History of San Francisco’s Muni Metro. (Classy Whale)
This is an open thread.
51 Replies to “Sunday Movie: Muni Metro”
Here’s my draft final ST 2026 Service Plan restructure after some people gave me feedback on the previous one:
510:
Keep this route, instead add deviations to Mariner and Ash Way park and rides via Ash Way (like the 201/202 doubling frequency to 7.5 minutes), remove the Downtown Everett loop, add a stop at NE 45th, and have all trips run 15 minutes, to Seattle AM, and to Everett PM.
512:
Delete this route, I would expect riders to use the 201/202, and 510. I agree with Ross, this route has lost ridership due to it’s main purpose being lost (being a Seattle connector), and this route is competitive, so we’ll delete it anyways. Not many surveyors use this route, and I only use it because of the double deckers.
513:
Delete this route, it has terrible ridership, and I would expect riders to use the Swift lines.
515:
Delete this route as planned, no comebacks are planned (as of now).
522:
I would keep this route as ST proposes, except I would re-route it on 98th/185th rather than using Woodinville Dr and Kaysner Way, being consistent with Stride, and potentially picking up new riders.
532:
Delete the route, I would expect riders to use the now frequent 535, and transfer to the 201/202 at Lynnwood to continue to Everett.
535:
Remove the Alderwood Mall deviation (being consistent with Stride), and remove the loop through Downtown Bellevue, as the 532 is deleted, increase frequencies to 15 minutes all-day, all-week, includes Saturday, and Sunday (as ST plans to add service on Sunday).
541:
Delete this suspended route for better 542 service.
542:
Increase headways to 15 minutes all-day, all-week, and extend to Bear Creek P&R to recover the 545’s transition to peak-only.
544:
Delete this suspended route, and make the 545 as a peak feeder to address crowding.
545:
Only operate this route during peak, the only change I would make to the stops is adding a Montlake stop, this would run every 15 minutes, doubling frequency along SR 520 with the 542
550:
Delete this route as planned.
554:
Delete this route as planned.
555:
Delete this suspended route for better 556 service.
556:
Change this route as ST proposes.
560:
Truncate the route at Burien TC (being consistent with Stride and reducing the overlap between the H and 560), however to offset the time, increase frequencies to 15 minutes all-day, all-week. Have the route stop at Tukwila Intl Blvd rather than going through the congested expressway and stopping at SeaTac/Airport, shaving off time and being consistent with Stride.
566:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
567:
Delete this suspended route for better service/replacements.
574:
Delete this route, because if you were to add a Federal Way stop to the 594 and extend it to Lakewood TC, this route would be obsolete (as that’s what I plan).
576:
New route from Rainier Beach to Puyallup, uses the now deleted 578’s routing between Puyallup Station and Auburn Station, then use the now deleted 566’s path from Auburn Station to Renton TC, then it would continue north on Rainier Ave S to Rainier Beach Station, acting like a way to address crowding on the S Line. This route runs 20 minutes all-day, all-week. Replaces the 566, suspended 567, and 578.
577:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
578:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
580:
Delete this route as planned.
586:
Delete this route as planned.
590:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
592:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
594:
Add a Federal Way Downtown stop and extend to Lakewood TC (to rid the 574 as I mentioned above), increase service to 15 minutes all-day, all-week. Have all the peak trips go to DuPont in the peak direction, replacing the 592.
595:
Delete this route for better service/replacements, this also makes Pierce Transit save money by not having to pay for this route, as there’s a Tacoma to Gig Harbor Pierce route.
596:
No changes to this route, I would suggest this route being extended to Enumclaw despite being out of the district, but that just adds extra stuff, will cost money, and won’t carry a lot of ridership.
As you can see, I dropped the idea of overnight routes, they won’t carry a lot of ridership, and they’ll be a waste of money, as ST is facing a budget crisis, they should drop this idea and potentially do this to light rail rather than buses in the future.
Out of the 28 routes ST has (includes suspended), I drop the number to only 10 (a huge difference). You save money with higher ridership and better service, this also simplifies and streamlines their network, as they are facing budget issues, and this could be a solution for fixes for ST3.
If the 510 is kept, I’d like to see some sort of utilization of the deadheading buses going the other way.
I get they don’t want to do the slow slog through downtown Seattle both ways, so just don’t. Make it into a southbound only bus through downtown, so that people get on and off at the same stops, then just do whatever the deadheading buses do to get back on I-5.
If there’s so many northbound passengers they cause a problem for the southbound trips, then so much more the reason to have the buses operate both directions! It means there’s more demand there than currently being met.
I’m not sure if there is much reverse-peak demand between Downtown Everett and Downtown Seattle.
But deadheading in general is a problem. It isn’t a big issue in the morning. There isn’t much of a reverse commute heading north. But in the evening things get really clogged up south of Northgate and the buses can’t avoid it (since the HOV lanes are on the express lanes and by then they are going the other way). If memory serves, Community transit used to avoid deadheading in the past by simply parking all the buses downtown (or maybe it was the U-District)? I don’t know if drivers were shuttled back and forth or how it worked.
Some peak buses spent the midday on Eastlake, others in SODO.
People use a lot of the busses you’re proposing to cut, I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater with how you’re just cutting buses willy nilly without looking at ridership data or frankly understanding why the buses themselves actually exist in the first place.
Zach, I’m not cutting buses willy nilly. I know why these buses exist and their ridership data, I have my views, and you have yours. This took me a long time to make, this is a final draft, I might make some slight adjustments. Read the descriptions carefully, I provide replacements for the buses, I know many people use the 590/594/595, but I would just cut those buses for more 594 service, and the 595 is paid by Pierce Transit, so I would expect Pierce Transit to take action on that (plus they have a Gig Harbor route anyways), so I would expect riders to transfer to the 594 (which would run 15 minutes all-day), and the 590 is basically the 594, so we’ll make all trips into 594, and the 592, we’ll make it into 594 service, the 577 and 578 become the 594 by adding a Federal Way stop (and since the 181 will run frequently in the future there’s no need for an ST express connection between Federal Way and Auburn). 578 riders would use the 576 (a new route) or Sounder, and I deleted the 574, because if we add a Federal Way stop and Lakewood TC stop to the 594, the 574 is useless and redundant, please read my proposal carefully and not willy nilly like you said. Glenn, I made the 510 one-way because of the express lanes (like Ross suggested).
Keep this route, instead add deviations to Mariner and Ash Way park and rides via Ash Way (like the 201/202 doubling frequency to 7.5 minutes), remove the Downtown Everett loop, add a stop at NE 45th, and have all trips run 15 minutes, to Seattle AM, and to Everett PM.
With all those stops the trip from Everett to Seattle becomes a lot slower. The stop at 45th is particularly bad. It means the bus can’t use the express lanes. That is why the bus stops at Mountlake Terrace. Riders from there can take Link to the U-District (or the other end of campus).
There is no reason to double frequency between Everett and Ash Way (especially during peak) since Ash Way is not a significant employment destination. An express from Ash Way to downtown would be welcome but it isn’t worth delaying riders from Everett so much. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the 510. It complements the 201/202 and 512 just fine.
Speaking of which, you propose getting rid of the 512 even though it performs better than any other ST Express route in Snohomish County (near as we can figure). You don’t propose doing anything with the money. It would make a lot more sense if you simply had the 512 skip Ash Way. That would speed up the bus (between Everett and Lynnwood) and thus provide a better complement to the 201/202. It could also be extended into Everett, taking over one of the Everett Transit routes (like the 4 or 19).
Sorry, Ross. I just can’t agree with your statement on the 512 skipping Ash Way. The money left over that isn’t invested in a new route could go either to other agencies, or help fund future projects. I also think the 905 could now serve Everett Station (like the old 201/202), and Mariner and Ash Way park and rides (like the current 201/202), operate the 905 at 15 minute frequencies, and you can chop-off the 512. The 201 could be deleted and the 202 could be truncated at Everett Station (and operate it frequently), the 510 is how I propose it, and the 532 is deleted (giving frequent all-week service to the 535). The 201’s special routing (for now) can go to the 209, rather than running on I-5, it could run on Smokey Point Blvd.
I just can’t agree with your statement on the 512 skipping Ash Way. The money left over that isn’t invested in a new route could go either to other agencies, or help fund future projects.
My point is that none of those other routes are likely to be as cost effective as the 512. Of course it is a bit redundant. But every route that ST would fund would be a bit redundant. Maybe ST could run an express to Mukilteo. Oh wait, Community Transit beat them to it. Maybe run buses to those far flung cities and towns (ST is a regional agency after all). Again, CT already does that. How about some sort of limited-stop BRT-type service along one of the more popular corridors? Again, done. I’m not saying that there aren’t other routes that are possible* but it is hard to see why you would eliminate the most cost-effective route in the area just to help fund them. Just skip Ash Way. You save money and give a lot of your riders a faster trip. You complement the 201/202 just like Swift Blue complements the 101 and Everett Transit 7.
*I would run a bus from Edmonds to 185th Station. But I would use the money from cancelling North Sounder to pay for it. That is part of the reason I would keep the 510.
Ross, maybe Stride S2 could be extended to Mukilteo in ST4, or make a Stride S4 from Edmonds to Bothell to complement the S3… Oh wait, is this supposed to replace Sounder? Uhmm… Yes, I mean no! This is something that Dow could consider in the next ballot, if people want light rail from Everett to Seattle (buying the BNSF tracks and selling the tracks they own), or if they want BRT to light rail stations, it’s really complex, speaking of time savings. I could simply also recommend a separate bus along Ash Way that doesn’t run on I-5, and another that does and skips Ash Way, congrats, you just made the most confusing bus system ever.
operate the 905 at 15 minute frequencies, and you can chop-off the 512.
I guess I should have read that part earlier. CT can’t just print money. But more to the point, if you are going to run an express from Lynnwood heading north (which is what the 905 is) why the hell would you go to Stanwood instead of Everett? Stanwood is a distant, low-ridership area. Downtown Everett is closer and bigger. The 905 is obviously a very low-ridership, very expensive route that is just fine running every hour (outside of peak). The 512 is not.
Ross, maybe Stride S2 could be extended to Mukilteo in ST4, or make a Stride S4 from Edmonds to Bothell to complement the S3… Oh wait, is this supposed to replace Sounder? Uhmm… Yes, I mean no!
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Just to clarify some things, Mukilteo is a very small town. Community Transit already runs a bus timed with the ferry to Lynnwood. It would be a waste of time to duplicate this for so few riders. Edmonds to Bothell is a trip taken by a handful of people every day. It doesn’t matter how they are connected.
Sounder has two parts. South Sounder performs reasonably well. North Sounder does not. It is ridiculously expensive per rider. I believe the estimate is $100 subsidy per trip. It has only four stations which means there aren’t many combinations. Very few people make trips that don’t involve Seattle. The train only runs during peak. Everett to Downtown Seattle has the 510. Mukilteo to downtown has the 117/Link.
