some people perceive daytime transit as unsafe or believe what media sensationalist news clips say, we should shut down the entire transit network because nobody wants to use it and will never want to, even though some people do want to use it, and we hope more people will in the future and that safety issues will subside into a rarity. New York could have eliminated the subway and closed Central Park in the 1970s because of complaints they were unsafe, but it’s a good thing it didn’t, and millions of riders every day would have lost that mobility option.

       6. “The bar crowd is taking Uber/Lyft and don’t have the patience to fidget around with planning a bus ride and waiting. ”

          That’s a very US-centric attitude. You don’t find it in Vancouver BC or The Netherlands, at least anywhere near that extent. In Vancouver there’s a noticeable exit from bars/clubs right before the last Skytrain run, and when the bus operators’ union went on strike for weeks, clubs complained that they lost a lot of their clientele, and Londsdale Quay shops lost most most of their business. (Maybe that meant the Seabus was also suspended? Skytrain continued to run because its operators were in a different union. But the bus union maintained Skytrain TVMs, so when they ran out of change and deactivated, Skytrain was free for the rest of the strike.) That positive attitude toward transit is what we should strive for long-term here, and it starts by providing as much transit service as Vancouver does. That means increasing frequency, keeping night owls, and striving toward half-hourly night owls on all routes as we can.

    2. If Link rolls back to 6am-midnight operation most days, I’d like to see it keep late-night service at least Fridays and Saturdays, and perhaps extend it to 2:30am.

       I remember going to the Vogue on Capitol Hill in the late 90s/early 2000s, and leaving around 1:30am to walk to the last 73 to the U-District at Fairview & Denny around 1:50am. If I stayed at the club a little longer until 1:45am, the next bus was the 83 night owl at 2:10am at 4th & Union. If I stayed until closing time or a little later, I’d have to wait an hour and a half for the second night owl at 3:30am.

15. I really wish this were better for Roosevelt riders. I live to the east of Roosevelt. On a normal day, not at night, I take the #62 to Roosevelt, then Roosevelt to the airport. To get to the airport with the new plan, I’ll have to get to the 67 (probably via walking), which barely runs, and take it to U District. Then I’d take the Everett night bus to downtown, and transfer to the Lakewood night bus to the airport, so 3-4 legs of travel depending on if you could the walking. That’s basically useless for me, given the likely wait times and bad timing on the 67. Roosevelt is basically unserved by this proposal, IMO.

    I take issue with the blog post’s wording of ” 85% of Link station areas will have 24/7 service. Only Shoreline North, Pinehurst, Marymoor Village, and East Main stations will not. ” — the #67 does NOT have enough service to mean that Roosevelt is served!

    Additionally, no one is commenting about the fact that riders on Everett-downtown and Lakewood-downtown will have to transfer downtown in the middle of the night. Why not combine them to make it one long north/south line continuously? That would be easier for riders.

    1. As I wrote up above there are gaps within the Night Owl network. It is easy to assume that buses that are on that map run 24 hours but that isn’t the case. You are right, the 67 has a gap. A bus leaves Northgate around 2:00 am. The next bus leaves there at 4:43 am. So if you are trying to get around at 3:00 am you have to walk. But there may also be gaps in these buses. We don’t know the actual schedule.

       riders on Everett-downtown and Lakewood-downtown will have to transfer downtown in the middle of the night. Why not combine them to make it one long north/south line continuously? That would be easier for riders.

       Yes, that would be ideal. It may be too long for drivers. If it is, then it would make sense to time the transfers. The bus shouldn’t leave downtown until the other bus has arrived (and riders have had a chance to transfer).

    2. This is an example of the bigger equity problem I have with the “KCM already provides it with separate Seattle city funds so we don’t have to” philosophy. Seattle residents pay ST taxes for service just like the rest of the district!

       It also seems like a minor diversion to run between U District and Roosevelt on city streets rather than get back on the freeway.

    3. Ross wisely points out a problem when just looking at diagrams and maps for infrequent service. It’s easy for an agency to create a map or diagram. However it’s ultimately the actual bus scheduled runs that provide the connectivity and not just a line and dot on a diagram. These aren’t like streets; they are periodic services.

