The full build out of Sound Transit 2 coming close after the December 6 opening of Federal Way Link Extension and the upcoming March 2026 full East Link. This article will go over the a map of transit times and have a brief recap of what ST2 will accomplish.
Above is the Sound Transit Future Extensions Map (Supposed 2024) annotated with transit times using the Chinatown as the 0 minute starting point. Heading north one can reach Northgate in 21 minutes and Lynnwood City Center in 35 minutes. Traveling east one can reach Bellevue Downtown in 22 minutes and Downtown Redmond in 41 minutes. Traveling south one can reach SeaTac in 33 minutes and Federal Way Downtown station in 50 minutes.
Note that trains will branch out at International District with half the trains heading south to Seatac and Federal Way and the other half heading east to Bellevue and Redmond. The travel time can also differ slightly between northbound versus southbound as well as peak vs non-peak times.
Color coded green <=20 min; yellow <= 40 min; orange <= 60 min; red > 60 min
Here is the time table with the top row with more start stations namely: Lynnwood, UW, International District, Columbia City, SeaTac, Federal Way, Bellevue Downtown, and Downtown Redmond. stations. The left column shows the end destination. Note that start and end destinations from the Federal Way segment to the East Link segment or vice versa need to transfer at the International District station.
Short Recap and comparison to other Transit Systems
We covered some of 1980s~2000s past plans in a previous article. Notably the region skipped heavy rail (SF BART, DC WMATA) with cut-and-cover (aka Forward Thrust) because such cut-and-cover construction (NYC Subway) was deemed too difficult. Instead, the region opted to first build regional express HOV bus system and a downtown bus tunnel. Then a center-running avenue light rail on MLK Way (Phoenix Valley Metro, Houston Light Rail style) was opted to connect the Rainier Valley over a predominantly freeway-running light rail (Dallas DART, Denver RTD style) along I-5. However, that preference for avenue-running shifted in Tukwila; due to insufficient funds for a route through Southcenter Mall and the city’s rejection of International Boulevard, Sound Transit was forced back to the I-5 corridor.
Capitol Hill and UW were connected using deep bore tunnel machines and cut-and-cover stations, quite expensive but the cost was somewhat acceptable given the density. Unfortunately First Hill was skipped due to the sharp curve from the convention center.
Bellevue rejected the at-grade running alignment on Bellevue Way for a trenched 112th avenue alignment. Furthermore, both Federal Way Link and Lynnwood Link had their elevated alignments along Pacific Highway South and Aurora Avenue rejected in favor I-5 freeway-running alignments. Downtown Redmond Station was converted from an at-grade station to an elevated while Marymoor Village station and parts of Bel-Red section were changed to be at-grade instead.
Conclusion
With the full completion of the ST2 extensions, frequent rail service will span the Puget Sound region, seamlessly connecting riders from Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, and Shoreline in the north; to Tukwila, Des Moines, and Federal Way in the south; and from Bellevue and Redmond in the east; all through the core of Seattle.
While there have been a few setbacks and the project has taken longer than anticipated, the system is finally providing a viable alternative to car travel. Ideally this momentum continues with the planned extensions to Ballard, Tacoma, Everett, Kirkland, and Issaquah.
Typo on the map; the destination sign on the end of East Link should read “Downtown Redmond” not “Westlake.”
I like the travel time chart. I have a question about the travel time chart though: did you assume additional time for changing levels twice and then waiting for a second train in the CID?
At first glance, it doesn’t seem to be included. I’m just checking.
I get that it’s supposed to not include the initial waiting for a train and that’s fine, but the transferring time is unavoidable as part of a trip so I think it should be included.
Related to that, it looks like there is a minute added to allow switching delays at CID. I’ve timed many trips I’ve made and the 3 minutes to Stadium (and 5 to Judkins Park) seem too long.
hi for now I didn’t include the time for transferring. I might make one in the future that includes the transfer time and wait time but I’ll probably do that a month or two after east link fully opens
> it looks like there is a minute added to allow switching delays at CID. I’ve timed many trips I’ve made and the 3 minutes to Stadium (and 5 to Judkins Park) seem too long.