That leaves Edmonds. Unlike Everett, the train saves a considerable amount of time for the riders heading to Seattle. Edmonds has considerable all-day demand. It is a real destination, not just a bedroom suburb. Thus it could benefit from a better connection to Seattle (via Link). Replacing Sounder with better all-day service to Edmonds would be a much better value.
None of this has anything to do with the 512. The 512 connects riders from Everett to Seattle. Again, it is the most cost effective ST route in Snohomish County. Cancelling it would be silly, especially since you can’t think of a route that comes close to providing as much value.
Ross, what I’m trying to say here is that it’s a possibility. There could be talk in the next election where we could replace Sounder N with better buses, like what I said (a bus from Mukilteo to Bellevue, and another from Edmonds to Bothell). I’ve been on the 117, and it has good ridership enough to say it deserves frequent service, though I remember CT proposed it as the 902 back in the day, and they renumbered it to 117.
There could be talk in the next election where we could replace Sounder N with better buses, like what I said (a bus from Mukilteo to Bellevue, and another from Edmonds to Bothell).
Neither of those buses would get many riders. Mukilteo to Bellevue might get a handful during peak but that is about it. Edmonds to Bothell would get far less. Neither of them would replace North Sounder. To replace North Sounder you need buses to Seattle, or at the very least to Link (where they can easily and quickly get to Seattle). That is what the 117 is. It is timed with the ferry. But it also gets some people from Mukilteo (most of who don’t live close to the ferry) to Link as well. There is really nothing else to be done there. Even if ST added an express (timed with the ferry) it is unlikely it would increase ridership, it would just poach riders from the 117. You could run the 117 every fifteen minutes (to increase ridership for those who don’t take the ferry) but there just aren’t that many potential riders along the corridor. Most of Mukilteo is farther away from the speedway (which is there is the 103). Even then Mukilteo isn’t Downtown Everett — not even close.
Edmonds is different. While the ferry has riders, the central part of Edmonds has pretty good density and a fairly walkable downtown. It is also much closer to Seattle. Providing good all-day service would likely work well. The riders from Edmonds who take Sounder North are not interested in going to Bothell. They want to go to Seattle. I could easily see a peak-express to downtown (replacing North Sounder). But I also think an all-day bus to Link would get enough riders to justify fifteen minute headways. In contrast there are very few people traveling between Edmonds and Bothell.
That seems to be an issue with some of your plans. You seem to think that all of these places are similar. That regional travel patterns in areas with varied density and destinations has similar travel patters as those inside a dense, urban area. That simply isn’t true. Certain concepts work really well in dense, urban areas. A network effect for example. The Northgate/UW extension had it. The Lynnwood extension did not. When Northgate was added a lot of people traveled between every trip pair (Northgate to Roosevelt, Northgate to U-District, Roosevelt to U-District, etc.). That didn’t happen with Lynnwood. It was almost entirely riders heading from the northern stations into Seattle. Very few people go from Lynnwood to Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood to Shoreline, etc. The same thing is true when it comes to other network ideas. For example a grid can work very well inside a dense urban area like Seattle. But it falls apart as you get farther and farther away. There just aren’t that many people going from Mill Creek to North Edmonds or Maltby to Alderwood. For areas like that you either run a coverage bus (infrequently) or you have to have a good anchor. This can either be a real destination or a major connection point to a really big destination (like a Link station is to Seattle). Thus you can see that the CT system does not attempt to provide a grid but instead has buses serving multiple hubs: Downtown Everett, Boeing and Lynnwood Stations.
So not only is Edmonds to Bothell not a good substitute for North Sounder, it just wouldn’t be a good bus. It duplicates the 331, which performs very poorly. The only significant addition would be the express from Edmonds to Link (via Mountlake Terrace I assume) which is essentially the same thing an express from Edmonds to 185th would provide. It is just that going to 185th would be a bit faster while also connecting to RapidRide E.
Ross, I saw your explanation and I notice I wasn’t being specific, I meant that those buses connect to Link (while running direct corridors feeding into highways), the Stride S2’s extension to Mukilteo would be welcome, except it might be too long, and I agree (there wouldn’t be a lot of people riding south of Lynnwood from Mukilteo), what I meant is that I expect riders to transfer to the 1 Line at Lynnwood from Mukilteo, and run it as one bus to improve one seat connections, straight running routes, and to save money. The Stride S4 (Edmonds to UW Bothell via Hwy 104) would double frequency with the Stride S3 along Hwy 522 from LFP to UWB/CC, as I see many people headed towards the 104 from the east when I get on the 331, having such a line east from Bothell could grab people’s attention, and makes a light rail connection to Mountlake Terrace (that is what I meant by replacing Sounder), so people from Edmonds would go to Mountlake Terrace to transfer to Link for those who would normally ride Sounder, and this route would replace the 909 and 331 (it would not have a shadow for the sake of ridership), this line would have new one-seat connections that you can’t make on Transit currently, such as…
Edmonds to Bothell (the most obvious)
Westgate to Lake Forest Park
Mountlake Terrace to Bothell (but will be possible once the 2 Line runs on I-90)
the Stride S2’s extension to Mukilteo would be welcome
And I’m saying very few people take the ferry to Stride 2 locations (other than Lynnwood) so there is not much value in connecting the two. Again, I could see a peak-only express to Bellevue. It could be like the 595 (although it would probably get fewer riders).
The only connection that is likely to get significant riders is Mukilteo to Lynnwood. The 117 already does that. It is already timed with the ferry. So you achieve nothing if you time it with the ferry. If you don’t time it with the ferry you only pick up a handful of riders along the way. If you run express to Lynnwood you get fewer riders than the 117 which means your ridership per service hour is really high. Despite the faster speeds it is hard to see that increasing ridership. Either the 117 works from you (because you are headed to somewhere served by Link) or you just pay the extra money and drive.
The Stride S4 (Edmonds to UW Bothell via Hwy 104) would double frequency with the Stride S3 along Hwy 522 from LFP to UWB/CC
Right. Which is another way of saying it would be a huge waste of money. The Lake Forest Park/Kenmore/Bothell part of the 522 (or 372) doesn’t perform nearly as well as the part in Seattle. Most of the riders from the north are headed to Link as well. If you wanted to increase frequency beyond what Stride S3 is going to provide then just do that directly — run the S3 more often. I’m not saying I would do that but it would be a better use of money. There just aren’t that many people going suburb to suburb.
so people from Edmonds would go to Mountlake Terrace to transfer to Link for those who would normally ride Sounder
Which is fine and really the only part of the route worth building. But again, I think it is better if Edmonds is connected to 185th Station. It is a bit faster and Edmonds would be connected to RapidRide E. But if they had frequent service between Mountlake Terrace and Edmonds it would still be a worthy route. In contrast Mountlake Terrace to Lake Forest Park, Bothell and Kenmore is already covered by the 331 — a bus that performs very poorly. It just doesn’t make sense for ST to try and duplicate poorly performing routes just because a handful of riders can avoid a transfer.
I think part of the issue here is, when you leave the urban core, you see a bigger and bigger dichotomy between the types of trips that people drive to and the types of trips people are willing to take transit to get to. Car trips, the destinations tend to be very scattered. Denser areas get more, but not orders of magnitude more. Transit trips, on the other hand, people with cars who live in car dependent areas are only willing to ride it when traveling to the densest areas, where parking is the most difficult.
In other words, people who live in Edmonds may go to Bothell, but they’re going to drive there, and no matter what transit service is offered, they are still going to drive there. The same is also true for most neighborhoods in Seattle. Only downtown and the U-district have the density to get large numbers of people with cars to ride transit to. So, a transit system that caters to people with cars is going to focus primarily on connecting to these areas, even if 95% of people’s overall trips are to other (less dense) areas.
The problem of course, is then you have people who don’t have cars and want transit that goes everywhere, not just to the handful of destinations people with cars are willing to ride transit to. But, if there’s not a critical mass of people without cars that live near where you live, that doesn’t happen.
@asdf2 — Yes. Or to put it more simply: density + proximity = ridership (https://humantransit.org/basics/the-transit-ridership-recipe). Edmonds is not that close to Bothell (it is about 11 miles). It is not that close to the UW either (about 13 miles). So in both cases you don’t have much proximity. But the UW is much, much more dense than Bothell (or anything else along that corridor).
When people think about density they tend to focus on residential density. But that isn’t the only type of density that is important. There is what I would call “destination density”. This included employment density but it also includes educational density or entertainment density. Like residential density, the relationship between density and transit is not linear. As density increases, transit ridership increases even more (for much the same reason). Just as someone in Capitol Hill may think it is too much of a hassle to own a car (since it is dense) people are less likely to drive to Capitol Hill (because it is a hassle to park or drive).
Adding a Montlake stop on the 545 would make eastbound trips much slower and less predictable. It is not uncommon to see backups of cars trying to take the Montlake exit to UW, especially during morning peak. You do not want the bus getting stuck in that traffic. Westbound is somewhat better, you’d have to convince WSDOT to modify the signal on the lid to allow a bus to go straight (current, it’s not possible). Note that such a signal mod would hurt eastbound buses trying to turn left onto the Montlake lid to get onto 520.
If the 545 runs at all, it should skip the Montlake area, although I can see the Bellevue/Olive stop making sense.
I think the Montlake stop is going to have to be revisited, I only added it to improve connections to the U District, though the 544 if were to be restored, I would have expected to see low ridership for such a route that runs between Overlake and Fred Hutch, with a deviation to South Kirkland. I don’t think it’s restoration would have been successful, speaking of the 2 Line.
What would the replacement for the 595 be? I don’t see anything else going to Gig Harbor. I suppose you could try cate the bus in Federal Way, but then it becomes a really long trip.
Another thing to think about…Gig Harbor should ideally connect to Kitsap Transit with a bus to Bremerton. Having to detour all the way to downtown Seattle and ride an hour long ferry to get there is really pushing it – we’re talking a 3 hour transit journey for what is maybe 20-30 minutes by car. That’s too much.
The replacement for the 595 is the 594, and Pierce Transit route 100, and the 2 (or some other route) to connect to a route that takes you to Seattle. It’s a three seat ride, but since the route is peak only and has very few runs, I don’t expect riders to make a big deal or worry that much.
From Purdy to downtown Seattle, it’s 1.5 hours on the 594 vs. anywhere from 2 hours 40 minutes to 3 hours using the 3-seat ride involving the 100. And, this is just one way, you have to repeat everything to get home. Expecting people to put up with that would be totally unreasonable. In practice, eliminating the 595 would mean that if a person in Gig Harbor wants to ride transit to downtown Seattle, they should drive at least to Federal Way and catch the bus there (or Link on really bad traffic days). Yes, it’s a very long slog in the car, congesting the freeways in the process, but if it saves a full 3 hours a day of commuting time, then that is what people will do (if not abandon the bus entirely and just drive all the way to Seattle).
