Friday Roundtable: RapidRide J Project Update

84 Replies to “Friday Roundtable: RapidRide J Project Update”

1. Wow ridiculous costs. Over one hundred million dollars for a few miles of brt. The US is so screwed. It will never catch up to the rest of the world.

   1. Reading is really hard huh? Half the article is about how this is not JUST BRT but also utility work and general streetscape overhaul.

   2. You’ve got to be kidding me dude the article explains why it’s so expensive

   3. So… over a dozen bullet items explaining what was done in addition to new public transportation is not enough for you? You say we’re screwed; I say we’ve got a bunch of agencies and departments that know how to work together cohesively

   4. The issue is whether some of the utility relocation costs came out of the transit budget. RapidRide’s goal is to upgrade strategic corridors, and Eastlake is a strategic corridor. I might not have designated it as such, but it’s the primary bus route between the U-District and downtown, and serves SLU and the highly-multifamily Eastlake neighborhood in between.

      My dad lived and worked in an apartment building that wasn’t even on Eastlake Avenue itself but a block or two east among similar buildings. The owners lived in the penthouse, had an insurance business on the ground floor my dad was in, and he had an apartment in the complex, and the owners also used to run an antique store in Pike Place Market. The neighborhood is walkable and transit-oriented but lacks a supermarket.

      When Metro eliminated the 71/72/73X in the U-Link restructure, a surprising number of riders switched to the 70. I wouldn’t have, because the point of the expresses was to avoid the slower local service, and Link at UW station was now the express, but other people switched to the 70. So it was very busy in the late pre-COVID era when RapidRide I was planned.

2. Excited for the Eastlake Community Council to celebrate the opening of the line while never acknowledging their complete opposition to this project during it’s long development timeline.

   1. Neighborhood groups need more urbanists participating, pretty much everywhere.

      Roosevelt’s TOD, such as it is, came about in part because someone who lived in the neighborhood advocated for it.

3. The recent bike lane upgrades on Beacon Hill also featured a water main upgrade.

   The distance to cross the street in front of Beacon Hill Station is shorter now, with the option of going straight onto the southbound transit island, thereby avoiding crossing the southbound bike lane.

   About all that is missing is Real Time Arrival signs for the buses. The Red Apple would get more customers if riders didn’t have to search for the info on a private website. Having RTA info directly linked from Metro’s schedule pages (like ST and CT do) would be almost as good.

   I don’t know how much SPU has to be involved in getting RTA signs wired. But it ought to be a cheap upgrade to all the stations in the city to have RTA signs at the bus bays. When there is utility work in front of a station, include RTA signs in the to-do list.

4. I’m excited about the Rapid Ride J, but I do get frustrated when utility projects and transit projects get wrapped into one. I think it can lead to some poor decision making. Something along the lines of “we have to tear this street up anyways, the water main needs replacement” makes sense, but it’s not clear to me how the costs of repaving then get allocated. Based on this, about $100M for the transit elements seems a little ridiculous (though it’s worth saying that a fair amount of those levy dollars are likely bike specific), and I worry that the repaving costs get bundled in with the transit capital costs, rather than with the public utility cost. But I don’t have any specifics to cite since I can’t find any detailed accounting for the project.

   This dynamic is probably even more relevant as it pertains to things like repaving projects being rolled into transit projects. Obviously there’s some nexus between the need to repave a street and buses running on said street, but if the capital costs are absorbed by a transit project (thus running up the budget), and the public isn’t clear on how and why those costs are allocated the way they are, you end up in situations where small bus improvements cost like $25M per mile almost entirely because of capital improvements not directly related to transit.

   It’d be nice to see bus corridor improvements rolled out without going through the entire capital process, and instead just focused on painting bus lanes and improving shelters (and doing stop consolidation as needed).

   1. The 35th Ave NE bike lanes that almost got striped were an example of patiently waiting for the next repaving, organizing support, and then having the rug pulled at the last minute.

      Safe travel should not have to wait for a repaving or water main upgrade. Doing so at that time is, nevertheless, the most cost-effective approach, even with bickering over which account is paying for what. It is the same taxpayers.

      1. Sure, but I think there’s a generalized risk in overcomplicating projects by bundling everything into one. There are benefits to doing that from a planning perspective, but it’s not ideal from a “get small projects done without much money” perspective. And bike lanes and bus lanes are the cheap things that suffer as a result. The cost of adding bike lanes to any street is measured in the tens of thousands of dollars, as are bus lanes. Why do we need to wait for a $100M capital replacement project to do that stuff?

         We should do the easy stuff now, and the hard stuff when the money comes in.

   2. At least SPU kicked in funds. I’m not sure if the contributions matches the actual cost of utility replacement but it appears to be in the ballpark.

      My bigger beef with Seattle’s approach of using transit projects as a front for underground utility replacement is that they’re called transit projects. They make transit projects look overly expensive and take money from scarce funds that are intended to improve transit in other ways. That ends up making SDOT defer transit projects.

      On the other hand, it’s not wise to lay concrete for a transit project only to have ripped out the next year or two for utility replacements. So I get why some projects need to wait for replacements to be finalized.

      I do wish there was an independent audit that assigns the component costs for transit to costs of doing other things. It’s disingenuous to Seattle taxpayers when SDOT doesn’t make SPU own up to their share of costs on these projects. Seattle generally seems particularly susceptible to government agencies and officials using earmarked transit money to achieve other objectives like utility replacements.

      1. I guess my open question is how many transit projects actually need to do full pavement replacements. It seems to me that there could be a whole lot of bus lanes painted before the pavement is replaced for pennies on the dollar, rather than choosing to defer needed improvement until the grant starts align.

      2. Look around the country. It’s common for BRT projects to upgrade utilities. I can name properties where a “BRT investment” is really a utility project, where close to half the project cost is CSO/water main replacements.