    4. How often do you go to the airport? Most people go to the airport once or twice a year at most. Airport workers may go five days a week in the early morning, but the transit network seems to assume most of them come from Kent, Auburn, Pierce County, or along the A line. How many people travel between the ST night-owl sectors is one of the questions that needs to be asked. I’d guess that it’s significantly lower than the number traveling within an ST sector or within Seattle.

       1. I’ve met many flight attendants who live in Seattle apartments. Many times they must be at work early in the morning or leave work later in the evenings. It can take just one delay to push their plane landing time to 11 pm or midnight.

    5. I don’t think ST is basing skipping Seattle stations on the Metro routes. It’s more likely ST wants to stay on the freeway, and those stations aren’t regional centers and don’t have flyer stops. It’s keeping the nighttime ST Express routes similar to the daytime ones. You may think it’s worth it to get off the freeway for all these stations or use local streets to go between them, and it would add an “insignificant” amount of travel time, but it probably looks different to stakeholders in the outer subareas who don’t want to take most of an hour to get to downtown Seattle, or don’t want the psychological feel of constantly getting off at every exit, waiting at stoplights and turning several times to the bus stop and back, again and again throughout the trip. That’s not how ST Express normally works. And it’s why the 512 and predecessors never stopped at Northgate or Roosevelt or Capitol Hill before the Link extension made it possible to serve those in a reasonable timeframe.

       Still, it’s something you can bring up in the feedback. And we’ll see whether a lot of people do, and whether they outnumber those who say don’t do it.

    6. “I take issue with the blog post’s wording of ” 85% of Link station areas will have 24/7 service. Only Shoreline North, Pinehurst, Marymoor Village, and East Main stations will not.”

       Fixed. The sentence may have been originally written in the context of the Eastside section, and then the article grew around it, and Michael may have added to north stations to it, or he may have written it before realizing all the stations that weren’t served. I saw the report last week and thought South Bellevue was skipped, but that was me misreading the map, which isn’t the easiest to decipher.

16. I’ve often favored having ST fully convert to the letter-number practice used in Germany. They will be doing this with Stride already. They haven’t said but I suspect that this route numbering will work like Stride.

    ST could someday switch out the “5” for an “X” on every express route. That way, every ST bus would have a letter-number established. They already use numbers for Link so someday adding “L” in front would be pretty straightforward. That leaves just Sounder and Tacoma Link to convert if they wanted.

    ST could start calling these “O” routes (overnight or owl) but it does look too much like a 0. They could use “N” for nighttime (ST has both S and S1, S2, S3 as different modes so even though they use N this could be similarly done) or any other letter. Munich uses “N” with a number.

    1. This was intended to nest within Jacob’s comment above.

17. As I wrote up above, I think the biggest gap in ST service is from SeaTac to Rainier Valley. Yes, riders can ride downtown and backtrack but that is quite a ways. But it is also worth considering which riders are worse off if they miss that last train. I think it is riders close to Shoreline North (185th). It is about a mile to Aurora and if you live to the east it is a really long walk to 148th. In contrast most of the riders using the Pinehurst Station live close to the 65 or E Line. Riders at other stations have other bus options.

    At the other end of things, the bus from SeaTac to downtown is somewhat redundant — it duplicates the 124. It would be better to combine the 124 with the bus coming from the 594. But if it can’t then we are stuck with a bit of redundancy.

    Then there are Metro’s (or Seattle’s) Night Owl buses. It is very easy to look at the map and think things are covered. These are the buses that run 24 hours a day. But they aren’t. Many of these buses have three hour gaps late at night. Even before they reach that point they run infrequently. We don’t know what type of gaps will exist with ST service.

    We should also consider the transfers. Ideally the ST bus would run from Lynnwood to Federal Way. That may not be possible. It may be too long. That being the case, the transfer should be timed. A bus should not leave downtown until the other bus arrives. The same is true with the Metro Night Owl buses. ST should coordinate with Metro in creating a functional late night system. Ideally this means increasing service a little bit to plug the gaps (so that the map really does mean 24-hour service) as well as coordinating transfers.