Looking at the map, you can see why the 100 is so slow. The route around Gig Harbor is full of twists and turns in order to cover as much area as absolutely possible with only one bus, because one bus is all that cash-strapped Pierce Transit can afford to send to that area. Then, on top of that, you’ve got the connection to another slow Pierce Transit route at TCC Transit Center, including a grand tour of downtown Tacoma that can easily take 15-20 minutes to cover one mile with all those stoplights. Then, you have the overhead of waiting for the 594. Oh, and the 3-hour time estimate assumes the 590/594 running nonstop between Tacoma Dome and Seattle. Add a stop in Federal Way, you add an additional 10 minutes on top of that.
Adding up all the pieces, it’s simply too much. Yes, the 595 only helps during peak hours, but the peak hour service still covers a lot of trips. It is sufficient to allow someone to spend a day in Seattle, at least Monday-Friday, and even if another connection is required out of downtown, perhaps, to reach UW or Bellevue, it’s still tolerable for someone that, maybe, works from home most days and only needs to do that commute once or twice per week.
It would also be tempting to ask, why not straighten the 100 to make it faster, or extend the 100 to connect with the 594. But, straightening the 100 would involve sacrificing a lot of coverage, because it’s the only bus Gig Harbor has, and extending it would cost service money that Pierce Transit doesn’t have.
Another way to think about it is that the Gig Harbor area effectively has two transit networks, one for captive riders, one for choice riders. Captive riders don’t have cars, so they need service direct to destinations because they have no last-mile transportation capability. But, because Pierce Transit is cash-strapped and can only afford to run one bus route out there, that means the one bus has to do everything, which means lots of twists and turns. The choice riders, on the other hand, coverage doesn’t matter because they all have cars, so the trip can begin and end at a park and ride lot, but speed is very important, otherwise, there’s no point in riding it when you have the option to just drive the car to better service closer to Seattle (if not all the way to the final destination). For the choice rider, having service limited to just rush hour is ok because you can just use the car at all other times, and the only time when traffic is bad enough to be worth the effort of driving to a park and ride to wait for a bus is rush hour. Of course, the choice rider service is much more expensive to fund and beyond Pierce Transit’s ability to pay for, but that’s where Sound Transit comes in, as a route like the 595 falls right in line with Sound Transit’s mission.
There are some situations, like the 545, where redundancy feels questionable, but the 595 is not one of them. It needs to run.
True asdf2, but I doubt anybody even uses it, and it runs very few trips, and it’s not ST’s job to fund it, it’s Pierce Transit, so why operate a route that isn’t even in the boundary? It’s long, and it’s only purpose I would see (where riders gain the apple of the eye) is Tacoma to Seattle, that’s pretty much it, other than that it has no reason to exist (under ST).
@Scooby Doo
It absolutely is ST’s job to fund it. Their charter is to provide regional transit.
We have the ridership data on the 595. About 150 people ride the 6 trips a day:
I doubt anybody even uses it, and it runs very few trips, and it’s not ST’s job to fund it, it’s Pierce Transit, so why operate a route that isn’t even in the boundary?
A regional bus like the 595 is definitely the type of thing ST does. As for ridership it gets somewhere between 150 and 200 riders. This works out to about 30 riders per bus trip. Obviously this isn’t great but likely pretty common for these express buses. At first glance it seems extremely expensive. But it should really be considered an extension of the 590 (which is why it is listed with it and the 594 on the schedule — https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/schedule-590-594-595.pdf). Someone at the Tacoma Dome can take it. Even then the extension isn’t cheap but it isn’t crazy.
But at some point it makes sense to just abandon these types of trips if they perform poorly. I would say the big problem is that transit in the Kitsap Peninsula is cut in half because of the county lines. Getting from Gig Harbor and Purdy to Southworth, Bremerton, Port Orchard is pretty much impossible. Not only is this bad by itself but it means that riders don’t have a good way to get to the ferry other than driving. Of course they can drive to a park and ride in Kitsap County and then take a bus to the ferry. This sounds like a degradation except every bus stop in the peninsula of the 595 is a park and ride. Thus driving to a different park and ride and then taking a bus/ferry isn’t much worse. For example Gig Harbor to Mullenix Road (driving) followed by a bus to the ferry and a ferry to Seattle. https://maps.app.goo.gl/aypYUoeMzvauEzBD8 and then https://maps.app.goo.gl/TCjTquocHKW83t8JA. That seems like it is just about as good as the 595.
There are other aspects of the route. It connects riders from the west to Tacoma. It is hard to say how many people make that trip. Very few used to take the bus to Tacoma (from the west) but that was before it stopped at the Tacoma Dome.
But the bus does serve a couple of additional stops in Tacoma (e. g. Tacoma Community College Transit Center ). In the past these performed about as well as those in Kitsap Peninsula but they are much quicker to get to.
I think the strongest argument for keeping it is that it runs so rarely that it doesn’t cost much to operate. If I was pinching pennies I think I would keep the extension within Tacoma but get rid of the trip across the bridge. Ideally there would be more service on the peninsula (connecting the north and south). ST could provide such service but it is outside their service area. It is up to the state to provide that service (or the two counties should cooperate). My guess is they are both so severely starved of funds that they have higher priorities.
@jd,
25 riders a day is a lot, but I would expect those riders to ride to Tacoma and not Gig Harbor, whereas they can transfer (for the very few people who I presume use the 595 out of the ST boundary). The 594 is now going to run frequently, so I have no idea why you would want to keep the 595. Let the 594 improve and we’ll see about people who want the 595 or not (I might be wrong).
We don’t have recent stop data for the 595. Old stop data didn’t include the stop at the Tacoma Dome. So we really can only guess as to the number of riders who currently take the 595 across the Tacoma Narrows.
But as I mentioned the cost is minimal. Three buses each way, each running 37 minutes (from Tacoma Dome to Purdy). Even if it gets just a handful of riders it probably isn’t worth pissing them off. If they decided to provide a substitute (e. g. Kimball/Purdy/Mullenix/Southworth) timed with the passenger ferry then I could see it. You would still want to keep the (presumably) more cost-effective extension to the community college but otherwise I wouldn’t bother.
“25 riders a day is a lot, but I would expect those riders to ride to Tacoma and not Gig Harbor, whereas they can transfer”
Doing that when Tacoma Dome Link happens, sure it could be evaluated as a good change to do. But right now, the current express buses works well as intended. A few express bus runs to Gig Harbor and DuPont aren’t going to save much and I think the deadheaded buses end up doing other routes when they’re done with their one way runs as well. Alongside that 595 was a request by Pierce County, Gig Harbor, and Purdy to have some commuter service, so there was clearly a need for it in the system. And they seem content paying for it.
I think there should be a co-sponsored Sound Transit/Kitsap Transit route between downtown Seattle and Gig Harbor via the Fauntleroy-Southworth Ferry. The main downside I see is the high ferry fare. Maybe an exemption from ferry fare for bus riders, or at least a discount? If putting the bus on the ferry isn’t feasible, maybe just run it from Southworth to Gig Harbor?
@John Charles Wilson, the other problem with putting a bus on the ferry is that you need to pay the bus driver to sit there and do nothing while the ferry’s running.
Kitsap Transit currently runs a fast ferry from Southworth to downtown Seattle (well… they will again when the boat is fixed…), and the peak-only Route 185 runs from there to Mullenix Rd and SR 16. If Pierce Transit wants to pay to extend it farther south, that’d be a fine idea.
Some of your ideas for the South Sound are in line with previous discussions (https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/02/25/regional-transit-after-federal-way-link/). I think there is fairly widespread consensus that we keep the 594, have it stop at Federal Way, and run it more often. Meanwhile the 574 only runs when Link isn’t running. Otherwise riders from Tacoma and Lakewood have to transfer in Federal Way to Link if they want to get to the airport (or Highline College).
I’m having trouble wrapping my head around some of the changes in the South Sound though. The 576 would be the only bus route serving Auburn, Puyallup and Sumner, right? It would connect those areas with Kent, Renton and Rainier Beach. If I have it right then I don’t see it getting many riders. Not that many people go from Kent/Auburn to Renton. Even in its headway the 566 had about 100 hundred riders between there (and that includes all of Renton). Way more people were going to Bellevue, including riders from Renton to Bellevue. Yet the bus would no longer go to Bellevue. It is also worth noting that ridership on the 566 is much lower than it used to be and it didn’t do well in the middle of the day (even when it went to Bellevue).
Meanwhile, this new 566 will compete (and lose) to the 101 if riders are trying to get from Renton to Downtown Seattle. Even for trips to Rainier Beach it is at best an express of the 106 and 107 (which means it may lose out simply based on frequency). Following Rainier Avenue from Renton to Rainier Beach seems particularly odd. There is very little along there. So much so that Metro doesn’t bother covering it. Maybe you meant Renton Avenue? Anyway, Renton to Rainier Beach is certainly a good combination used by plenty of people but not thousands. About 400 riders take the 106 from Rainier Beach to places south. A lot of them are headed to various places along Renton Avenue. Most are not using the bus stop closest to the station. Only about about 130 riders actually transfer from the 106 at Rainier Beach Station. In other words, it is not really a feeder for Link (or if it is it is failing miserably). Unless I miss what you are describing it just doesn’t sound like a route that would get all but a handful of riders. It also seems to be competing with Metro instead of complementing it.
I think the South Sound still needs that connection to Federal Way. I also think they need an express to Downtown Seattle. I think the best option is Auburn/Kent/Downtown. I could see either the bus to Federal Way or the bus to Downtown Seattle going farther, to Sumner/Puyallup. Going to Downtown Bellevue is worthy as well (although less so). This makes it tricky but I think we can manage it. Demand to Downtown Bellevue is very peak-oriented. The 566 is fine — it just needs to be truncated at Downtown Bellevue (the Downtown Bellevue to Downtown Redmond section is handled by East Link now). The rest of the day riders will just tough it out with a 160/560 (eventually to be replaced by Stride/RapidRide). There are so few riders that it really doesn’t matter and it probably wouldn’t be that bad.
I like the idea of 20 minute service. It is a good option for a lot of these routes. These are long distance trips — frequency is less important. But 20 minutes is not that more expensive than 30 and it makes a big difference. If nothing else it just feels like the agency cares. Sound Transit promised 15 minute service from Seattle to Tacoma a long time ago. If they just managed to get 20 minute service a lot of people would feel like they aren’t forgotten. It also works with Link better. It is tough to time things but not impossible (especially outbound).
Here’s my response to your issues:
1. Having the 574 be the overnight route is a so-so idea, I would just suggest to have the 594 stop at those stops at night, or maybe not because there’s the A Line and 124 to get to Seattle from Federal Way (and have the 594 run at night).
2. That’s true, 566 ridership is getting worse, that’s why I propose a 576 (not a new 566), then transferring to the 560, then to the 2 Line, I’m sure people wouldn’t mind transferring to the 560 which would now run frequently. I also made the 576 every 20 minutes to be timed with Sounder. I would make the transfer penalty to the 560 five minutes, as the 560 will run frequently, we can offset the time (like what ST proposes with the 574). Then we can transfer to the 2 Line which will have larger frequencies in the future.