I used the predicted time table https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/routes-schedules/2-line?at=1775631600000&direction=0&start_stop=null&view=table&route_tab=schedule&stops_0=40_N23%2C40_E31&stops_1=40_E31%2C40_N23 from sound transit.
as you noted there can be a bit of an “off by one minute” throughout the schedule. it kinda happens when one is just traveling one or two stations. (I assume its like rounding 145 seconds travel time either up or down to 2 or 3 minutes depending on what is closer) especially compared to what google maps says, i deferred to the sound transit time table for now.
Transfer time can never be accurate because people walk at different speeds, some take the escalator or elevator or stairs, crowded trains can take longer to get out of, and if you just miss the next train it adds 4-10 minutes to the trip.
Wesley centered the chart at CID where the transfers would occur, so you can simply take the times of the two segments and add whatever you think is right for your transfer.
Transfer overhead at CID is not optimized but it’s only going up one short level, so equivalent to going to a mezzanine. If you can use the stairs it’s not a barrier. And the elevators were replaced in the past few months with new ones so they’re faster than the slow-as-molasses elevators it used to have or the other DSTT stations still have.
I think transfer times should be optimized for those with maximum mobility.
Suppose you give a 2-3 minute window to transfer. Most people can make that. For those who are slower / miss it, they just have to wait 4 minutes for the next train. Buses should be made with this in mind.
For low frequency buses, they should adjust timing in case the matching train is late so people don’t get stranded for an hour – or take an earlier train out of paranoia. The 4-5 minute frequencies make this far better than 8-10 though, so this isn’t that big of an issue anymore.
I also think SODO is irrelevant now, and more buses should skip it. The 2 Line doesn’t even make it down to SODO, so the busway is just a waste of time. Or at least they should add TSP…its a literal busway and buses still get stuck at the lights and can’t operate at full speed.
If the time to transfer is not added, I’d suggest some sort of footnote (with an asterisk referencing the particular station pairs) noting that a user would experience additional travel time making the trip pair.
The transfer effort is not a negligible consideration. Many people can still use stairs but have difficulty doing so. Arthritis severity changes mobility for anyone over time. That difficulty also includes situational conditions — like people carrying luggage to SeaTac or shopping bags, or people wearing shoes that make stair use more difficult. It’s a much bigger universe than just people with wheelchairs or walkers. And it’s not a simple yes/no categorization.
ST failed to revisit the original Metro station design decision to not have down escalators at CID with ST2. And transfer effort is a huge topic with DSTT2 planning. Once 2 Line opens across the lake, I’m expecting the issue to reemerge as users become physically aware of it.
South King: or the SODO station should become more important; suppose the minimum operating segment (MOS) for the West Seattle line was a turnback variant from/to the South Forest Street yard with the first/last station was SODO at South Lander Street. Most non RR West Seattle bus routes could meet Link at SODO. The South Lander Street overcrossing was opened in 2020.
@ Wesley:
I understand that the source is ST, not you. My comment about the extra minute is just an observation. There may actually be extra time needed.
If I remember correctly, ST slightly adjusted published travel times for U Link shortly after opening. Maybe that will happen here.
And I appreciate that you made the chart! Thanks!
I am looking forward to taking the 2 Line as the P&R in Bel-Red is about a 20 min walk from my house and Judkins Park is right next to where I work. Co-workers to the north a also eagerly awaiting the opening of the 2 Line so they can bypass the I-5 construction mess. Workers living south though don’t plan to use it because of the transfer to/from the 1 Line. It really sucks when the transfer adds 15 minutes just to get on the 2 Line for a <5 minute jaunt to Judkins Park. The transfer also sucks for people coming from the airport with lots of baggage and/or kiddos.
IDK where your coworkers live but they should be able to train to Mt Baker station and transfer to the 7/9/48/106 and get to the same area as Judkins park.