    1. I agree, Ross as I stated elsewhere.

       As an example, consider a simple two line ST overnight network:

       – Everett to SeaTac using MLK
       – Redmond to Lakewood via Downtown Seattle and SeaTac using I-5

       Realtime schedule coordination to have just two buses meet seems easiest. (Of course, the Capitol Hill connection is an issue with this.)

       I could see a three route scenario for long distance buses too:

       – Everett to SeaTac using MLK
       – Capitol Hill to Lakewood via Downtown Seattle using I-5
       – Redmond to U District or Seattle Center via Downtown Seattle

       Three bus routes take more work to coordinate in real time but it could be done.

       The next challenge becomes having a safe, accessible layover spot within walking distance of Downtown. A spot like this is not needed most hours of the day as most Downtown bus routes are quite frequent. There are ways to do this at a Link station but it would require a deliberate redesign of the location. The nearest current transit centers to Downtown with layover potential to me are at UW and Mt Baker and these are both far from Downtown itself.

       Finally, WSDOT often blocks freeway lanes in different places at night, and I’ve experienced resulting traffic congestion at 1 am. When WSDOT does this, they should include actions to remedy this for overnight buses in their traffic control planning.

18. I’m glad to see that transit during non commuter hours is being increased. As a member of the Governor’s Committee on Disability Issues and Employment, I have learned that the biggest impediment to employment for people with disabilities is the lack of transportation at “off hours.”

19. It is worth noting that Oran’s map is a bit out of date. The 65 ends at 148th Station now. Otherwise it seems accurate.

20. I think you meant midnight to 5 AM not pm.

    1. Fixed.

21. Cool, glad it’s finally happening. A real city needs transit around the clock. Remind me again why the light rail doesn’t run between 1-4 AM.. 🤔 But I guess I chose poorly living on the Eastside in Renton. It looks like a lifetime paying the RTA and taxes to fund ST‘s budget and get nothing in return. 7 miles from SEA and I’m still stuck driving or using expensive Ubers. Connecting at Renton TC is time consuming at best, and comes with a high likelihood of being assaulted. Maybe someday..

    1. Remind me again why the light rail doesn’t run between 1-4 AM.

       Track maintenance. Very few subway systems run 24 hours a day. It is much cheaper to close down for the night. Some transit systems have very good buses to compensate, some don’t.

       Renton will get some bus improvements with ST3. Getting to Bellevue, Burien and the Tukwila Link Station will be better. But that is about it. I think they should make Boeing Access Road Station a multi-modal hub. They should add a freeway station there (for the buses) and then put the Link station close to it. That way the 101 and 102 could connect to Link and continue on the express to Downtown Seattle. They should also add HOV ramps from I-5 to the SoDo Busway. This would make the trip to and from Seattle faster and more reliable.

       1. Lots of other stuff too. Station platform washing pretty much has to be done by hirail vehicles in the tracks, as you’re not going to get a maintenance truck up the escalator.

          NYC subway and Washington Metro built their own tunnel washing equipment from old equipment, but it’s expensive to do that.

22. I guess Seattle-Everett route probably will be the same as 512’s two special northbound trips from SODO at Sunday night/Monday morning when Link service ends earlier.

23. Any way that we can get Alderwood station sooner?
    Maybe have night owl stop there too?

    1. Alderwood seems to be left out of ST’s short term plans. It has the 535 and that’s it. That may be going away as the future Stride S2 Line will skip that stop (https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/stride-s2-line). It is possible they could consider a shorter extension. They considered building Everett Link in two stages with the first stage being Mariner. This would delay the full completion of Everett Link as noted in this post: https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/06/07/early-link-to-mariner/. That was a while ago. The financial situation has gotten worse. It seems unlikely that they will build Everett Link in stages unless they think they can’t built it at all. That would be part of the inevitable and tough discussion they will have next year when they decide how to move forward.

       For now, Alderwood is dependent on Community Transit and CT seems to serve the area well. It doesn’t strike me as the area I would focus on in Snohomish County — Edmonds does. It takes a really long time to get from anywhere in Seattle to Edmonds (even using Link). I would add an express bus from Edmonds to 185th Station. I think ST should add it as a replacement for North Sounder (that I would cancel).

Comments are closed.