         I don’t agree with it, but just saying this happens all the time.

      3. Just because it happens all the time (in the USA) doesn’t mean it is good policy. We are pretty well the worst when it comes to transit in every respect, including cost. So saying “we are just like other American cities” is kind of an insult.

      4. I guess my open question is how many transit projects actually need to do full pavement replacements.

         Yeah, good question. It also seems rather independent of the issues, unless you are talking about center running, contraflow or going on a different street. In most cases they are already running the buses there. Whether they run more or fewer buses is completely independent as to whether they add red paint or not.

         For example they dramatically increased the number of buses on Roosevelt (over Maple Leaf) when they finished U-Link. But I don’t remember anyone saying they needed to rebuild the streets. If they now decided to add BAT lanes, it is hard to see why that would result in new pavement.

   3. Think of it as a way to leverage federal funds for utility projects. The federal government would not ordinarily pay for water mains. But, they might (depending on who’s president) if it’s part of a transit project.

      1. I think that’s bad practice. The federal government shouldn’t be involved in water main replacements in Seattle, that should be the responsibility of water utility rate payers in Seattle. If we always leverage (typically volatile) federal funds to do basic capital maintenance and replacement, we will end up with rate increase shocks when that inevitably goes away. Better to have a CIP that sets rates in a predictable way than rely on grant funding in the long term.

      2. The federal government would not ordinarily pay for water mains. But, they might (depending on who’s president) if it’s part of a transit project.

         Yeah, but that is BS. Maybe the government *should* pay for the water mains. Maybe the government should *not* pay for local transit. Either way we shouldn’t have a system that pretends the two are related and need to happen at the same time. It is yet another example of a dysfunctional system.

   4. I’d love to see consideration of ‘tactical urbanism BRT’ using those thick rubber temporary bus stops, paint/thermoplastic, simple signal modifications of existing signals (better yet restrict left turns), off the shelf standard issue bus shelters, utilize existing bus fleet, and hold off on the utility work (not a big issue to pop out the bus stop when needed to do the work).

      Sure you can get the Feds to pick up the tab for a lot of general street and utility work going the conventional route but also much larger, complex and expensive projects.

      1. Yes, that has been quite successful in other cities (especially Boston if memory serves).

      2. Yeah certainly you can do that, but if at some point you want to further upgrade, you will never get a chance because your existing condition is too good to justify the FTA high-profile funding. You could either, do practical low-cost arterial rapid transit with funds completely sourced locally like NYC, or You gotta play the game of FTA grant application.

   5. I totally agree with this. I think even if the non-transit costs for utilities and other elements are paid for by the proper agency (which I find somewhat doubtful), this gives a poor public perception to BRT projects that are marketed as quick and cheap ways to improve bus routes. The public sees huge ballooning costs and timelines and wonders what happened to quick and cheap bus upgrade (see top comment)

      1. See also: Stride’s 85th St Station. It’s mostly freeway expansion but marketed as a bus stop..

      2. I agree. That is a good point. Some “BRT” projects really are expensive. With Stride 3 they plan on spending half a million making the road wider. If they end up “taking a lane” on Denny it will likely cost a few hundred thousand. Then we can point to the projects and say “See, you can have BRT for very little money if you do it right” (and yes, I’m calling the Metro 8 BRT, just because I can).

5. God I hope Rainier Ave can get the same treatment soon. They did a great job with the Madison Ave and 15th Ave repaving and seems Eastlake is getting similar treatment. Rainier could use a thick concrete roadway considering how many busses use it every day.

   1. Rapid Ride R line will very likely do that whenever it gets going

   2. Rainier Ave should have been the FIRST RapidRide. The length of the route combined with its heavy, all-day use make the project’s deferral reflect badly on SDOT. It keeps getting delayed each year.

      I think the service concept may be why it keeps getting deferred. There are still clarifications needed, like whether it will be an ETB or what the Prentice loop service will do.

      My own personal preference is for Metro to continue to run Route 7 as only the ETB bus runs that make the Prentice loop — with the Route 9 alignment becoming a new, battery electric RapidRide route. I wouldn’t be upset if the route had median stops with left-door buses like a RapidRide G either. Any I have an open mind about the route structure and stop locations as long as transfers aren’t ridiculous and unsafe..

      Generally, SE Seattle’s bus routes haven’t been systemically restructured for a decade. Maybe Metro should initiate a restructuring first that assumes that a new RapidRide route will be part of it.

      Finally, SDOT should look at the Rainier Beach terminus at a signature aspect of the project. The station needs a layover facility that’s suitable as the terminus of a few Metro routes (easy direction reversing; driver comfort stations; safe and secure Link station access).

      1. Why would the 9 as a Rapid Ride not run ETB? It did previously, and the catenary is still there. I don’t think the Rainier Valley – Capitol Hill connection is worth prioritizing over the Rainier Valley – Downtown one. It would be nice to have better service on Broadway, but when I’ve ridden the 9 it’s been pretty barren (it’s got a bad schedule, but still). I think there needs to be some frequent route between the south end and Capitol Hill via Broadway exclusively, but my preference would be for that to be the 60, with service on 9th in First Hill backfilled some other way once the jog to Madison is removed.

         The 60 has the benefit of being a small change, while a RR 9 (while maintaining the 7) would require pretty substantial service hour increases. I’m not sure how much the 60 loses in its First Hill local detour, but straightening that out plus other priority treatments could be enough for it to be close to par on service hours with a RR treatment. Though the 36 corridor is preferred (rightfully so IMO) for RR, so maybe a moot point.

         I don’t really see much need for a SE Seattle restructure. The buses get tons of ridership, and most of them are pretty intuitive routes (well outside of the 50 I guess). What’s needed is minor changes to the streets to prioritize buses.