Thanks Tyler, I figured a savvy transit rider would have the best solution. But none of them seem good. Taking a bus up Rainier is slow and has other issues for a company that employs a lot of female engineers. I think some of these route are “up the hill” on 23th?
Bernie, do you really consider a bus for 20min along Rainier Ave significantly more dangerous to a solo traveler than light rail?
Also, since Rainier Ave got bus lanes the 7 is much faster.
Link seems about 50% slower than driving at zero congestion conditions. The benefit will come during peak hours only. That will not discourage driving into the city, and traffic congestion will remain worse. Most ridership will likely come from riders along the line, and people who want to go north of downtown and skip the I-5/I-405 bottleneck.
Congestion between downtown Seattle and Lynnwood is from 1pm to 7pm, so half the day.
I-90 often has congestion in the afternoon including on weekends. When I went to Bellevue Saturday, westbound was bogged down from Seattle to the Eastgate P&R. Luckily I was going eastbound and it cleared up before I went back home, but I have been caught in on the 550 several times, between Mercer Island and Seattle, on Bellevue Way going southbound toward the entrance, and at the westbound I-90 to Bellevue Way exit ramp.
I’m very glad Link is/will be immune to it. It has helped me immensely going to/from Northgate or Lynnwood, and will help me going to/from Bellevue.
I truly don’t understand why most of the line is on freeway alignment but still has a cap of 55mph. The train should be at least as fast as traffic on the freeway.
FWIW I was along side a westbound train on the floating bridge last week and it was going 60mph which was only slightly less than traffic. Also, today from the lunchroom window I saw a train “parked” just west of Judkins Park. I thought maybe it was waiting for a slot to interline on the 1 Line. But then another train went by westbound. I hope they are not going make east bound passengers wait just prior to the station for some reason.
Maybe I’ll try to emailing sound transit and check what they say. As far as I know most of these light rail vehicles should be rated for up to 70mph as they are all the Siemens ones. Usually the limitation has more to do with the track alignment but the freeway ones are all pretty straight as you noted
Like Bernie, I have been on our freeways at full speeds next to Link tracks recently, and witnessed trains moving seemingly faster than 55 mph. It may just be my perception, but I think some maximum Link speeds are now approaching 60 mph.
“ Also, today from the lunchroom window I saw a train “parked” just west of Judkins Park.”
I’ve seen ST leaving Link trains on sidings. (I believe that the dispatchers are technically employed by Metro, by the way. I met one casually a few weeks ago.) Maybe it’s a spare train. Maybe it’s being held before returning to an OMF when there’s a chance to do so. Maybe it’s a spare train idled from a schedule change that will be running again in a few hours. No matter why, I’m not concerned when I see one.
The 55 mph design spec is just what ST decided to do. It never gave a reason. If trains are faster than that on I-90, maybe ST quietly upgraded the spec without telling us, or it’s the natural result of a long, straight, flat segment that doesn’t have the factors that force trains to go slower.
Trains have a capped ATP speed of 55 mph. You can technically redline operate at 57 mph but it’s against policy.
@Mike A
hi thanks for the clarification that sound transit is limiting the speed. though still these are siemens light rail vehicles so they should be able to go around 70 mph or at least 65 mph. i doubt siemens created a worse version for sound transit.
though i checked the Kinkisharyo older ones i don’t think they safely go at 70mph for extended periods of time. maybe we’d need to wait until the series 1 ones are phased out.
i tried to calculate what would be the time savings. i think it would 6 minutes max time savings since around half freeway section so 86 minutes from lynnwood to federal way maybe drops down to 80 minutes. maybe this is a good article idea in the future,
RE: “Parked” trains. This morning a little before 7AM I saw a Link train eastbound around the East Channel Bridge. When I got out to the bridge deck there was a stopped/parked train which I assume must have been on the westbound tracks. I assume there was a driver but of course no riders. Weird to be parked on the bridge. Testing different failure modes? I’ve wondered how they would evac riders if a train dies on the bridge; keeping in mind not all passengers are going to be able bodied and able hike from mid span.