3. The 576’s point is a Sounder crowding dealer (and a replacement for the 566 and 578), people would transfer at Rainier Beach rather than Federal Way if you used to ride the 578, if you used to ride the 566 you would transfer to the 560 in Renton from the 576. Also since the 181 is proposed to run frequently, we would expect riders to transfer to the latter.
1. The 574 performs the best late at night. Look at the service reports if you doubt that. It would be silly to suddenly force a transfer at the one time when the bus performs its best.
2. That’s why I propose a 576 (not a new 566), then transferring to the 560, then to the 2 Line
Right. My point is that such a route would perform very, very poorly (for the reasons I mentioned). You are forcing transfers for your most popular existing ST trips. You are trying to compete with Metro for other trips (and losing, badly). It is a route that would struggle to get a few hundred people a day. It would soon become the worst performing route run by ST (and that is saying something).
3. The 576’s point is a Sounder crowding dealer
Wait, what? Sounder is crowded? Then run bigger trains.
people would transfer at Rainier Beach rather than Federal Way
Why the hell would they want to do that? One of the main benefits of transferring at Federal Way is that they can go to Highline College, SeaTac *and* Rainier Valley. Why would you skip SeaTac, given its importance?
Look, I don’t know how else to explain this to you. Rainier Beach is a decent destination. But it isn’t Downtown Seattle. It isn’t the UW. It isn’t even Columbia City. It just doesn’t make sense to have that be your main regional terminus. There just isn’t enough there. An express bus (from Kent/Auburn/etc.) should go to Downtown Seattle and a second bus should go to Federal Way.
Ross, I understand. The late night route ST proposes is basically the 574 going to Downtown. Currently, Sounder can’t currently run bigger trains because it’s proposed in the far future, ending the 576 at Rainier Beach could popularize the station and attract new riders (so they can transfer to light rail to continue to Seattle). Rainier Beach has such poor ridership, and making a new line connecting the entirety of SR 167 could be the way to go (my view), the 576 would sort of be an express version of the 160, be a replacement of the 578 by providing a farther connection to Link (to avoid too much time made on Link), a 566 replacement (with frequent transfers), and of course a temporary dealer with S Line crowding. I hope you get what I’m saying. There’s so many benefits to the 576, I may understand why you don’t see them but I do.
Another possibility is that it could take over the 101/102 to continue to Seattle, but I’m not sure if Metro would be so friendly with that, it will probably be another Sabrina Carpenter Arrests SNL’S Domingo situation, so you can cancel the route and instead run Sounder to Renton (but still you need to think that through).
ending the 576 at Rainier Beach could popularize the station and attract new riders
Only a handful. That is my point. Very few people would ride that bus. It doesn’t make sense for regional transportation. No one is going to take the bus from Auburn or Kent into Downtown Seattle. It would take too long. If you are going from Renton to Downtown you just take the 101. If you are going from Renton to Rainier Valley you just take the 106. So you are basically just looking at riders from Kent or Auburn to Rainier Valley Link locations (and Beacon Hill). There just aren’t enough riders to justify that.
There are two things you seem to be trying to do here. First is to treat Rainier Beach Station as a transfer point. Unfortunately that just don’t work. It doesn’t work for the 106 or the 107 — it sure as hell won’t work if the bus serves Renton.
The other thing you are trying to do is add Renton into the mix. This is laudable. If you are going to run an express bus that includes Kent and Auburn (and maybe even Sumner and Puyallup) then you might as well throw in Renton as well. Except Renton already has an express to Downtown Seattle — the 101. It also has local service to Rainier Valley. Thus the route only adds the connection between Kent/Auburn to Renton and there just aren’t that many people making that trip to justify the detour, especially outside of peak.
In contrast, Kent doesn’t have an express to Downtown Seattle. The 150 is a good bus but it takes a long time to get to Seattle. Sounder is great when it is running but it doesn’t run that often. Thus an express from Kent to Downtown Seattle is worthy. If the bus goes to Kent it might as well continue to Auburn (and maybe Sumner/Puyallup). This complements Sounder. Downtown Seattle is a much bigger destination than Bellevue (and Bellevue is much bigger than other suburbs) so it should do OK as a midday bus (just as the 150 does well). Kent/Auburn/Renton can continue to be served by the 566. Ridership is very peak-oriented on the 566. I’m sure the Stride line will be similar. This means that having both (serving Bellevue) is OK. Basically during peak you have Stride and the 566 branch at Renton. The rest of the day there just isn’t enough demand to Renton from Kent/Auburn to provide an express (the local buses are fine, especially since the bus will become RapidRide).
The only thing that you need (besides all that) is a way to get to the airport (and other Link destinations to the south) from Kent/Auburn/etc. Going all the way north to Rainier Beach doesn’t do that. No one is going to take the bus all the way to Rainier Beach and then take Link back to SeaTac (let alone the college). You need a different bus to Federal Way.
I disagree with the 566. I think it should skip Renton and use the flyover HOV ramp and run parallel to Stride, but terminate at South Bellevue Station or Bellevue Transit Center instead of Redmond. Fewer transfers is always a better experience for riders. They have a direct seat to Seattle, but not to Bellevue — few riders from there want to go to Rainier Beach. For people actually heading into Renton, 566 can stop in S Renton for select trips.
Puyallup to Auburn to Federal Way Station would be much better in my opinion to address 578.
I spoke to someone working on 2026 Service Plan during the Federal Way Link Extension. It sounds like when they originally hinted for some more aggressive service cut during outreach, people got real angry. So they ended up not going for anything crazy.
With Pandemic changing all the commute pattern, there is literally no reliable data to produce some credible forecast right now. I think it is probably for the best for ST to study the post-revenue travel pattern after 2 Line fully opens and come up with something and implement with STRIDE restructure.
In the January 2016 ST Express planning scenarios for ST2, all three levels had all ST Express routes truncated at KDM, Lynnwood, Mercer Island or South Bellevue, and UW — none continued to downtown Seattle. (The 574 continued to SeaTac.) The board never issued an opinion on these so we spent years in limbo not knowing how strongly ST would pursue the truncations. In Northgate and Lynnwood Link, the truncations were pursued, except a few temporary concessions because the full 2 Line hadn’t started yet. In the Eastside restructure, ST also pursued mostly truncating, but then withdrew its recommendations before the last round, saying it would reconsider them in a systemwide ST Express restructure in 2026.
In the south end unlike the other areas, Link would be significantly slower than ST Express, because of the longer distances from downtown Seattle, the surface alignments in Rainier Valley and SODO, and the detour east to Rainier Valley. So we assumed there would be more opposition to truncating the express bus routes there. The question was always, how big would the opposition be, how strongly would ST push back against it, and which side would win? That was left up in the air from 2016 to 2025.
So it’s unsurprising it got opposition. It’s a little surprising ST kept the routes. It’s more surprising ST kept so many routes, meaning its ST Express spending will be significantly higher than budgeted in the ST3 ballot measure (which was at the low end of the 2016 scenarios).
The delay in doing anything with ST Express when Federal Way opened and the full 2 Line opens mid next year, is another surprising development. This sidesteps opposition to truncating the routes, since it won’t happen immediately on opening. It also means that people can vote with their feet for the first several months, and this will give us data on how popular a shift to Link is. That will inform the debate next year on a final restructure plan.
It is unsurprising, but I thought the opposition would lead to something like keeping 594 but truncating 590 rather than what we see in the draft plan.
U-District and Roosevelt stations just closed for a ventilation issue. Shuttle buses are coming.
The January-February maintenance schedule doesn’t mention ventilation work. (We have an article on the January-February schedule but it will probably be published in two weeks, because next week will be full of DSTT2/Ballad articles around the ST the board meeting Thursday.)
Fixed at 4pm.
I rode MUNI’s F, J, L, and N lines in my couple dozen visits between 1985 and 2015. I thought I remembered the trains were red then. I was incredibly annoyed at the crawlingly-slow street-running segments and thought they should be upgraded. The grade-separated segments were fine; I just felt frequency was too low as I waited 15-20 minutes for a train. I felt that if I lived in San Francisco, I’d really want to live near a BART station.
I thought that he was too young to remember that Muni Metro used to attach the train cars to run in the Muni Metro tunnel. Before the mid-1990’s, Muni would use the long platforms to couple (and decouple) an N+J train or a K+L+M train so they would only have two or sometimes three “train lines” in the core tunnel. Even with the coupling, Embarcadero Station trains would back up badly as drivers switched cabs as well as got their break. The tunnel in the mornings was often so bad that people would just get off and walk rather than ride to the end.
That went away in the mid 1990’s. Cleverly, Muni built a tight loop beyond Embarcadero Station so drivers could simply make a semi-circle and reverse a train without having to switch cabs at the ends of the train. They also switched the signaling system so trains could run closer together. That’s when Muni switched to only 1 or 2 cars for each line — and eliminated the time-consuming coupling and de-coupling mid-route.
Actually the new signal system solution was plagued by horrible software response problems when it first opened. The real-time train locator software would “lose” trains if they went too fast, and so for awhile they had to run trains at a low speed limit. Thank God computer systems are way more faster with location data processing than they were 30 years ago.
The audio announcements I heard said “2 car, K – K” or “1 car, J”, always the same letter (never mixed), and always one or two cars.
There were “Race Muni” events, which must have been the inspiration for “Race the L8”.
It is really just a legacy system like TTC Streetcar with some modern touch. I think at least T Line in Central Subway section actually run like a subway with high acceleration/deceleration rate.
However, segments in Sunset District basically look the same as a century ago. The ADA accommodation didn’t exist at all for most stops west of Twin Peaks. Several lines run in the middle of the street and stop in the middle of the car lanes with no platform and remember they are high-floor LRV, but they’ve started building platforms in recent years.
The Sound Transit board is reviewing the downtown tunnel (DSTT2) no build alternatives at Thursday’s meeting. They seemed primed to dismiss both options (interlining and stub line to Ballard) and decline further study.
For those that think an automated stub line to Ballard is a good idea, please consider providing public comment (in person, virtually, or in writing) on Thursday so that they continue looking into these options and add automation to the scenarios.
If you ever want to know why US transit is always a cluster pile, every single time SF’s/Boston’s original SLRVs are brought up, it’s noted that A) they were horrible in just about every single way public transit hardware could be, and B) they were a influence in subsequent metro transit programs throughout the nation.
ST Express weather advisory, Monday 3:41pm: With the flood/wind watches through Thursday, “ST Express service may reroute at any time. Road conditions can change quickly causing reroutes or stop closures with little to no advanced notice. You might see smaller buses used on your route and experience reduced operating speeds. [Transit apps] may not reflect current levels of service.’
Link and Sounder will continue as normal.Metro may issue a similar advisory at some point.