      2. Route 9 has trolley wires from when it was an all-day route from the U-District to Rose Street. The current unwired tail to Rainier Beach station is the segment that will be wired for RapidRide R, so there’s no reason for the 9 not to use it if it still exists then.

      3. I expect route 9 ridership will go up noticeably when Judkins Park Station opens 50 days from now, replacing the I-90 Freeway Station that closed several years ago.

      4. It is hard to see why the 9 even exists. It is basically an express overlay but with a slightly different destination (First Hill instead of downtown). Except the 7 really doesn’t need an express overlay any more. The 7 isn’t that crowded. It peaks out at about eight minute headways. This is way above when you start thinking about an overlay (call me when you are running buses every three minutes). Meanwhile, it performs far worse than than the 7. You would think it would have enough “might as well” and “this bus is exactly what I want” riders to at least be in the same ballpark. I’m sure it poaches some riders from the 7. I’m sure there are riders who don’t want to transfer to get from Rainier Valley to First Hill. Yet despite that, the 9 underperforms in every metric while the 7 overperforms. The 7 gets 35 riders per service hour during peak. The 9 gets 13. Off-peak the 7 gets 45 riders per service hour while the 9 gets 8. (All the data is here: https://seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/A.-King-County-Metro-Transit-2025-System-Evaluation.pdf).

         It provides extra service along Rainier and Broadway and yet it underforms other routes serving those corridors by a huge margin. It isn’t hard to see why. There is no attempt to coordinate the timing (of say, the streetcar and the 9). To be fair, as an express overlay, coordinating the timing on Rainier would be difficult; but that goes back to my other point — you don’t need an express overlay for Rainier. Just run the 7 more often.

         The best thing you can say about the 9 is that it least it doesn’t run very often so it isn’t costing Metro much money. But you could say that about buses that have been eliminated and haven’t come back. My guess is the 15 (another express overlay) would perform much better than the 9 but instead we continue to run the 9 for whatever reason.

      5. The 9’s metrics suffer because it’s a peak hour, one directional route: 6 northbound trips in the mornings and 5 southbound trips in the evenings. It also suffers from horrible reliability in the PM (from my experiences). Today, it was right on time and it got pretty full with a lot of on-offs between Capitol Hill Station and Judkins Park Station. Other days it will be very late or no-show and people take the 60, FHSC or Link instead.

         Yes, the 9 is mostly an overlay of other routes and it could be called redundant, but there is a core of riders that find it useful.

      6. “the 7 really doesn’t need an express overlay any more. The 7 isn’t that crowded. It peaks out at about eight minute headways.”

         You’re missing the primary reason people take expresses: they’re faster than the locals.

         “It is basically an express overlay but with a slightly different destination (First Hill instead of downtown)”

         It’s not “slightly different”: First Hill and the Broadway shopping district is a mile away from 3rd Avenue and the travel-time overhead of going through downtown on the 7 is 20+ minutes. It’s to make all that ton of medical and retail needs available to Rainier Valley residents. It’s the kind of normal downtown-adjacent grid route that would be highly popular in any city. It can’t fulfill that role now because of its very limited service.

         The one reason an express isn’t quite as necessary now is the transit lanes on the 7, which have presumably sped it up from the atrocious 45-minute travel time between Rainier Beach and downtown in midafternoon congestion. I’ve occasionally tried to take the 7 northbound from the Columbia City area instead of Link but always got frustrated at the stop-and-go-crawling and travel time, but that was before the street improvements, so I don’t know how much better it is now.

         “my preference would be for that to be the 60”

         Beacon-Broadway and Rainier-Broadway are not interchangeable. It’s a long steep walk from the 9 to the 60 or vice-versa. Both corridors need a route to the Broadway shopping area.

      7. “I don’t think the Rainier Valley – Capitol Hill connection is worth prioritizing over the Rainier Valley – Downtown one.”

         There would still be Routes 7 and 106 still going Downtown. It’s just that there would be lots fewer buses following Route 7. Then there is a 1 Line train through Downtown from Mt Baker. And the 2 Line trains that will run from Judkins Park through Downtown.

         Meanwhile the only direct bus from SE Seattle to First Hill and Capitol Hill is Route 9, which now operates so rarely that people have want to ride it so badly that they have to modify their entire day to ride it.

         The route would be a bus bridge during DSTT disruptions . There have been lots of those lately.

         The route would also offer a way to directly connect Capitol Hill and First Hill to the Eastside via a new Judkins Park station. That’s in addition to connecting riders from the 1 Line at Mt Baker including the Rainier Valley, SeaTac and South King.

         Early on, the Rainier RapidRide was looking at replacing Route 48 north of Mt Baker. Then Link opened, Route 48 ridership fell and the idea faded. So even Metro has been open to not going Downtown with the route.

         Making everyone in SE Seattle go Downtown to transfer to get to First Hill and Capitol Hill or to change to FHSC or Route 60 at 12th and Jackson is not a particularly pleasant experience.

         I see the best reason to not do it is that there is no idea if whether the enhanced service would attract enough riders to justify higher frequency. Other route frequencies would likely need to be adjusted to free up enough service hours to make this route frequent enough to be a RapidRide. That’s why I suggested a restructure — maybe if it’s only frequencies.

      8. Yes, serious arterials often need serious reconstruction. I recall that 1st Avenue South (in teens), 3rd Avenue (CBD in late 1980s with DSTT; Belltown with Move Seattle), Madison Street, and University Way NE (in aughts) have been addressed. Pavement management is a major infrastructure deficit in Seattle.