RE: train “parked” just west of Judkins Park; It’s still there more than 24 hours later (wasn’t in the office Monday). Possible it’s different trains always parked in the same spot but I doubt it.
Link seems about 50% slower than driving at zero congestion conditions.
Not for shorter trips. It takes 8 minutes to get from Capitol Hill Station to Roosevelt Station. At 2:00 am, it takes 12 minutes to get between the stations. In other words, it is always faster to take the train.
This is a typical, run-of-the-mill subway trip. It is why you build subway lines. Yeah, sure, a lot of people (from both Capitol Hill and Roosevelt) take the train downtown. Downtown is the “main” destination. But a subway line thrives on trips like this. It the combination of trips — the so called “network effect” — that justifies the huge expense of a subway line. Without that there is no reason to actually build the rail line. You might as well run express buses into a busway like Brisbane (https://humantransit.org/2009/11/brisbane-bus-rapid-transit-soars.html).
But what our suburbs? Here is where you start to lose the advantage of a our subway system. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that you simply don’t have as many attractive trip pairs. A lot of people go between Roosevelt and Capitol Hill. Very few people go between 148th Station and Lynnwood Station. There is no network effect. You also lose the advantage of speed. It takes about as long to drive between those two stations as it does to drive, much of the day (including as I’m writing this). This is disadvantage of following the path of the freeway. This actually came up in a research paper (https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/economics-of-urban-light-rail-CH.pdf). Check out the “common problems” section.
Basically when it comes to establishing a speed advantage you want lots of short trips and you want to be away from the freeway. You also want to serve more urban areas, as this creates more a “network effect” and you get a lot more riders. Thus you want to build your system with lots of stops (and lines) in the city.
Serving the suburbs becomes secondary. It isn’t necessary for the rail lines to extend to the suburbs although ideally suburban riders have both good access to the network as well as express service to downtown. Thus you have express buses (or commuter trains) to downtown and a connection to the outskirts of the network. The gives those riders the best of both worlds. By connecting to the metro network they can get anywhere in the city, just like a local. By running express to downtown they can get to work quickly.
We actually have that. I would say it is the best part of our system. We serve the suburbs extremely well. The terminal stations (Lynnwood and Federal Way) have HOV connections both directions. This means that buses can serve them and keep going. Riders can ride an express bus to downtown or they can transfer to get to other destinations in the city.
In contrast, we simply don’t have enough stops in the city. We don’t serve First Hill, Fremont, Ballard or Queen Anne. This brings up another major weakness in our system. It is unrealistic to expect a city like Seattle to build a first-class subway system, covering most of the city. It makes more sense to build a system that is well integrated with the bus system. Someone trying to get to the Central Area, for example, should be able to get off the train and catch a bus going only a short distance.
Unfortunately, ST3 largely ignores these fundamentals. When it comes to the suburbs, we should be done. There is very little to be gained by going further into the suburbs. Any investment in rail should happen in the city. Even riders from Snohomish County would benefit more from a stop in First Hill — or a Ballard to UW line — than they would an Ash Way or Everett extension. There just isn’t the network effect within Snohomish County to justify that kind of cost (and Seattle is too far away). But even with the Seattle work they failed to consider the basics. While I would never call West Seattle “suburban” the travel pattern is remarkably so. There is a freeway connecting the neighborhoods with downtown Seattle and remarkably little between there. It is why there are no plans for any stations between Delridge and SoDo Station, despite the fact that it is almost three miles between them. The train is basically operating like an express bus — making very few stops. This explains the extremely high cost and very low number of new stations (only three). From a network standpoint it adds very little. A lot of the transfers will be reluctant ones (i. e. people who wished the bus would just keep going downtown, like it does now). In contrast a Ballard-UW line would enhance the network greatly, with a large number of much faster transfers (e. g. Aurora to the UW).