Here’s my draft final ST 2026 Service Plan restructure after some people gave me feedback on the previous one:
510:
Keep this route, instead add deviations to Mariner and Ash Way park and rides via Ash Way (like the 201/202 doubling frequency to 7.5 minutes), remove the Downtown Everett loop, add a stop at NE 45th, and have all trips run 15 minutes, to Seattle AM, and to Everett PM.
512:
Delete this route, I would expect riders to use the 201/202, and 510. I agree with Ross, this route has lost ridership due to it’s main purpose being lost (being a Seattle connector), and this route is competitive, so we’ll delete it anyways. Not many surveyors use this route, and I only use it because of the double deckers.
513:
Delete this route, it has terrible ridership, and I would expect riders to use the Swift lines.
515:
Delete this route as planned, no comebacks are planned (as of now).
522:
I would keep this route as ST proposes, except I would re-route it on 98th/185th rather than using Woodinville Dr and Kaysner Way, being consistent with Stride, and potentially picking up new riders.
532:
Delete the route, I would expect riders to use the now frequent 535, and transfer to the 201/202 at Lynnwood to continue to Everett.
535:
Remove the Alderwood Mall deviation (being consistent with Stride), and remove the loop through Downtown Bellevue, as the 532 is deleted, increase frequencies to 15 minutes all-day, all-week, includes Saturday, and Sunday (as ST plans to add service on Sunday).
541:
Delete this suspended route for better 542 service.
542:
Increase headways to 15 minutes all-day, all-week, and extend to Bear Creek P&R to recover the 545’s transition to peak-only.
544:
Delete this suspended route, and make the 545 as a peak feeder to address crowding.
545:
Only operate this route during peak, the only change I would make to the stops is adding a Montlake stop, this would run every 15 minutes, doubling frequency along SR 520 with the 542
550:
Delete this route as planned.
554:
Delete this route as planned.
555:
Delete this suspended route for better 556 service.
556:
Change this route as ST proposes.
560:
Truncate the route at Burien TC (being consistent with Stride and reducing the overlap between the H and 560), however to offset the time, increase frequencies to 15 minutes all-day, all-week. Have the route stop at Tukwila Intl Blvd rather than going through the congested expressway and stopping at SeaTac/Airport, shaving off time and being consistent with Stride.
566:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
567:
Delete this suspended route for better service/replacements.
574:
Delete this route, because if you were to add a Federal Way stop to the 594 and extend it to Lakewood TC, this route would be obsolete (as that’s what I plan).
576:
New route from Rainier Beach to Puyallup, uses the now deleted 578’s routing between Puyallup Station and Auburn Station, then use the now deleted 566’s path from Auburn Station to Renton TC, then it would continue north on Rainier Ave S to Rainier Beach Station, acting like a way to address crowding on the S Line. This route runs 20 minutes all-day, all-week. Replaces the 566, suspended 567, and 578.
577:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
578:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
580:
Delete this route as planned.
586:
Delete this route as planned.
590:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
592:
Delete this route for better service/replacements.
594:
Add a Federal Way Downtown stop and extend to Lakewood TC (to rid the 574 as I mentioned above), increase service to 15 minutes all-day, all-week. Have all the peak trips go to DuPont in the peak direction, replacing the 592.
595:
Delete this route for better service/replacements, this also makes Pierce Transit save money by not having to pay for this route, as there’s a Tacoma to Gig Harbor Pierce route.
596:
No changes to this route, I would suggest this route being extended to Enumclaw despite being out of the district, but that just adds extra stuff, will cost money, and won’t carry a lot of ridership.
As you can see, I dropped the idea of overnight routes, they won’t carry a lot of ridership, and they’ll be a waste of money, as ST is facing a budget crisis, they should drop this idea and potentially do this to light rail rather than buses in the future.
Out of the 28 routes ST has (includes suspended), I drop the number to only 10 (a huge difference). You save money with higher ridership and better service, this also simplifies and streamlines their network, as they are facing budget issues, and this could be a solution for fixes for ST3.
If the 510 is kept, I’d like to see some sort of utilization of the deadheading buses going the other way.
I get they don’t want to do the slow slog through downtown Seattle both ways, so just don’t. Make it into a southbound only bus through downtown, so that people get on and off at the same stops, then just do whatever the deadheading buses do to get back on I-5.
If there’s so many northbound passengers they cause a problem for the southbound trips, then so much more the reason to have the buses operate both directions! It means there’s more demand there than currently being met.
I’m not sure if there is much reverse-peak demand between Downtown Everett and Downtown Seattle.
But deadheading in general is a problem. It isn’t a big issue in the morning. There isn’t much of a reverse commute heading north. But in the evening things get really clogged up south of Northgate and the buses can’t avoid it (since the HOV lanes are on the express lanes and by then they are going the other way). If memory serves, Community transit used to avoid deadheading in the past by simply parking all the buses downtown (or maybe it was the U-District)? I don’t know if drivers were shuttled back and forth or how it worked.
Some peak buses spent the midday on Eastlake, others in SODO.
People use a lot of the busses you’re proposing to cut, I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater with how you’re just cutting buses willy nilly without looking at ridership data or frankly understanding why the buses themselves actually exist in the first place.
Zach, I’m not cutting buses willy nilly. I know why these buses exist and their ridership data, I have my views, and you have yours. This took me a long time to make, this is a final draft, I might make some slight adjustments. Read the descriptions carefully, I provide replacements for the buses, I know many people use the 590/594/595, but I would just cut those buses for more 594 service, and the 595 is paid by Pierce Transit, so I would expect Pierce Transit to take action on that (plus they have a Gig Harbor route anyways), so I would expect riders to transfer to the 594 (which would run 15 minutes all-day), and the 590 is basically the 594, so we’ll make all trips into 594, and the 592, we’ll make it into 594 service, the 577 and 578 become the 594 by adding a Federal Way stop (and since the 181 will run frequently in the future there’s no need for an ST express connection between Federal Way and Auburn). 578 riders would use the 576 (a new route) or Sounder, and I deleted the 574, because if we add a Federal Way stop and Lakewood TC stop to the 594, the 574 is useless and redundant, please read my proposal carefully and not willy nilly like you said. Glenn, I made the 510 one-way because of the express lanes (like Ross suggested).
Keep this route, instead add deviations to Mariner and Ash Way park and rides via Ash Way (like the 201/202 doubling frequency to 7.5 minutes), remove the Downtown Everett loop, add a stop at NE 45th, and have all trips run 15 minutes, to Seattle AM, and to Everett PM.
With all those stops the trip from Everett to Seattle becomes a lot slower. The stop at 45th is particularly bad. It means the bus can’t use the express lanes. That is why the bus stops at Mountlake Terrace. Riders from there can take Link to the U-District (or the other end of campus).
There is no reason to double frequency between Everett and Ash Way (especially during peak) since Ash Way is not a significant employment destination. An express from Ash Way to downtown would be welcome but it isn’t worth delaying riders from Everett so much. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the 510. It complements the 201/202 and 512 just fine.
Speaking of which, you propose getting rid of the 512 even though it performs better than any other ST Express route in Snohomish County (near as we can figure). You don’t propose doing anything with the money. It would make a lot more sense if you simply had the 512 skip Ash Way. That would speed up the bus (between Everett and Lynnwood) and thus provide a better complement to the 201/202. It could also be extended into Everett, taking over one of the Everett Transit routes (like the 4 or 19).
Sorry, Ross. I just can’t agree with your statement on the 512 skipping Ash Way. The money left over that isn’t invested in a new route could go either to other agencies, or help fund future projects. I also think the 905 could now serve Everett Station (like the old 201/202), and Mariner and Ash Way park and rides (like the current 201/202), operate the 905 at 15 minute frequencies, and you can chop-off the 512. The 201 could be deleted and the 202 could be truncated at Everett Station (and operate it frequently), the 510 is how I propose it, and the 532 is deleted (giving frequent all-week service to the 535). The 201’s special routing (for now) can go to the 209, rather than running on I-5, it could run on Smokey Point Blvd.
I just can’t agree with your statement on the 512 skipping Ash Way. The money left over that isn’t invested in a new route could go either to other agencies, or help fund future projects.
My point is that none of those other routes are likely to be as cost effective as the 512. Of course it is a bit redundant. But every route that ST would fund would be a bit redundant. Maybe ST could run an express to Mukilteo. Oh wait, Community Transit beat them to it. Maybe run buses to those far flung cities and towns (ST is a regional agency after all). Again, CT already does that. How about some sort of limited-stop BRT-type service along one of the more popular corridors? Again, done. I’m not saying that there aren’t other routes that are possible* but it is hard to see why you would eliminate the most cost-effective route in the area just to help fund them. Just skip Ash Way. You save money and give a lot of your riders a faster trip. You complement the 201/202 just like Swift Blue complements the 101 and Everett Transit 7.
*I would run a bus from Edmonds to 185th Station. But I would use the money from cancelling North Sounder to pay for it. That is part of the reason I would keep the 510.
Ross, maybe Stride S2 could be extended to Mukilteo in ST4, or make a Stride S4 from Edmonds to Bothell to complement the S3… Oh wait, is this supposed to replace Sounder? Uhmm… Yes, I mean no! This is something that Dow could consider in the next ballot, if people want light rail from Everett to Seattle (buying the BNSF tracks and selling the tracks they own), or if they want BRT to light rail stations, it’s really complex, speaking of time savings. I could simply also recommend a separate bus along Ash Way that doesn’t run on I-5, and another that does and skips Ash Way, congrats, you just made the most confusing bus system ever.
operate the 905 at 15 minute frequencies, and you can chop-off the 512.
I guess I should have read that part earlier. CT can’t just print money. But more to the point, if you are going to run an express from Lynnwood heading north (which is what the 905 is) why the hell would you go to Stanwood instead of Everett? Stanwood is a distant, low-ridership area. Downtown Everett is closer and bigger. The 905 is obviously a very low-ridership, very expensive route that is just fine running every hour (outside of peak). The 512 is not.
Ross, maybe Stride S2 could be extended to Mukilteo in ST4, or make a Stride S4 from Edmonds to Bothell to complement the S3… Oh wait, is this supposed to replace Sounder? Uhmm… Yes, I mean no!
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Just to clarify some things, Mukilteo is a very small town. Community Transit already runs a bus timed with the ferry to Lynnwood. It would be a waste of time to duplicate this for so few riders. Edmonds to Bothell is a trip taken by a handful of people every day. It doesn’t matter how they are connected.
Sounder has two parts. South Sounder performs reasonably well. North Sounder does not. It is ridiculously expensive per rider. I believe the estimate is $100 subsidy per trip. It has only four stations which means there aren’t many combinations. Very few people make trips that don’t involve Seattle. The train only runs during peak. Everett to Downtown Seattle has the 510. Mukilteo to downtown has the 117/Link.
That leaves Edmonds. Unlike Everett, the train saves a considerable amount of time for the riders heading to Seattle. Edmonds has considerable all-day demand. It is a real destination, not just a bedroom suburb. Thus it could benefit from a better connection to Seattle (via Link). Replacing Sounder with better all-day service to Edmonds would be a much better value.
