Link is starting a monthly maintenance program, with the first batch of work Tuesday-Thursday night. Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

Buses will replace 1 Line trains between Rainier Beach and Angle Lake stations during late night hours on Oct. 21, 22, and 23 to accommodate planned maintenance work on the alignment. The last northbound train will depart from Angle Lake Station at 10:32 p.m. and the last southbound train will depart Rainier Beach Station at approximately 10:40 p.m.

1 Line trains will then operate as scheduled between Lynnwood City Center and Rainier Beach. For passengers continuing south, 1 Line shuttle buses will operate every 10 minutes between Rainier Beach Station and Tukwila International Boulevard Station. From there, passengers can transfer to the King County Metro A Line for service to SeaTac/Airport and Angle Lake stations.

The same connection will be available for northbound travelers, who should use the A line to connect from SeaTac/Airport or Angle Lake to Tukwila International Boulevard Station where they can transfer to the 1 Line shuttle for connections to Rainier Beach and trips further north.

This is the first of Sound Transit’s new planned monthly maintenance windows. These new maintenance windows are designed to improve system reliability and performance by expanding the overnight maintenance window in target areas. During the extended closures, crews will perform enhanced state of good repair work on the rails, overhead power systems, signals, and more.

A language line is available to provide translation assistance for passengers with limited proficiency in English at 800-823-9230.

Yes, that means a 3-seat ride from the airport or Angle Lake to Othello or anywhere north of it. (1) Take Metro RapidRide A to Tukwila International Blvd station, (2) transfer to the Link shuttle bus to Rainier Beach station, and (3) transfer to a 1 Line train the rest of the way. Vice-versa southbound.

Metro’s route 124 bus also runs between Tukwila International Blvd station and downtown Seattle. If you’re getting off downtown anyway, this would reduce the number of seats to two. The 124 is half hourly evenings so check its schedule first. The 124 does not serve Rainier Valley or Beacon Hill.

21 Replies to “Link Monthly Maintenance”

  1. Wow, how cheapskate is that? At the hours we’re talking about (2230-0500?), there is little congestion around the Airport, and it’s just a mile between TIBS and Angle Lake. Given that the ride from Rainier Beach to TIBS will be about ten minutes tops — it’s a little slow down King Way to BAR, but then freeway all the way to TIBS — adding the two stops to the south would essentially double the cost, but that cost is going to be two buses max. ST can afford to run two extra buses for twenty-one hours.

    Cheap, cheap, cheap.

    1. Agreed, and forcing the airport users to do this is beyond cheap. There’s a large arrival bank from about 2200 to 2330, the eastbound red-eyes depart from about 2200 to 0100, and several of the outbound Asia flights leave around 0200 – to say nothing of people who work at the airport and whose shifts end in that timeframe. Some of these folks couldn’t use the train during normal operations anyway and would normally take the 124 if going downtown, which extends to the airport after the 1 Line shuts for the night (specifically to avoid that extra transfer at TIBS), but I’ve arrived many times in that late window before the trains stop and there are no small number of people on the platforms with me. Trying to force people to ride a bus a short distance to change to another bus and then a train *on the same route* is the kind of thing that makes people wonder why they take transit in the first place. If you’re going to run a shadow service, shadow the whole line or at the very least go the extra mile and a half from TIBS and serve your busiest station in that area – a station that serves a lot of people that aren’t familiar with the region at all.

  2. Will the proposed night owl service be extended to cover the monthly extended maintenance schedules?

    I suppose the 2 Line will avoid this mess by simply having a shorter service day, but will be last in the queue for night owl service.

    Well, okay, MLK and Beacon Hill are not even in the queue for night owl service until the City of Seattle funds it. If Mayor Harrell is paying attention, he might even bring up the still-unmet need for airport workers who live in Rainier Valley to be able to get to and from their airport graveyard shifts via transit, while he still has time.

    Or maybe Metro can do something clever with a night owl Metro Flex zone(s) that includes the airport terminal.

    1. “I suppose the 2 Line will avoid this mess by simply having a shorter service day, but will be last in the queue for night owl service.”

      Sounds Transit has already proposed an overnight bus shadowing the 2 line in it’s 2026 service plan.

    2. The 7 and 36 are both night owl so I would say that Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley to downtown is covered. I think the biggest “missing link” in night owl service will be Rainier Valley to SeaTac. It could run from Mount Baker to SeaTac (although at that hour you might as well serve downtown). It would be nice if ST provided it but Metro might have to. Of course Metro has plenty of other needs.

  3. sound transit never heard of overnight maintenance? How is it possible that these people only work daylight hours when highway maintenance crews figures out how to create artificial light via equipment

    3. ST has been doing overnight maintenance all along. This extends the maintenance period by a few hours. So instead of the usual 1am to 4:30am, it’s 10:30pm to 4:30am. This allows it to get more done sooner, which will hopefully improve reliability. Improving Link’s bad breakdown rate is the motivation for this strategy.