So yeah, Sound Transit ignored a lot of the basics although they did do an excellent job with the terminal stations (that serve the suburbs). While it isn’t very good in the city it could have been worse. At one point they were considering following the freeway between downtown and the UW. At least we have Capitol Hill Station (along with several other urban stations).
No one travels from platform to platform.
It may take 8 minutes on the train, but the time it takes to get in and out of a station — and the time it takes to wait for a train — will always be part of the journey.
ST PR often ignores the journey part inside a station when presenting travel times. That’s even at the core of the DSTT2 discussions.
The more powerful aspect to me that the Link train travel time is reliable than whether it saves a few minutes. So my comment is just a casual note about its relative attractiveness.
No one teleports from the parking lot to their destination, either, but folks don’t account for that when discussing drive time.
“No one teleports from the parking lot to their destination, either, but folks don’t account for that when discussing drive time.”
That seems irrelevant. It takes a similar time to get from a station exit to a destination too. I’m just referring to actual in-station time here.
Sound Transit is always, and has always, been envisioned as a regional rail system. Intra-Seattle lines will always be a political fight in this context, and I think it makes most sense to try to make the most of the regional nature of the system rather than attempting to make Link something it’s not (a metro).
There is a general issue (somewhat addressed in the article about economics you linked) with US transit planning where all rail transit is imagined as light rail. I mean this even bled into the IBX in NYC for gods sake. Light rail was never a smart choice for a line between Tacoma and Everett, but a regional rail system could have worked. Trading fewer stops in Seattle for faster speeds and a greater span of service may not benefit the every day trip in Seattle as much as a metro would, but there are still benefits. For my occasional trips into the suburbs, I’m thankful for light rail going to both Lynnwood and Federal Way.
I would argue that Link’s biggest flaw isn’t that it’s not the NYC Subway, it’s that it isn’t the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn. Yes, the former is better by a metric like ridership, but the latter is more in line with how ST is politically constructed. And I think that’s it’s best to treat that like inherent constraint to deal with, since it seems extremely unlikely for any kind of reform or change to how the agency is politically constructed.
I would probably get more use out of a city-oriented metro, but who’s going to pay for that? ST relies heavily on suburban funding, and sees heavy suburban influence as a result. Why would anyone in Pierce County pay for a line from UW to Ballard?
> I would argue that Link’s biggest flaw isn’t that it’s not the NYC Subway, it’s that it isn’t the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn. Yes, the former is better by a metric like ridership, but the latter is more in line with how ST is politically constructed.
i mean for such a regional rail it was attempted with sounder. also if we were to really build such a focused rail it would skip tens of stops.
> Light rail was never a smart choice for a line between Tacoma and Everett, but a regional rail system could have worked.
ehhh i think it was an alright compromise. people always want some fast train that goes from tacoma and everett to seattle but then if it actually skipped stadium, uw etc… they’d then complain why doesn’t it have enough stops.
plus the texan light rails which do what you’re proposing have low ridership for their stations.
“Sound Transit is always, and has always, been envisioned as a regional rail system. Intra-Seattle lines will always be a political fight in this context”
What does regional mean? It means connecting regional growth centers to each other. SLU and Ballard are two of them.
Lake City should be one, but it doesn’t have King County’s required job capacity, partly because it’s pursuing a more balanced jobs-and-housing approach whereas King County’s formula is skewed toward jobs. The city and county should reconcile their differences and make it a regional growth center. They should have done it by the early 2000s, then Lake City would have been more must-serve by Link. That might have tipped the balance in the Lynnwood Link alternatives, one of which was on Lake City Way. It would also have given Lake City more clout for Stride 3 and keeping the 522.
West Seattle could have a regional center if it were less resistant to upzoning.
RossB: yes.
But at the terminal stations, there may have been shortcomings. At Lynnwood, the clearing and turning of the LRV trains may take so long that it limits headway or frequency. Could the 1 and 2 lines each have six minute headway for a combined three minutes or does it take too long to turn the trains? How about the Federal Way tail track? Could the platform have straddled South 320th Street to take pedestrians across the wide arterial? Northgate seems good.