None of this has anything to do with the 512. The 512 connects riders from Everett to Seattle. Again, it is the most cost effective ST route in Snohomish County. Cancelling it would be silly, especially since you can’t think of a route that comes close to providing as much value.
Ross, what I’m trying to say here is that it’s a possibility. There could be talk in the next election where we could replace Sounder N with better buses, like what I said (a bus from Mukilteo to Bellevue, and another from Edmonds to Bothell). I’ve been on the 117, and it has good ridership enough to say it deserves frequent service, though I remember CT proposed it as the 902 back in the day, and they renumbered it to 117.
There could be talk in the next election where we could replace Sounder N with better buses, like what I said (a bus from Mukilteo to Bellevue, and another from Edmonds to Bothell).
Neither of those buses would get many riders. Mukilteo to Bellevue might get a handful during peak but that is about it. Edmonds to Bothell would get far less. Neither of them would replace North Sounder. To replace North Sounder you need buses to Seattle, or at the very least to Link (where they can easily and quickly get to Seattle). That is what the 117 is. It is timed with the ferry. But it also gets some people from Mukilteo (most of who don’t live close to the ferry) to Link as well. There is really nothing else to be done there. Even if ST added an express (timed with the ferry) it is unlikely it would increase ridership, it would just poach riders from the 117. You could run the 117 every fifteen minutes (to increase ridership for those who don’t take the ferry) but there just aren’t that many potential riders along the corridor. Most of Mukilteo is farther away from the speedway (which is there is the 103). Even then Mukilteo isn’t Downtown Everett — not even close.
Edmonds is different. While the ferry has riders, the central part of Edmonds has pretty good density and a fairly walkable downtown. It is also much closer to Seattle. Providing good all-day service would likely work well. The riders from Edmonds who take Sounder North are not interested in going to Bothell. They want to go to Seattle. I could easily see a peak-express to downtown (replacing North Sounder). But I also think an all-day bus to Link would get enough riders to justify fifteen minute headways. In contrast there are very few people traveling between Edmonds and Bothell.
That seems to be an issue with some of your plans. You seem to think that all of these places are similar. That regional travel patterns in areas with varied density and destinations has similar travel patters as those inside a dense, urban area. That simply isn’t true. Certain concepts work really well in dense, urban areas. A network effect for example. The Northgate/UW extension had it. The Lynnwood extension did not. When Northgate was added a lot of people traveled between every trip pair (Northgate to Roosevelt, Northgate to U-District, Roosevelt to U-District, etc.). That didn’t happen with Lynnwood. It was almost entirely riders heading from the northern stations into Seattle. Very few people go from Lynnwood to Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood to Shoreline, etc. The same thing is true when it comes to other network ideas. For example a grid can work very well inside a dense urban area like Seattle. But it falls apart as you get farther and farther away. There just aren’t that many people going from Mill Creek to North Edmonds or Maltby to Alderwood. For areas like that you either run a coverage bus (infrequently) or you have to have a good anchor. This can either be a real destination or a major connection point to a really big destination (like a Link station is to Seattle). Thus you can see that the CT system does not attempt to provide a grid but instead has buses serving multiple hubs: Downtown Everett, Boeing and Lynnwood Stations.
So not only is Edmonds to Bothell not a good substitute for North Sounder, it just wouldn’t be a good bus. It duplicates the 331, which performs very poorly. The only significant addition would be the express from Edmonds to Link (via Mountlake Terrace I assume) which is essentially the same thing an express from Edmonds to 185th would provide. It is just that going to 185th would be a bit faster while also connecting to RapidRide E.
Ross, I saw your explanation and I notice I wasn’t being specific, I meant that those buses connect to Link (while running direct corridors feeding into highways), the Stride S2’s extension to Mukilteo would be welcome, except it might be too long, and I agree (there wouldn’t be a lot of people riding south of Lynnwood from Mukilteo), what I meant is that I expect riders to transfer to the 1 Line at Lynnwood from Mukilteo, and run it as one bus to improve one seat connections, straight running routes, and to save money. The Stride S4 (Edmonds to UW Bothell via Hwy 104) would double frequency with the Stride S3 along Hwy 522 from LFP to UWB/CC, as I see many people headed towards the 104 from the east when I get on the 331, having such a line east from Bothell could grab people’s attention, and makes a light rail connection to Mountlake Terrace (that is what I meant by replacing Sounder), so people from Edmonds would go to Mountlake Terrace to transfer to Link for those who would normally ride Sounder, and this route would replace the 909 and 331 (it would not have a shadow for the sake of ridership), this line would have new one-seat connections that you can’t make on Transit currently, such as…
Edmonds to Bothell (the most obvious)
Westgate to Lake Forest Park
Mountlake Terrace to Bothell (but will be possible once the 2 Line runs on I-90)
the Stride S2’s extension to Mukilteo would be welcome
And I’m saying very few people take the ferry to Stride 2 locations (other than Lynnwood) so there is not much value in connecting the two. Again, I could see a peak-only express to Bellevue. It could be like the 595 (although it would probably get fewer riders).
The only connection that is likely to get significant riders is Mukilteo to Lynnwood. The 117 already does that. It is already timed with the ferry. So you achieve nothing if you time it with the ferry. If you don’t time it with the ferry you only pick up a handful of riders along the way. If you run express to Lynnwood you get fewer riders than the 117 which means your ridership per service hour is really high. Despite the faster speeds it is hard to see that increasing ridership. Either the 117 works from you (because you are headed to somewhere served by Link) or you just pay the extra money and drive.
The Stride S4 (Edmonds to UW Bothell via Hwy 104) would double frequency with the Stride S3 along Hwy 522 from LFP to UWB/CC
Right. Which is another way of saying it would be a huge waste of money. The Lake Forest Park/Kenmore/Bothell part of the 522 (or 372) doesn’t perform nearly as well as the part in Seattle. Most of the riders from the north are headed to Link as well. If you wanted to increase frequency beyond what Stride S3 is going to provide then just do that directly — run the S3 more often. I’m not saying I would do that but it would be a better use of money. There just aren’t that many people going suburb to suburb.
so people from Edmonds would go to Mountlake Terrace to transfer to Link for those who would normally ride Sounder
Which is fine and really the only part of the route worth building. But again, I think it is better if Edmonds is connected to 185th Station. It is a bit faster and Edmonds would be connected to RapidRide E. But if they had frequent service between Mountlake Terrace and Edmonds it would still be a worthy route. In contrast Mountlake Terrace to Lake Forest Park, Bothell and Kenmore is already covered by the 331 — a bus that performs very poorly. It just doesn’t make sense for ST to try and duplicate poorly performing routes just because a handful of riders can avoid a transfer.
I think part of the issue here is, when you leave the urban core, you see a bigger and bigger dichotomy between the types of trips that people drive to and the types of trips people are willing to take transit to get to. Car trips, the destinations tend to be very scattered. Denser areas get more, but not orders of magnitude more. Transit trips, on the other hand, people with cars who live in car dependent areas are only willing to ride it when traveling to the densest areas, where parking is the most difficult.
In other words, people who live in Edmonds may go to Bothell, but they’re going to drive there, and no matter what transit service is offered, they are still going to drive there. The same is also true for most neighborhoods in Seattle. Only downtown and the U-district have the density to get large numbers of people with cars to ride transit to. So, a transit system that caters to people with cars is going to focus primarily on connecting to these areas, even if 95% of people’s overall trips are to other (less dense) areas.
The problem of course, is then you have people who don’t have cars and want transit that goes everywhere, not just to the handful of destinations people with cars are willing to ride transit to. But, if there’s not a critical mass of people without cars that live near where you live, that doesn’t happen.
@asdf2 — Yes. Or to put it more simply: density + proximity = ridership (https://humantransit.org/basics/the-transit-ridership-recipe). Edmonds is not that close to Bothell (it is about 11 miles). It is not that close to the UW either (about 13 miles). So in both cases you don’t have much proximity. But the UW is much, much more dense than Bothell (or anything else along that corridor).
When people think about density they tend to focus on residential density. But that isn’t the only type of density that is important. There is what I would call “destination density”. This included employment density but it also includes educational density or entertainment density. Like residential density, the relationship between density and transit is not linear. As density increases, transit ridership increases even more (for much the same reason). Just as someone in Capitol Hill may think it is too much of a hassle to own a car (since it is dense) people are less likely to drive to Capitol Hill (because it is a hassle to park or drive).
Adding a Montlake stop on the 545 would make eastbound trips much slower and less predictable. It is not uncommon to see backups of cars trying to take the Montlake exit to UW, especially during morning peak. You do not want the bus getting stuck in that traffic. Westbound is somewhat better, you’d have to convince WSDOT to modify the signal on the lid to allow a bus to go straight (current, it’s not possible). Note that such a signal mod would hurt eastbound buses trying to turn left onto the Montlake lid to get onto 520.
If the 545 runs at all, it should skip the Montlake area, although I can see the Bellevue/Olive stop making sense.
I think the Montlake stop is going to have to be revisited, I only added it to improve connections to the U District, though the 544 if were to be restored, I would have expected to see low ridership for such a route that runs between Overlake and Fred Hutch, with a deviation to South Kirkland. I don’t think it’s restoration would have been successful, speaking of the 2 Line.
What would the replacement for the 595 be? I don’t see anything else going to Gig Harbor. I suppose you could try cate the bus in Federal Way, but then it becomes a really long trip.
Another thing to think about…Gig Harbor should ideally connect to Kitsap Transit with a bus to Bremerton. Having to detour all the way to downtown Seattle and ride an hour long ferry to get there is really pushing it – we’re talking a 3 hour transit journey for what is maybe 20-30 minutes by car. That’s too much.
The replacement for the 595 is the 594, and Pierce Transit route 100, and the 2 (or some other route) to connect to a route that takes you to Seattle. It’s a three seat ride, but since the route is peak only and has very few runs, I don’t expect riders to make a big deal or worry that much.
This link illustrates pretty well why the 595 has to exist. https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZwSjcTwcEGjeXGRw7
From Purdy to downtown Seattle, it’s 1.5 hours on the 594 vs. anywhere from 2 hours 40 minutes to 3 hours using the 3-seat ride involving the 100. And, this is just one way, you have to repeat everything to get home. Expecting people to put up with that would be totally unreasonable. In practice, eliminating the 595 would mean that if a person in Gig Harbor wants to ride transit to downtown Seattle, they should drive at least to Federal Way and catch the bus there (or Link on really bad traffic days). Yes, it’s a very long slog in the car, congesting the freeways in the process, but if it saves a full 3 hours a day of commuting time, then that is what people will do (if not abandon the bus entirely and just drive all the way to Seattle).