  4. For all intents and purposes, this shuts airport Link service at 10:30pm. No one in their right mind is waiting for an A bus running every 20-30 minutes to an untimed transfer to a Link shuttle to an untimed transfer to a Link train. There are still plenty of flights arriving at night and regular crowds getting on trains at that time of day. ST’s operating decisions are starting to remind me of one of the cartoons I saw of Boston’s transit system, the MBTA. “We don’t care. We don’t have to. (T)”

    1. I thought about putting in the article, this might be the best time to take Uber or a taxi or have somebody pick you up.

      I think ST should extend the shuttle to Angle Lake, because it is a Link replacement service.

      Looking at the big picture though, if the monthly maintenance projects reduces Link’s breakdowns and single-tracking and power outages, we’ll call it an overall gain. A few people will have to take Uber or be confused for three nights, everybody else can work around scheduled maintenance periods, and there will be fewer unplanned disruptions that throw everybody into disarray and uncertainty.

    2. ST has reversed course in previous maintenance mitigations after large public pushback. It backed down from a few of its worst plans when the downtown tunnel was single-tracked or closed, like reducing frequency in the north end or having 30- or 40-minute frequency downtown.

      So a large public outcry that a 3-seat ride is unreasonable could cause ST to extend the shuttle to Angle Lake. That would cost ST little money, just a couple more buses. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of buses it operates every day, or Link’s multibillion expansion projects or millions in repairs, or even replacing an escalator as it has done in some stations.

      1. This is why I wish to see the night owl 512 extend to the airport. A lot more people will ride it if it gets them to the most-popular overnight destination than if they have to transfer at a scary downtown bus stop and wait there who-knows-how-long.

        Likewise, this is why I would like to see an MLK shadow bus between downtown and the airport. It could start earlier on nights that maintenance starts earlier.

        Add to that a night owl deviation of the southern STRide route to the airport. (I would not be surprised if the airport loop is eventually added back to the daytime STRide.)

        The airport is a 24/7/365 transit hub, not just a daytime-and-evening hub.

      2. This is why I wish to see the night owl 512 extend to the airport.

        It is surprising that it isn’t. My guess is the route is too long (according to the contract they have with the drivers). This can be mitigated with a timed transfer. Basically the bus doesn’t leave downtown until the other bus shows up and riders have a change to transfer. That would mean that the breaks (for the drivers) would be equal to the headways. At worst that means paying the drives for a lot of sitting. That may be the plan.

        Another option would be to make SeaTac the transfer point. Riders trying to get from say, Tacoma to Seattle would have to transfer but they would actually have two buses to choose from (the 124 and ST bus). SeaTac itself is a 24-hour facility

        I agree about Rainier Valley to SeaTac. That seems like the biggest missing section in the night owl plans.

      3. If Skagit Transit and Island Transit are able to coordinate 6 bus routes at March’s Point for times transfers between them all, ST should be able to coordinate timed transfers between these.

        Should.

  5. Yeah I just don’t get why this won’t serve the airport, which is the obvious destination for >90% of Link riders at this time and place. Just 1 more mile in the same road.

  6. A lot of flights get in after 10:30, and even flights scheduled to arrive earlier can get delayed and, of course, walking to the train, getting bags and/or clearing customs, all take time. Airport travelers are going to be bearing the brunt of this, and when people are tired, late a night after a long flight, they’re not going to deal with multiple shuttle buses, they will, instead, just cough up the money for an Uber. The public transit system *will* lose riders as a result of this service cut.

    Worse, if a routine settles in that evening transit service is unpredictable, people who would otherwise use the public transit system will start planning trips to include airport parking (if living in Seattle) or rental cars (if visiting Seattle).

    It seems like there has got to be a better solution than this. Could they run trains single track after 11 PM once/month and at least have some service running?

    At a bare minimum, the train’s replacement bus service should include an express from the airport to downtown, not an hour-long ordeal.

  7. The problem that ST (or KCM?) doesn’t know how to do timed transfers for Link shuttle buses. I think I’ve said this before, but management need to visit DC during a disruption to see how it should work. Several buses wait at the station to pick up passengers. Once a train unloads, passengers walk on, no waiting, and once drivers see that the whole train got on, they go. Seamless and easy. WMATA also does shuttles with multiple stopping patterns, typically at least an express that doesn’t make intermediate stops (so the end result is that even with a transfer, the bus is not much slower) and a local that serves all stops.

  8. ST has a history of making scheduled disruptions be longer than they need to be. The tile replacement task a few years ago that reduced service for two weeks was unnecessary. Crews were not working 24/7 on that — nor doing a little each night or over a weekend, and the project appeared finished in just 48 work hours, not two weeks.

    A REAL executive would push back on the staff to not disrupt the lives of riders deliberately for longer time periods — and the Port should make a public stink about not serving probably the busiest Link station at 11 pm. It feels like ST still cares little about being reliable for riders and the Port seems to stand by and let it happen..

    1. The port doesn’t care much about Link, as evidence by how much of an afterthought Link access is in the airport expansion plan.

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