Wesley,
There’s a massive difference between an S Bahn (frequent all day service) and a US commuter rail (peak hour focus/exclusive). Typical S Bahn stop spacing in suburban areas is like 1.5 to 3 miles which is pretty close to Link’s existing spacing. Link having street running sections is a big weakness, especially for long regional trips – regional trains should never be stuck at traffic lights.
Of course, there are benefits to the Rainier Valley section and it gets good ridership, it’s just awkward as a part of a trunk regional line. Ideally, we would have urban and regional rail services. It’s just that we should expect ST to focus on the former, and find the best way to leverage those investments to serve higher demand areas (and to serve areas that aren’t directly next to freeways in general)
Mike Orr,
No one would define regional as connecting PSRC designated regional growth centers. The designations are largely irrelevant for the general public. Regional means connecting places within the region (i.e. the urbanized area containing Seattle, Everett, Bellevue, Redmond, Kent, Auburn, and Tacoma). That definitely means connecting intermediate destinations too, and important sub areas of the larger cities themselves. But it probably doesn’t mean building lines wholly contained within one section of one city (i.e. a stand-alone line from downtown Seattle to Ballard), regardless of how useful and efficient that choice is.
Now again, regional rail is potentially not the right choice to begin with (I know Ross and many others thinks it’s not). But then the issue becomes reimagining and narrowing the scope of what ST is. That seems like a tall order to me
“No one would define regional as connecting PSRC designated regional growth centers. The designations are largely irrelevant for the general public.”
But it’s what ST is structured around. The reason northwest Issaquah, Totem Lake, and the Spring District were made regional centers was partly to justify Link or Stride there, because they wouldn’t have come otherwise. North Link exists because of the U-District, Northgate, and Lynnwood.
“Regional means connecting places within the region (i.e. the urbanized area containing Seattle, Everett, Bellevue, Redmond, Kent, Auburn, and Tacoma).”
All those downtowns are regional centers. Why do you think Renton is getting Stride and a new transit center?
“That definitely means connecting intermediate destinations too, and important sub areas of the larger cities themselves. But it probably doesn’t mean building lines wholly contained within one section of one city (i.e. a stand-alone line from downtown Seattle to Ballard), regardless of how useful and efficient that choice is.”
City boundaries don’t matter, except to the extent that it’s harder to get more lines and stations in Seattle while other cities don’t have any Link or Stride.
> There’s a massive difference between an S Bahn (frequent all day service) and a US commuter rail (peak hour focus/exclusive). Typical S Bahn stop spacing in suburban areas is like 1.5 to 3 miles which is pretty close to Link’s existing spacing. Link having street running sections is a big weakness, especially for long regional trips – regional trains should never be stuck at traffic lights.
I mean if you build it solely in the I-5 envelope what exact stop are we going to have? us density is already much lower than germany’s and other european countries. if it was solely freeway right of way it would be even worse.
We cannot have every light rail stop next to the freeway, it’ll just be train from parking garage to parking garage.
as i noted DART literally followed that model of freeway light rail and it has one of the relatively low ridership for their lines.
I’m just referring to actual in-station time here.
OK, then you are changing the subject. The original comment compareddriving with taking Link. South King Resident made the astute observation that driving is often quite a bit faster than taking Link. In my rambling response I pointed out that for some trips that is true but for other trips it is not. Trips within the city are often faster by train, even at noon. Of course you might be able to get there a minute or two earlier if you hail a cab but that is beside the point.
Sound Transit is always, and has always, been envisioned as a regional rail system.
Yes, and that is part of the problem. We wanted to build the most expensive regional rail system in the world for a city that has relatively few regional trips. It is completely backwards. You should build the metro first, then worry about connecting the regional destinations. To do the latter you leverage old rail lines or run express buses.