         Yes, RR and Link should have network restructures that complement them. Lines B, C, and D did; Line A was simultaneous with SeaTac Link. The E Line followed the Aurora Consolidation of 1999; the H Line followed the Delridge consolidation of 2004. IMO, the 2024 restructures around the G Line and Lynnwood Link were weak; STB has discussed them.

         Route 9 has been fading. In 2005, Route 7 was split to improve its reliability and Route 49 formed. Before the split, Route 9 was two-way between South Rose Street and the U District via First and Capitol Hills; Route 7 had variants; some trips extended to the U District and some trips stopped at East Aloha Street. The trips of the two routes between the U District and Broadway were well-spaced southbound but often bunched northbound. There was debate about the nature of Route 9; a diesel overlay was selected; it served South Henderson Street. The Prentice loop got less service. Route 7X was deleted with the initial Link segment in 2009. The Mt. Baker TC included ETB turnback overhead. Metro was short of ETB. Now they have plenty of ETB. The seven Seattle RR were suggested by the Murray-Kubly SDOT; Metro put them into Metro Connects; they were different than the Metro planner suggested routes; see Route 44; see routes 70-7 and 48. In 2016, SDOT promised to electrify Route 48 by 2017; of course that did not happen and still has not happened. The South Henderson Street overhead has been attempted three times; in the aughts, during the initial Link planning, ETB routes 14 and 36 were extended to Link, but Route 7 was not; SDOT wanted a bike facility through the space that Metro wanted layover for Route 7; in the teens, there was another attempt; and, the R line is a third slow attempt. It makes great sense for Rainier Avenue South riders to be directly connected with the Rainier Beach Link station. The riders do not care whether the bus is red, green, or purple, just get them to the station!

         The SE Seattle change in fall 2016 was top down; it was for ACRS to have Route 42 again; routes 9 was reduced; routes 106 radically changed (out of SODO and DSTT); Route 124 improved; Route 107 changed. Route 106 seems to duplicate routes 7, 14, and 36 too much; ridership fell and productivity fell further. For ACRS to have a direct connection, SODO lost a route. During Covid times, Route 9 was further reduced; it is now one-way and peak-only. Sad. In fall 2024, Route 49 was reduced and split from Route 7; since 2005, the evening trips of routes 7 and 49 had been through routed.

         Should Metro and SDOT continue with the Kubly R Line as Route 7 redux? The Kubly phasing failed. I think they should rethink the network as the corridor will have several Link stations: two in the U District, Capitol Hill, Judkins, Mt. Baker, and Rainier Beach. Link can carry the radial load. Other trips could be improved. The turnaround loops in downtown using Virginia and Stewart streets use up many minutes, hours, and operators. The layover or operator fallback spots should be along the way and not take as many minutes. RR implementation has been slowed even more than Link implementation. So, do not rely on the Kubly network; the world is different; reconsider routes 4, 7, 8, 9, 14, 48, and 106. Yesler Way could use better service; that is a hybrid pathway; the Lighthouse for the Blind could use better service; they are heroes; the 23rd Avenue South entrance to Judkins Link station is easier to use; could it be served by routes 4, 8, 48, and 106 or their successor routes. Could more powerful batteries allow ETB routes to travel in ESS longer without overhead? Could charging be added at terminals? Will Metro use operator fallback?

         Another RR thought: with improved fare collection, all routes can move like RR? Has the RR program grown too bloated and slow?

      9. Al S,

         Do both Rainier Valley and Beacon Hill need a direct bus to Broadway? I’d say maybe not with the existing constraints on service hours. Route 7 riders have the option to transfer to Link (Mount Baker, future Judkins Park) or Route 60 (12th/Jackson) to get to Capitol Hill. Sure, it’s not currently nice to transfer at 12th and Jackson, but that’s not a good reason to run a frequent version of the 9.

         The 9 is a relic of the 7/49 days. Rainier Beach to Capitol Hill is like 20 minutes faster via Link than it is via the 9. There’s a similar story for Beacon Hill, but I would say a Broadway/12th/15th bus is a more natural fit into a grid than a Broadway/Rainer one is, provided we only have enough money to invest good service into one of them.

         And almost all intra-Rainer trips are on the 7. There are very marginal time savings for the 9, almost all of which would be lost to longer waits even at rush hour. I concur with Ross that the 7 just isn’t that busy for an express overlay to make sense. Places that works reasonably well (Wilshire, Geary, and Mission come to mind) have service frequencies in the 2 to 4 minute range, and skipping stops is necessary to prevent bunching since there’s so much churn

      10. “Do both Rainier Valley and Beacon Hill need a direct bus to Broadway? I’d say maybe not with the existing constraints on service hours.”

          I’m talking ideally, not redistributing the current limited hours. The issue is whether there’s a substantial transit market from both Beacon to Broadway and Rainier Valley to Broadway that can’t be met by just one route. The 60 does nothing for people in Rainier Valley who want to go to Broadway; likewise the 9 doesn’t help people on Beacon Hill. It’s like why there are parallel routes in West Seattle on 15th, Delridge, 35th, and California, because it’s too steep to walk between them.

          So we either have two routes — making the 9 as frequent as the 60 — or we leave part of the transit market underserved, which wastes people’s time and is why transit has so little mode share in the US. Link can only substitute for trips from Link station to Link station. The only station on Broadway is Capitol Hill Station, and that doesn’t directly serve First Hill or the northern part of the Broadway shopping district. If it were a longer trip like from Kent to Broadway, you can expect people to do a 2- or 3-seat ride where the last seat is short, but for a distance like anywhere in Rainier Valley or Beacon Hill to anywhere on Broadway, the overhead of transferring or walking for a last mile becomes a significant percent of the total trip. A Beacon-Broadway route or Rainier-Broadway route is just the right distance for a 20-25 minute trip that most people say is nearing the ceiling for a good maximum travel time. So these local routes should be robust and busy even parallel to Link. And Link on MLK is not easily accessible from Rainier Avenue the further south you go.