Looking at the map, you can see why the 100 is so slow. The route around Gig Harbor is full of twists and turns in order to cover as much area as absolutely possible with only one bus, because one bus is all that cash-strapped Pierce Transit can afford to send to that area. Then, on top of that, you’ve got the connection to another slow Pierce Transit route at TCC Transit Center, including a grand tour of downtown Tacoma that can easily take 15-20 minutes to cover one mile with all those stoplights. Then, you have the overhead of waiting for the 594. Oh, and the 3-hour time estimate assumes the 590/594 running nonstop between Tacoma Dome and Seattle. Add a stop in Federal Way, you add an additional 10 minutes on top of that.
Adding up all the pieces, it’s simply too much. Yes, the 595 only helps during peak hours, but the peak hour service still covers a lot of trips. It is sufficient to allow someone to spend a day in Seattle, at least Monday-Friday, and even if another connection is required out of downtown, perhaps, to reach UW or Bellevue, it’s still tolerable for someone that, maybe, works from home most days and only needs to do that commute once or twice per week.
It would also be tempting to ask, why not straighten the 100 to make it faster, or extend the 100 to connect with the 594. But, straightening the 100 would involve sacrificing a lot of coverage, because it’s the only bus Gig Harbor has, and extending it would cost service money that Pierce Transit doesn’t have.
Another way to think about it is that the Gig Harbor area effectively has two transit networks, one for captive riders, one for choice riders. Captive riders don’t have cars, so they need service direct to destinations because they have no last-mile transportation capability. But, because Pierce Transit is cash-strapped and can only afford to run one bus route out there, that means the one bus has to do everything, which means lots of twists and turns. The choice riders, on the other hand, coverage doesn’t matter because they all have cars, so the trip can begin and end at a park and ride lot, but speed is very important, otherwise, there’s no point in riding it when you have the option to just drive the car to better service closer to Seattle (if not all the way to the final destination). For the choice rider, having service limited to just rush hour is ok because you can just use the car at all other times, and the only time when traffic is bad enough to be worth the effort of driving to a park and ride to wait for a bus is rush hour. Of course, the choice rider service is much more expensive to fund and beyond Pierce Transit’s ability to pay for, but that’s where Sound Transit comes in, as a route like the 595 falls right in line with Sound Transit’s mission.
There are some situations, like the 545, where redundancy feels questionable, but the 595 is not one of them. It needs to run.
True asdf2, but I doubt anybody even uses it, and it runs very few trips, and it’s not ST’s job to fund it, it’s Pierce Transit, so why operate a route that isn’t even in the boundary? It’s long, and it’s only purpose I would see (where riders gain the apple of the eye) is Tacoma to Seattle, that’s pretty much it, other than that it has no reason to exist (under ST).
@Scooby Doo
It absolutely is ST’s job to fund it. Their charter is to provide regional transit.
We have the ridership data on the 595. About 150 people ride the 6 trips a day:
https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
I doubt anybody even uses it, and it runs very few trips, and it’s not ST’s job to fund it, it’s Pierce Transit, so why operate a route that isn’t even in the boundary?
A regional bus like the 595 is definitely the type of thing ST does. As for ridership it gets somewhere between 150 and 200 riders. This works out to about 30 riders per bus trip. Obviously this isn’t great but likely pretty common for these express buses. At first glance it seems extremely expensive. But it should really be considered an extension of the 590 (which is why it is listed with it and the 594 on the schedule — https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/schedule-590-594-595.pdf). Someone at the Tacoma Dome can take it. Even then the extension isn’t cheap but it isn’t crazy.
But at some point it makes sense to just abandon these types of trips if they perform poorly. I would say the big problem is that transit in the Kitsap Peninsula is cut in half because of the county lines. Getting from Gig Harbor and Purdy to Southworth, Bremerton, Port Orchard is pretty much impossible. Not only is this bad by itself but it means that riders don’t have a good way to get to the ferry other than driving. Of course they can drive to a park and ride in Kitsap County and then take a bus to the ferry. This sounds like a degradation except every bus stop in the peninsula of the 595 is a park and ride. Thus driving to a different park and ride and then taking a bus/ferry isn’t much worse. For example Gig Harbor to Mullenix Road (driving) followed by a bus to the ferry and a ferry to Seattle. https://maps.app.goo.gl/aypYUoeMzvauEzBD8 and then https://maps.app.goo.gl/TCjTquocHKW83t8JA. That seems like it is just about as good as the 595.
There are other aspects of the route. It connects riders from the west to Tacoma. It is hard to say how many people make that trip. Very few used to take the bus to Tacoma (from the west) but that was before it stopped at the Tacoma Dome.
But the bus does serve a couple of additional stops in Tacoma (e. g. Tacoma Community College Transit Center ). In the past these performed about as well as those in Kitsap Peninsula but they are much quicker to get to.
I think the strongest argument for keeping it is that it runs so rarely that it doesn’t cost much to operate. If I was pinching pennies I think I would keep the extension within Tacoma but get rid of the trip across the bridge. Ideally there would be more service on the peninsula (connecting the north and south). ST could provide such service but it is outside their service area. It is up to the state to provide that service (or the two counties should cooperate). My guess is they are both so severely starved of funds that they have higher priorities.
@jd,
25 riders a day is a lot, but I would expect those riders to ride to Tacoma and not Gig Harbor, whereas they can transfer (for the very few people who I presume use the 595 out of the ST boundary). The 594 is now going to run frequently, so I have no idea why you would want to keep the 595. Let the 594 improve and we’ll see about people who want the 595 or not (I might be wrong).
We don’t have recent stop data for the 595. Old stop data didn’t include the stop at the Tacoma Dome. So we really can only guess as to the number of riders who currently take the 595 across the Tacoma Narrows.
But as I mentioned the cost is minimal. Three buses each way, each running 37 minutes (from Tacoma Dome to Purdy). Even if it gets just a handful of riders it probably isn’t worth pissing them off. If they decided to provide a substitute (e. g. Kimball/Purdy/Mullenix/Southworth) timed with the passenger ferry then I could see it. You would still want to keep the (presumably) more cost-effective extension to the community college but otherwise I wouldn’t bother.
“25 riders a day is a lot, but I would expect those riders to ride to Tacoma and not Gig Harbor, whereas they can transfer”
Doing that when Tacoma Dome Link happens, sure it could be evaluated as a good change to do. But right now, the current express buses works well as intended. A few express bus runs to Gig Harbor and DuPont aren’t going to save much and I think the deadheaded buses end up doing other routes when they’re done with their one way runs as well. Alongside that 595 was a request by Pierce County, Gig Harbor, and Purdy to have some commuter service, so there was clearly a need for it in the system. And they seem content paying for it.
I think there should be a co-sponsored Sound Transit/Kitsap Transit route between downtown Seattle and Gig Harbor via the Fauntleroy-Southworth Ferry. The main downside I see is the high ferry fare. Maybe an exemption from ferry fare for bus riders, or at least a discount? If putting the bus on the ferry isn’t feasible, maybe just run it from Southworth to Gig Harbor?
@John Charles Wilson, the other problem with putting a bus on the ferry is that you need to pay the bus driver to sit there and do nothing while the ferry’s running.
Kitsap Transit currently runs a fast ferry from Southworth to downtown Seattle (well… they will again when the boat is fixed…), and the peak-only Route 185 runs from there to Mullenix Rd and SR 16. If Pierce Transit wants to pay to extend it farther south, that’d be a fine idea.
Some of your ideas for the South Sound are in line with previous discussions (https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/02/25/regional-transit-after-federal-way-link/). I think there is fairly widespread consensus that we keep the 594, have it stop at Federal Way, and run it more often. Meanwhile the 574 only runs when Link isn’t running. Otherwise riders from Tacoma and Lakewood have to transfer in Federal Way to Link if they want to get to the airport (or Highline College).
I’m having trouble wrapping my head around some of the changes in the South Sound though. The 576 would be the only bus route serving Auburn, Puyallup and Sumner, right? It would connect those areas with Kent, Renton and Rainier Beach. If I have it right then I don’t see it getting many riders. Not that many people go from Kent/Auburn to Renton. Even in its headway the 566 had about 100 hundred riders between there (and that includes all of Renton). Way more people were going to Bellevue, including riders from Renton to Bellevue. Yet the bus would no longer go to Bellevue. It is also worth noting that ridership on the 566 is much lower than it used to be and it didn’t do well in the middle of the day (even when it went to Bellevue).
Meanwhile, this new 566 will compete (and lose) to the 101 if riders are trying to get from Renton to Downtown Seattle. Even for trips to Rainier Beach it is at best an express of the 106 and 107 (which means it may lose out simply based on frequency). Following Rainier Avenue from Renton to Rainier Beach seems particularly odd. There is very little along there. So much so that Metro doesn’t bother covering it. Maybe you meant Renton Avenue? Anyway, Renton to Rainier Beach is certainly a good combination used by plenty of people but not thousands. About 400 riders take the 106 from Rainier Beach to places south. A lot of them are headed to various places along Renton Avenue. Most are not using the bus stop closest to the station. Only about about 130 riders actually transfer from the 106 at Rainier Beach Station. In other words, it is not really a feeder for Link (or if it is it is failing miserably). Unless I miss what you are describing it just doesn’t sound like a route that would get all but a handful of riders. It also seems to be competing with Metro instead of complementing it.
I think the South Sound still needs that connection to Federal Way. I also think they need an express to Downtown Seattle. I think the best option is Auburn/Kent/Downtown. I could see either the bus to Federal Way or the bus to Downtown Seattle going farther, to Sumner/Puyallup. Going to Downtown Bellevue is worthy as well (although less so). This makes it tricky but I think we can manage it. Demand to Downtown Bellevue is very peak-oriented. The 566 is fine — it just needs to be truncated at Downtown Bellevue (the Downtown Bellevue to Downtown Redmond section is handled by East Link now). The rest of the day riders will just tough it out with a 160/560 (eventually to be replaced by Stride/RapidRide). There are so few riders that it really doesn’t matter and it probably wouldn’t be that bad.
I like the idea of 20 minute service. It is a good option for a lot of these routes. These are long distance trips — frequency is less important. But 20 minutes is not that more expensive than 30 and it makes a big difference. If nothing else it just feels like the agency cares. Sound Transit promised 15 minute service from Seattle to Tacoma a long time ago. If they just managed to get 20 minute service a lot of people would feel like they aren’t forgotten. It also works with Link better. It is tough to time things but not impossible (especially outbound).
Here’s my response to your issues:
1. Having the 574 be the overnight route is a so-so idea, I would just suggest to have the 594 stop at those stops at night, or maybe not because there’s the A Line and 124 to get to Seattle from Federal Way (and have the 594 run at night).
2. That’s true, 566 ridership is getting worse, that’s why I propose a 576 (not a new 566), then transferring to the 560, then to the 2 Line, I’m sure people wouldn’t mind transferring to the 560 which would now run frequently. I also made the 576 every 20 minutes to be timed with Sounder. I would make the transfer penalty to the 560 five minutes, as the 560 will run frequently, we can offset the time (like what ST proposes with the 574). Then we can transfer to the 2 Line which will have larger frequencies in the future.