I would argue that Link’s biggest flaw isn’t that it’s not the NYC Subway, it’s that it isn’t the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn.
So you want basically Sounder, but with better frequency. Fair enough.
I would probably get more use out of a city-oriented metro, but who’s going to pay for that?
The city, state or federal government. You know, like most every city in the world.
ST relies heavily on suburban funding, and sees heavy suburban influence as a result. Why would anyone in Pierce County pay for a line from UW to Ballard?
But the suburbs don’t pay for the city. That is the irony. That is what subarea equity was designed to prevent. The idea being that each agency only benefits from its own piece. The idea is absurd, of course. Suburban areas benefit far more from transit improvements in the city than the opposite. But whatever — that is the idea. Which means, basically, that the city would pay for the line from the UW to Ballard (even though folks in Snohomish County would benefit greatly from it).
But that isn’t the main problem. The main problem is that there is a suburban influence because the folks in charge bought into the ridiculous “spine” idea. So not only were they OK with subarea equity, but the focus was always focused on distance, not quality. Somehow a train to Tacoma was more important than actually serving the urban core. The end result is that riders from both Tacoma *and* the urban core get screwed. The metro from Tacoma isn’t any faster to Seattle and once they get to Seattle they can’t get to their destination because Seattle didn’t build a very good metro. So they drive.
Suburbanites are 4/5 of the population and voters. So Seattle consistently gets outvoted in Link structural and design decisions. That’s why the Spine is the highest priority, and why there’s subarea equity to make sure Seattle doesn’t get its urban needs first (even though that’s where the highest ridership and transformative effect of transit is). Seattle brings the yes votes that put Link over the top, but the design decisions are hatched in the suburbs.
Ideally Seattle would have annexed more, or the lower-density half of suburban land wouldn’t have been developed (instead, infill development to the same population level), or there would be a state or regional policy that prioritized pedestrians’ and non-drivers’ needs over car-dependent development and P&Rs. That’s what distinguishes Pugetopolis from Vancouver or many European cities, and why we can’t have transit that doesn’t suck. It could have been different, it could be different, but that’s not how things evolved in the century since zoning was established and annexations ground to a trickle and then stopped and suburbs incorporated with their car-and-low-density mentality.
Ross,
There’s a pretty big difference between an S Bahn and Sounder even if it came every 15 minutes. The prototypical S Bahn project is the center city tunnel connecting lines through downtown in a semi metro like way. We thankfully already have that tunnel, and it would be shockingly easy to connect a Sounder corridor train to it. It would just necessitate partially buying out BNSF from the right of way and/or slightly expanding it. That’d probably be a better project than Tacoma Link, though it’d also be way more expensive I’m sure.
All the things you describe are consequences of a suburban oriented agency. Again, this has fundamental issues if the goal is faster public transit for intra Seattle trips. But the question then is should ST be rethought as an agency, or should we try to maximize the investment ST is going to make? This is in some sense a false choice, we can and probably should do both. But we can’t just wave our hands and make ST focus on Seattle mobility – that’s a losing battle.
And Wesley, I agree that we shouldn’t put every train station next to the freeway. It’s more expensive and difficult to build non-freeway rights of way but it’s usually worth it in the long run.
There’s a pretty big difference between an S Bahn and Sounder even if it came every 15 minutes. The prototypical S Bahn project is the center city tunnel connecting lines through downtown in a semi metro like way.
Yes, I understand that. But again, the key there is the “semi-metro”, not the rest of it. Just imagine we built a regular metro in Seattle. Lots of stations and several lines. Now imagine that one of the lines extended “S-Bahn style” using the current Sounder stations. Great! Wonderful. But that extension is just the cherry on top — it isn’t really that important. Relatively few riders would actually benefit and they wouldn’t save that much time. Sounder gets less than 10,000 riders a day. Assume that these changes make a huge difference and it gets more than double what it gets today: 20,000. So what? That is tiny compared to what a good Seattle metro would get. That is basically a couple of Metro buses. Of course it would be good, but it isn’t that important. The metro is.