          Given our current service-hour constraint and the precedent of the status-quo routes, there’s a debate over whether keeping/deleting/expanding route 9 outweighs the impacts of other changes or not. But the ideal case for a Rainier-Broadway route or its ridership potential doesn’t go away just because of that.

      11. The 9 isn’t really an express route; Metro just calls it that. It’s a limited-stop route because it stops every mile or so instead of having long nonstop segments. That makes it less useful than a true express, and raises the question of whether it’s really much different from the 7 at all. What the stop-skipping really does is neutralize the impact of high congestion. You see the same with the 15 and the D, where the 15’s travel time peak hours is comparable to the D off-peak.

          I’m not supporting the 9 because of its limited-stop nature, but because it goes to all of Broadway. I wouldn’t mind making it local. That would just restore the all-day 9 local we had years ago, which I think is a better pattern than what we have now. (The 9 local continued to the U-District, but that’s a complication that’s too much to think about for Rainier Valley’s biggest needs.)

      12. Broadway itself is a transit market with great potential, but it’s a big mess because the 60 detours to Harborview, the 49 got re-routed to terminate downtown (why not continue on Broadway and terminate in Pioneer Square?), and the streetcar ends service early and doesn’t share all its stops with the bus, and none of them (including the 43) coordinate headways at all times. In terms of trip pairs it’s like a hillier, shorter Rainier Ave, but we let it languish with very long nighttime/weekend headways (not a good fit for the Hill!) and patchy gaps in the stops in North Capitol Hill and First Hill.

      13. Theoretically I might replace the 7 with the 9 because it’s more of a north-south grid corridor and would really give Rainier Avenue the most access to Broadway. SDOT also had a concept of a 48-Rainier route replacing the 7 south of Mt Baker.

          But the 7 is unusual by having such extremely high ridership between south Rainier, north Rainier, Jackson Street, and downtown — with heavily overlapping trips all along it. It’s one of Metro’s best-performing routes. Splitting it at Mt Baker or Jackson Street would break many known trips and probably have negative unintended consequences beyond that. So I’d rather keep the 7 alone and work around it — and that’s what RapidRide R will do (except the lower-volume Prentice loop).

      14. I think the routing of the 7 works fairly well. Time wise, staying on the bus is typically better for riders, and the turn onto Jackson adds additional frequency where it’s needed the most (12th/Jackson through downtown)

          The 106 is the route that should really continue northward rather than duplicating Link

      15. I said this before that 7 is practically a RapidRide but with more stops since it has more transit priority treatment than half of the existing RapidRide routes.
          That’s almost the case for 44 as well.

   3. Have there been roadway improvements to help other modes near Judkins Park Station in the past couple years? Will they have to be redone if there is concrete repavement on these streets?

      1. There hasn’t been much on Rainier itself, but there have been some pedestrian crossing improvements where the I-90 ramps meet Rainier.

      2. It would be nice if Sound Transit could at least remove the construction fence blocking a good chunk of the Rainier Ave. sidewalk next to the Judkins Park Station entrance. The station already has a gate to keep people out until opening day, so the fence fulfills no security purpose, and simply acts as a tripping hazard to people walking on the sidewalk.

      3. The area has had modifications to make it safer for pedestrians. There are crosswalk humps at the ends of the freeway ramps. There is a new signal for a pedestrian crossing of Rainier at Grand and of 23rd at Grand. Massachusetts has crosswalk flashers at 25th now. These things may not be directly at the station, but the general area is gradually being modified to be more pedestrian friendly.

         The fencing next to the station entrances do seem outdated at this point. My suspicion is that they will be removed when ST beings to patrol the station with assigned security. Otherwise, homeless encampments would quickly materialize. The area used to be a magnet for encampments.

         I’m hoping that there will soon be more destinations near the station.

      4. There should be a bus from Beacon Hill that serves Judkins Park station. Maybe rerouting the 60 to jog over to Rainier Ave?

   4. Rainier is being improved, bit by bit. There has been some resurfacing but a lot of the work has been pedestrian oriented. https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/safety-first/vision-zero/projects/rainier-improvements, https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/transit-program/transit-plus-multimodal-corridor-program/route-7—transit-plus.

6. Can someone explain to me why link operators do not swap at a station instead of between SODO and Beacon Hill? I am guessing that they clock in and take breaks at the omf but I just don’t understand why operators cannot walk or be shuttled to SODO so riders don’t have to make an extra stop. On my commute yesterday I timed the change from the moment the train stop till the moment it started moving again and got exactly 1:30.

   1. It is not much more efficient to do the change at a stop, because passengers moving around also make it harder for the operators to move in and out. Plus the extra time for the new operator to sit down and get ready to drive is the same. You might save 15 seconds overall. But there is an argument to be made that operator changes should only happen at Lynnwood and Federal Way.

      We do this much better than competing systems anyway. When the Regional Connector opened in LA, passengers complained about the operator change at Union Station lasting as much as 5 minutes.

      1. The simple reasons why driver changes happen where they do is that driver time is an expense that Sound Transit has to pay for, while the time of the passengers on board is free.

      2. Switching operators would be faster (for the train and passengers) if the incoming operator boards at one station, makes their way to the cabin, then they switch out at the second station, then the outgoing operator makes their way to the nearest door, then alights at the third station.

         If the operators are using a Metro car, the outgoing driver would have to backtrack a couple stations.

         This becomes especially important if downtown transfers are time-consuming. The worse the transfer experience will be, the more important it will be to minimize the number of passengers having to transfer. As in, keep the tri-county spine, and have East Link through-route with Ballard Link.