3. The 576’s point is a Sounder crowding dealer (and a replacement for the 566 and 578), people would transfer at Rainier Beach rather than Federal Way if you used to ride the 578, if you used to ride the 566 you would transfer to the 560 in Renton from the 576. Also since the 181 is proposed to run frequently, we would expect riders to transfer to the latter.
1. The 574 performs the best late at night. Look at the service reports if you doubt that. It would be silly to suddenly force a transfer at the one time when the bus performs its best.
2. That’s why I propose a 576 (not a new 566), then transferring to the 560, then to the 2 Line
Right. My point is that such a route would perform very, very poorly (for the reasons I mentioned). You are forcing transfers for your most popular existing ST trips. You are trying to compete with Metro for other trips (and losing, badly). It is a route that would struggle to get a few hundred people a day. It would soon become the worst performing route run by ST (and that is saying something).
3. The 576’s point is a Sounder crowding dealer
Wait, what? Sounder is crowded? Then run bigger trains.
people would transfer at Rainier Beach rather than Federal Way
Why the hell would they want to do that? One of the main benefits of transferring at Federal Way is that they can go to Highline College, SeaTac *and* Rainier Valley. Why would you skip SeaTac, given its importance?
Look, I don’t know how else to explain this to you. Rainier Beach is a decent destination. But it isn’t Downtown Seattle. It isn’t the UW. It isn’t even Columbia City. It just doesn’t make sense to have that be your main regional terminus. There just isn’t enough there. An express bus (from Kent/Auburn/etc.) should go to Downtown Seattle and a second bus should go to Federal Way.
Ross, I understand. The late night route ST proposes is basically the 574 going to Downtown. Currently, Sounder can’t currently run bigger trains because it’s proposed in the far future, ending the 576 at Rainier Beach could popularize the station and attract new riders (so they can transfer to light rail to continue to Seattle). Rainier Beach has such poor ridership, and making a new line connecting the entirety of SR 167 could be the way to go (my view), the 576 would sort of be an express version of the 160, be a replacement of the 578 by providing a farther connection to Link (to avoid too much time made on Link), a 566 replacement (with frequent transfers), and of course a temporary dealer with S Line crowding. I hope you get what I’m saying. There’s so many benefits to the 576, I may understand why you don’t see them but I do.
Another possibility is that it could take over the 101/102 to continue to Seattle, but I’m not sure if Metro would be so friendly with that, it will probably be another Sabrina Carpenter Arrests SNL’S Domingo situation, so you can cancel the route and instead run Sounder to Renton (but still you need to think that through).
ending the 576 at Rainier Beach could popularize the station and attract new riders
Only a handful. That is my point. Very few people would ride that bus. It doesn’t make sense for regional transportation. No one is going to take the bus from Auburn or Kent into Downtown Seattle. It would take too long. If you are going from Renton to Downtown you just take the 101. If you are going from Renton to Rainier Valley you just take the 106. So you are basically just looking at riders from Kent or Auburn to Rainier Valley Link locations (and Beacon Hill). There just aren’t enough riders to justify that.
There are two things you seem to be trying to do here. First is to treat Rainier Beach Station as a transfer point. Unfortunately that just don’t work. It doesn’t work for the 106 or the 107 — it sure as hell won’t work if the bus serves Renton.
The other thing you are trying to do is add Renton into the mix. This is laudable. If you are going to run an express bus that includes Kent and Auburn (and maybe even Sumner and Puyallup) then you might as well throw in Renton as well. Except Renton already has an express to Downtown Seattle — the 101. It also has local service to Rainier Valley. Thus the route only adds the connection between Kent/Auburn to Renton and there just aren’t that many people making that trip to justify the detour, especially outside of peak.
In contrast, Kent doesn’t have an express to Downtown Seattle. The 150 is a good bus but it takes a long time to get to Seattle. Sounder is great when it is running but it doesn’t run that often. Thus an express from Kent to Downtown Seattle is worthy. If the bus goes to Kent it might as well continue to Auburn (and maybe Sumner/Puyallup). This complements Sounder. Downtown Seattle is a much bigger destination than Bellevue (and Bellevue is much bigger than other suburbs) so it should do OK as a midday bus (just as the 150 does well). Kent/Auburn/Renton can continue to be served by the 566. Ridership is very peak-oriented on the 566. I’m sure the Stride line will be similar. This means that having both (serving Bellevue) is OK. Basically during peak you have Stride and the 566 branch at Renton. The rest of the day there just isn’t enough demand to Renton from Kent/Auburn to provide an express (the local buses are fine, especially since the bus will become RapidRide).
The only thing that you need (besides all that) is a way to get to the airport (and other Link destinations to the south) from Kent/Auburn/etc. Going all the way north to Rainier Beach doesn’t do that. No one is going to take the bus all the way to Rainier Beach and then take Link back to SeaTac (let alone the college). You need a different bus to Federal Way.
I disagree with the 566. I think it should skip Renton and use the flyover HOV ramp and run parallel to Stride, but terminate at South Bellevue Station or Bellevue Transit Center instead of Redmond. Fewer transfers is always a better experience for riders. They have a direct seat to Seattle, but not to Bellevue — few riders from there want to go to Rainier Beach. For people actually heading into Renton, 566 can stop in S Renton for select trips.
Puyallup to Auburn to Federal Way Station would be much better in my opinion to address 578.
I spoke to someone working on 2026 Service Plan during the Federal Way Link Extension. It sounds like when they originally hinted for some more aggressive service cut during outreach, people got real angry. So they ended up not going for anything crazy.
With Pandemic changing all the commute pattern, there is literally no reliable data to produce some credible forecast right now. I think it is probably for the best for ST to study the post-revenue travel pattern after 2 Line fully opens and come up with something and implement with STRIDE restructure.
In the January 2016 ST Express planning scenarios for ST2, all three levels had all ST Express routes truncated at KDM, Lynnwood, Mercer Island or South Bellevue, and UW — none continued to downtown Seattle. (The 574 continued to SeaTac.) The board never issued an opinion on these so we spent years in limbo not knowing how strongly ST would pursue the truncations. In Northgate and Lynnwood Link, the truncations were pursued, except a few temporary concessions because the full 2 Line hadn’t started yet. In the Eastside restructure, ST also pursued mostly truncating, but then withdrew its recommendations before the last round, saying it would reconsider them in a systemwide ST Express restructure in 2026.
In the south end unlike the other areas, Link would be significantly slower than ST Express, because of the longer distances from downtown Seattle, the surface alignments in Rainier Valley and SODO, and the detour east to Rainier Valley. So we assumed there would be more opposition to truncating the express bus routes there. The question was always, how big would the opposition be, how strongly would ST push back against it, and which side would win? That was left up in the air from 2016 to 2025.
So it’s unsurprising it got opposition. It’s a little surprising ST kept the routes. It’s more surprising ST kept so many routes, meaning its ST Express spending will be significantly higher than budgeted in the ST3 ballot measure (which was at the low end of the 2016 scenarios).
The delay in doing anything with ST Express when Federal Way opened and the full 2 Line opens mid next year, is another surprising development. This sidesteps opposition to truncating the routes, since it won’t happen immediately on opening. It also means that people can vote with their feet for the first several months, and this will give us data on how popular a shift to Link is. That will inform the debate next year on a final restructure plan.
It is unsurprising, but I thought the opposition would lead to something like keeping 594 but truncating 590 rather than what we see in the draft plan.
U-District and Roosevelt stations just closed for a ventilation issue. Shuttle buses are coming.
Looking at the November-December maintenance schedule, U-District had ventilation work November 8. So a D grade on that work.
The January-February maintenance schedule doesn’t mention ventilation work. (We have an article on the January-February schedule but it will probably be published in two weeks, because next week will be full of DSTT2/Ballad articles around the ST the board meeting Thursday.)
Fixed at 4pm.
I rode MUNI’s F, J, L, and N lines in my couple dozen visits between 1985 and 2015. I thought I remembered the trains were red then. I was incredibly annoyed at the crawlingly-slow street-running segments and thought they should be upgraded. The grade-separated segments were fine; I just felt frequency was too low as I waited 15-20 minutes for a train. I felt that if I lived in San Francisco, I’d really want to live near a BART station.
I thought that he was too young to remember that Muni Metro used to attach the train cars to run in the Muni Metro tunnel. Before the mid-1990’s, Muni would use the long platforms to couple (and decouple) an N+J train or a K+L+M train so they would only have two or sometimes three “train lines” in the core tunnel. Even with the coupling, Embarcadero Station trains would back up badly as drivers switched cabs as well as got their break. The tunnel in the mornings was often so bad that people would just get off and walk rather than ride to the end.
That went away in the mid 1990’s. Cleverly, Muni built a tight loop beyond Embarcadero Station so drivers could simply make a semi-circle and reverse a train without having to switch cabs at the ends of the train. They also switched the signaling system so trains could run closer together. That’s when Muni switched to only 1 or 2 cars for each line — and eliminated the time-consuming coupling and de-coupling mid-route.
Actually the new signal system solution was plagued by horrible software response problems when it first opened. The real-time train locator software would “lose” trains if they went too fast, and so for awhile they had to run trains at a low speed limit. Thank God computer systems are way more faster with location data processing than they were 30 years ago.
The audio announcements I heard said “2 car, K – K” or “1 car, J”, always the same letter (never mixed), and always one or two cars.
There were “Race Muni” events, which must have been the inspiration for “Race the L8”.
It is really just a legacy system like TTC Streetcar with some modern touch. I think at least T Line in Central Subway section actually run like a subway with high acceleration/deceleration rate.
However, segments in Sunset District basically look the same as a century ago. The ADA accommodation didn’t exist at all for most stops west of Twin Peaks. Several lines run in the middle of the street and stop in the middle of the car lanes with no platform and remember they are high-floor LRV, but they’ve started building platforms in recent years.
Good news: Sound Transit adds a sign pointing to Seattle at Seatac Station.
Let’s do it at the other stations next!
The Sound Transit board is reviewing the downtown tunnel (DSTT2) no build alternatives at Thursday’s meeting. They seemed primed to dismiss both options (interlining and stub line to Ballard) and decline further study.
For those that think an automated stub line to Ballard is a good idea, please consider providing public comment (in person, virtually, or in writing) on Thursday so that they continue looking into these options and add automation to the scenarios.
https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/news-events/calendar/board-directors-meeting-2025-12-18
If you ever want to know why US transit is always a cluster pile, every single time SF’s/Boston’s original SLRVs are brought up, it’s noted that A) they were horrible in just about every single way public transit hardware could be, and B) they were a influence in subsequent metro transit programs throughout the nation.
ST Express weather advisory, Monday 3:41pm: With the flood/wind watches through Thursday, “ST Express service may reroute at any time. Road conditions can change quickly causing reroutes or stop closures with little to no advanced notice. You might see smaller buses used on your route and experience reduced operating speeds. [Transit apps] may not reflect current levels of service.’
Link and Sounder will continue as normal.Metro may issue a similar advisory at some point.