      3. Are they usually changing drivers at the SODO stop? I don’t often sit in the front car (because the ideal doors for leaving the stations I use the most aren’t aren’t in the front car) but the few times I have when staff board/leave at the OMF stop, there wasn’t an operator change. I just assumed it was staff making their commutes to/from the OMF easier.

7. Is there any information about the coaches that are going to be operating the J-Line. Obviously, not 5-door trolleys; but will they be new builds or is Metro going to paint some existing trolleys red. Or will they just run diesels until 2033 because Metro can’t re-wire a 2-block gap in the overhead.

   1. All RapidRide projects acquire a new bus fleet. They will be trolleybuses I believe. If the 70 is dieselized now, it’s because the 520 project removed some wire and it will be reinstalled. If it’s not done by next year’s opening date, maybe Metro will finally start using the off-wire capability it paid for and has been studying for a decade. Or if not, it will use diesel buses for a few years.

      1. Route 70 was dieselized due to J line construction. The pathway was very disrupted. The Mondale projects impacted routes 43 and 48.

   2. The project page claims to be only rebranding existing fleet: https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/TransitProgram/RapidRide/Roosevelt/2023_0331jLine_FullRouteMap.pdf

      So I’m assuming 60ft trolleys in this livery teased a few years ago: https://i0.wp.com/kingcountymetro.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/KCM22001_Render_Xcelsior_Red_Needle.jpg?ssl=1

      On the project page the updates consistently suggest that they are installing catenary where needed

      1. “The project page claims to be only rebranding existing fleet”

         Maybe, but what does that really mean? Does Metro really have enough surplus red buses for an entire line? Will it reconfigure seating on regular buses to the fewer-seats-and-mostly-side-seats RapidRide norm? Will this be the first RapidRide line to have a regular seat configuration?

         It’s possible Metro bought enough red buses from a previous order to meet the J’s needs, since it recently bought buses for the G and H and is doing so for the I.

   3. I’ve been in San Francisco the past three days and noticed how many of the ETB routes regularly have an ETB roll by with the poles down, even in territory where the previous bus was running rmenerguzed. The batteries seem a great “flexibility” toool.

      1. MUNI’s ETB routes do run significant sections on battery power – during COVID and maybe today some sections were for “equity” (I guess if you sleep on the 3rd lfoor the poles sliding by on wires are noisy? Spark too much? But they also extended routes like the 30 Stockton, going 1 mile off wire along the north shore of the Presidio (within easy walking distance of the Main Post visitor center, Tunnel Tops Park, and the Golden Gate Bridge/Fort Point). The other reason is construction along or crossing the route (we passed some sewer and water bonds). They just run the same buses as usual. Stop about 20 seconds to lower or raise the poles (plastic W-shaped troughs help align the poles on re-wiring. Both happen mid-block on a quiet street between stops, because bus stops are offset from the wires).

8. Who else thinks that the Redmond TC can be sold to the city for community space? As I feel like it’s redundant with the new Downtown Redmond Station, all buses can be sent to the light rail station, and the parking garage can be converted into a city-run paid parking garage. The Bear Creek P&R can also be shut down due to poor development and redundancy with Marymoor Village. All buses that serve the Bear Creek P&R can be sent to the overbuilt Marymoor Village Station (which lacks buses, and as well has a large parking garage which commuters should take advantage of with Bear Creek P&R closed).

   1. MVS is likely built up anticipating parking needs of the full east link for Sammamish suburban riders.

      Bear Creak P&R is puzzling with the current routes. It’s only unique purpose seems to be connecting Kirkland to Sammamish riders with the 250-269 combo.

      545 riders can connect with the 269 at the immediate next stop to Seattle (or just drive to MVS P&R and take the Link).

      Riders heading to Bellevue can take the 269 to MVS and Link from there.

      Downtown Redmond station area may not have enough spaces to halt all buses or have multiple buses exit the are at the same time. It’s a very tight space with tight turning radii enough to create cascading traffic jams in the area.

   2. I’d forgotten about Redmond Transit Center. I’d wondered that when the Link station opened, whether the transit center would be abandoned. At the time the routes were modified to simply serve both.

      How is Redmond TC being used now? How many people are using it? It is closer to City Hall and the library and the trails next to them than the Link station is.

      1. It’s being used as it did, but I just don’t see many people using it. I also see less buses in the layover zone now. So I would just say to shut it down and sell it to the city.

      2. The Redmond TC is the terminal for ST Route 542. Their 2026 SIP is so conservative that it is not be extended to the downtown Redmond Link station. ST bus routes are not meeting ST Link.

9. Yes, it is odd for a transit project to be celebrating utility work. Very odd indeed! Architects, engineers, and developers have been astonished at this oddity for some time. Yet this oddity is normalized in the Seattle Public Utilities area. SPU sticks others with the cost of upgrading their pipes and valves. Always. Every time. SPU has no budget to upgrade their own pipes and that is wrong and conflicts with state law, Seattle growth, and common sense. SPU requires homeowners, developers, private contractors, and other city departments, mainly the Seattle Department of Transportation, as well as Sound Transit, and King County, to provide their upgrades for their pipes and valves.

   This oddity is not something to celebrate. It is something that we should demand accountability, and ask SPU why they’re failing to do their job? SPU fails to provide normal upgrades of their pipes and valving systems, even pipes over 100 years old, and they are sticking everybody else for the cost. Don’t read this project as a one-time cost, look at it as pervasive, the way SPU conducts business every single time. Are you a resident who wants to put in a tiny house or ADU? Well you need to spend a quarter of a million dollars putting in an 8-in line and valving in the street because SPU failed to upgrade its system for city council zoning. Want to put in a transit line, better fork over the money to upgrade the brittle system SPU left in place far after it’s design life.

   SPU is a failed department, it is not a department that can lead Seattle into the future. Transit, housing development, and others suffer with massive portions of their budgets siphoned off to do the work that SPU should be doing. We should not be celebrating SDOT doing SPU work, we should ask why SPU is not carrying its own weight? We should ask for heads to roll at the top of SPU.

10. Sound Transit published GTFS for 2 line. OneBusAway shows 2 line cross lake schedules now.

    Example travel times:

    ID to South Bellevue: 18m
    ID to Bellevue Downtown: 22m
    Capitol Hill to Bellevue Downtown: 30m
    Westlake to Redmond Tech: 40m

    Seattle to Bellevue is about 3min slower than ST2 estimates from 2015, Bellevue to Redmond about 2min slower. (https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Partners/erp/background/ST_ERP_ST2LinkTravelTimes_02july2015.pdf)

    Example schedule:
    Lynnwood City Center — 7:32 AM
    Mountlake Terrace — 7:36 AM
    Shoreline North / 185th — 7:39 AM
    Shoreline South / 148th — 7:42 AM
    Northgate — 7:47 AM
    Roosevelt — 7:51 AM
    U District — 7:53 AM
    Univ of Washington — 7:56 AM
    Capitol Hill — 8:00 AM
    Westlake — 8:03 AM
    Symphony — 8:05 AM
    Pioneer Square — 8:06 AM
    Int’l Dist / Chinatown — 8:08 AM
    Judkins Park — 8:13 AM
    Mercer Island — 8:18 AM
    South Bellevue — 8:23 AM
    East Main — 8:27 AM
    Bellevue Downtown — 8:30 AM
    Wilburton — 8:32 AM
    Spring District — 8:34 AM
    BelRed — 8:36 AM
    Overlake Village — 8:40 AM
    Redmond Technology — 8:42 AM
    Marymoor Village — 8:46 AM
    Downtown Redmond — 8:49 AM

    1. ST said Bellevue to Mountlake Terrace would take 56 minutes, but here it says 54 minutes. Also thanks for the info. I’ll see if Google Maps has this info yet.

    2. Thanks for finding the information.

       According to those times, the 2-Line will reliably connect Judkins Park with Capitol Hill in 10 minutes versus the 7/106 to the 60/FHSC or the unreliable 25-30 minute trip the 9 requires at peak hours. Seems like a game changer for lots of riders.

       1. oops, 13 minutes–but still a game changer

       2. Yeah, I hate the 60. Probably my least favorite route that does a terrible job linking so many Seattle neighborhoods and worst of all… It’s very long, and Broadway is the worst at being the 60’s terminal.

       3. Route 60 seems intentionally designed for short-distance trips, like getting First Hill residents or Beacon Hill residents to nearby destinations or transfer points. It’s the failure of having no other good option to get to places further away that keeps some people sitting on Route 60 for longer distances.

          The very creation of Link and RapidRide (and express buses) is based on providing useful transit for longer-distance travel (rather than just short distance travel).

          Note too the Route 60 doesn’t serve Judkins Park (or the Rainier Valley). So a trip on 60/FHSC isn’t particularly comparable. A FHSC/7 path or a FHSC/106 path would be.

       4. The very creation of Link and RapidRide (and express buses) is based on providing useful transit for longer-distance travel (rather than just short distance travel).

          Express buses are designed for longer distance travel. But metros (like Link) and “BRT” variants (like RapidRide) are often designed for short travel. Think RapidRide G or Capitol Hill to the UW (on Link). First Hill to the UW would be another one if they didn’t skip the station.

          Anyway, the 60 is a very productive route. It is a hybrid route of sorts. It provides the very important connection between Beacon Hill and First Hill. This is an urban connection and could be metro given the demand along the corridor (if we had more money). But the route also serves more distant places like Westwood Village, South Park and Georgetown. It gives those riders a connection to Beacon Hill, First Hill and other locations if they transfer.

          Back to the original point, I think if the folks headed to the Capitol Hill Station on the 7 are already transferring to Link. Depending on traffic they might transfer at CID or Mount Baker. Now they will transfer at Judkins Park. For a trip to CID (or Capitol Hill), Judkins Park saves about five minutes in Link travel time. Of course you will be spending some of that time on the bus instead. I think the transfer to Link at Judkins Park may save you some time as well. I think you will save a few minutes, but it is hard to tell how much. Oh, and the CID transfer will soon involve trains running twice as often. This will be especially attractive at night (when Link isn’t running that often and traffic is lighter).

          If you are on the 106, my guess is you transfer at one of the surface stations (Rainier Beach, Othello or Columbia City).

    3. Interesting… These timetables are not yet showing on the ST web site as of a minute ago. Thanks for finding this! I’ve been eager to see this.

       A few specific notes:

       I would have thought that a Judkins Park would be 3-4 minutes to CID and 6-7 minutes to Mercer Island. 5 minutes in each direction is not what I would have expected (although 10 total minutes between Mercer Island and CID seems very reasonable).

       The time tradeoff between UW and Downtown Bellevue between buses and Link will be interesting. While the bus will be faster for a direct trip, the train will not only be more frequent but if a rider is already on a train, the added time and effort to transfer to a bus may not feel “worth it” to a rider.

       I’m looking forward intellectually to see how ridership demand changes with the opening. (The Federal Way extension data suggests that it may take a few months to manifest.) Many have theorized for years how demand will change. We will soon have real-world data by waiting only a few months!

       1. I would have thought that a Judkins Park would be 3-4 minutes to CID and 6-7 minutes to Mercer Island. 5 minutes in each direction is not what I would have expected

          Yeah, I think it is the turns. Going east the train just takes a straight shot for most of the way. Going west it has to curve around. It is also possible they account for bunching in this way. In other words, they add extra cushion before arriving at CID in case the other train is running late. Who knows?

       2. The time tradeoff between UW and Downtown Bellevue between buses and Link will be interesting. .. if a rider is already on a train …

          My guess is if a rider is already on the train, they stay on the train. So if someone from say, Spring District takes the train to Downtown Bellevue (but they are heading to the UW) they will stay on the train. The opposite is true as well. If you are on a bus that goes to the UW, you stay on the bus (instead of transferring to Link). That is kind of a moot point since the 270 will end at the station (for now). But someone a few blocks north won’t bother to backtrack — they will just take the 270. My guess is those who transfer (or are close to the station) will take whatever shows up first. The schedule for the 270 is terrible (way worse than it should be) which will send riders to Link.

          We will soon have real-world data by waiting only a few months!

          In recent years, ST has released a very limited amount of data. They used to show how many people were using each stop (by direction). This was true of Link as well as the express buses. Now you have to ask for the data and do some interpolating. The one good thing about the East Link Starter Line is that we now know how much demand there is just within the East Side. This was always the strongest argument for East Link. Ridership has really picked up since May, with around 9,000 riders per month. Obviously this wouldn’t justify the route if it ended there, but this will be on top of the ridership that crosses the lake. (It also vindicates those who pushed for the starter line.) It would have been difficult to get this number if it wasn’t for the order in which it was built. (So at least we got something out of the delay — more data!)

       3. The bus will always be faster. Why waste time taking a slow 30+ min ride to UW when the bus will only take 15-20 mins? Yes there is a transfer but you can definitely time it.

       4. Not to mention the bus drops you off right near your class while Link requires extra walking or a bus transfer once you reach your UW station.

       5. There is a strong preference to avoid transfers. Even when the alternative will save you time, a lot of people just prefer sticking it out with the bus/train they are on.

          There is also a strong preference to just take the first available vehicle. Quite often people will take a “local” (a bus that makes a bunch of stops) instead of an “express” (that skips stops) just because the “local” came first. In this case, though, the dynamics are different. The train serves a different stop (separated by a crosswalk) and thus you have to be committed to one or the other. The bus also serves the main transfer point (the transit center) while the train is across the street. While the train is more frequent, it isn’t that frequent. Nor is the bus that infrequent. Imagine making a transfer at the transit center. You get off the other bus and look for the 270. You realize it just left and you’ll have to wait almost fifteen minutes for the next bus. You can walk to where the train is, but that might require a ten minute wait. My guess is there will be people (in that situation) that try the train but over time they realize that doing so doesn’t save them any time (even when the train shows up right way). At least this is true for weekdays. The expected frequency of the 270 on weekends is terrible and a lot of riders will use Link because of that.

          As Al mentioned, it will take away before riding patterns settle. I expect an initial preference for Link simply because it is new. People will want to experience riding the train over the bridge. But as the novelty wears off, I think there will be two patterns. Most of the people who board Link east of Downtown Bellevue Station will stay on the train and ride it all the way around. Most everyone else will take the bus (unless it is the weekend or late at night).

       6. “ The bus will always be faster. Why waste time taking a slow 30+ min ride to UW when the bus will only take 15-20 mins? Yes there is a transfer but you can definitely time it.”

          That’s true for a time-obsessive and physically fit transit rider. But there are plenty of reasons to just “stay on the bus or train”. Whether it’s struggling with stairs to having a predictable arrival time to finding the effort wasteful because it means trudging to a different location than waiting for another transit vehicle (almost to completely erasing a time advantage) to chatting with an acquaintance to finding that a particular vehicle makes the queasy to fear of having to be forced to stand to whatever, people have many different reasons why they pick a particular mode beyond theoretical travel time.

          And having choices is great insurance! A regular rider knows that there are occasional times when there’s a service disruption and an alternative path is needed.

          I’ve lived the time optimization game — for years! I used to pull out my phone while riding BART to review bus arrival times. I could pick from two routes that went to two different stations to get to and from my home. The wrench was that buses were less time-reliable than BART trains were because they share traffic and don’t know the time they’ll lose in travel by picking up and dropping off passengers. For me, I usually chose the bus that had a 15 rather than a 12 minute headway and another 3 minutes on BART — but reached my home stop in 8 minutes rather than 15 by default. That less frequent bus also was never full so I never had to stand, unlike the other path option where I might be forced to stand. The only reason that wouldn’t would be if I stayed late at work and frequencies plummeted as the 15 minute route fell to 20. If an escalator was broken and not getting fixed, I would use the other path.

          Most of my neighbors would pick one of the two paths home and rarely deviate.

       7. If people have a choice between waiting/walking at the beginning of their trip vs at the end of their trip, they’ll usually put it at the end. I often take a frequent local routes over an infrequent express route if the latter isn’t coming immediately. A true frequent/reliable express is best, but a local coming now can be more tolerable than an infrequent/unreliable express. Especially if the unreliable express doesn’t come before the next local does, in which case you’ve wasted the time between the first and second local. (I used to experience that with the 14 to Summit vs the 43: the 14 was scheduled two minutes later, but it was often so late that the next 43 would come before it did. So it was either take the 43 now or gamble that the 14 would come before the next 43.)

          So somebody at Bellevue Transit Center, if they miss the 270, yes many people would take Link. Standing at the bus stop for 15 minutes is worse than walking to the Link platform and waiting 8-10 minutes. If you have to walk more at the end, well, that’s at the end. And I don’t believe this “the 271 (270) takes only 15-20 minutes” because in my experience it takes 30 minutes, so the travel time isn’t much less than Link anyway.

    4. That is embarrassingly slow. Even driving in traffic might as well be faster across the I-90 bridge.

       1. 18 mins from CID to South Bellevue is shockingly long for a 10 mile segment that has a single station, and freeway running.

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