Consider the Munich S-Bahn. This is a great system. It operates like a traditional metro inside the “ring” with stop spacing that is much better than what Link provides. It also complements the U-Bahn (which carries slightly more riders and operates more like a traditional metro). But what makes the S-Bahn special is the way that it integrates regional rail with a metro. You can take those trains from those surrounding cities (or towns) right into the heart of the city. But it doesn’t just serve one or two stations — it serves a bunch. Thus you can get to more places directly, and the network doesn’t have to be based around the one regional hub. Wunderbar! But what would happen if the system suddenly lost that integration? What if riders had to transfer at the edge of the city (like they do in other systems)? It really wouldn’t be that big of a deal. That’s because the vast majority of ridership — even on the S-Bahn — occurs within the urban core (https://pedestrianobservations.com/2025/05/30/s-bahn-and-rer-ridership-is-urban/).
Or consider the DC Metro. This is a hybrid system but it operates more like a regular metro. It extends into the suburbs quite a ways but it doesn’t short-change the urban core. It is much more like a traditional metro than other hybrid systems in this country (BART, DART, Denver RTD). Now consider folks that live farther away, like in Baltimore. Riders from Baltimore take regional trains and then travel around the city using the metro. Wouldn’t it be great if you could integrate the two, and riders from Baltimore — and even a handful of suburbs along the way — could just continue their journey into the city as part of the metro? Yes, absolutely. But it really wouldn’t make that much difference. MARC is arguably the best regional train system in the country, and it carried 40,000 riders before the pandemic (and far less than that now). That just isn’t that many riders compared to either DC or Baltimore. More importantly, the integration isn’t nearly as important as coverage. Those riders from Baltimore really appreciate the DC Metro. But having to transfer isn’t the end of the world. In our case it would benefit riders from Kent immensely if Link served First Hill, even though they would still have to transfer. Giving them a one-seat ride to First Hill would be far less important.
I want to be clear. I have nothing against regional rail or building an S-Bahn system. I’m just saying it isn’t that important. Even from a regional standpoint it isn’t that important. That’s because most of our suburbs are not tied to the region by old rail lines. We basically have just one good line (to the south) and that’s it. Maybe we could tie in Renton, but there just isn’t that much potential there. Then you have the geography. This is not like the Midwest. The lines are not straight. The line from Tacoma starts out going south before turning north towards Seattle. This is why an express bus will not only beat Link but also beat Sounder. The line to the north is similar. Other than Edmonds, it really doesn’t offer a significant advantage to a significant area. There just aren’t enough regional locations for a regional rail to make much difference.
In contrast, we have a huge amount of existing freeway infrastructure that serves most of the suburbs quite well. We even have HOV lanes on most of it. It would require very little work to leverage this outside the city: Change the HOV-2 to HOV-3. Add ramps in various locations. Then apply the same approach that Brisbane did, with a metro-style “BRT” in the city. If we really wanted to provide the best possible system for the surrounding cities and suburbs for the money, that is probably the best approach to take.
But you still wouldn’t get that many riders from those areas. Seattle is not that suburban (we aren’t Phoenix). There is an urban core here and that is where the bulk of the transit ridership will come from, no matter what we build. Thus it makes sense to take a more traditional approach but with a greater focus on bus integration. That is basically the Vancouver model. Build a good metro in the urban core. Extend it out to nearby and higher density suburbs (Bellevue/Redmond in our case, Surrey/Langley in Vancouver’s). Don’t obsess over adding rail in every region — if an area can be served well with buses, a ferry (or a gondola) then do that instead.
The only reason ST is building what they are building is because they never had this debate. They never discussed an S-Bahn system or a Brisbane style bus network. They never bothered to look at what Vancouver was building and how well it works. At best they tried to copy from other American cities, ignoring why those system underperformed. At worst they just considered a metro like a freeway.
Ross,
I largely agree, and of course network integration matters. The point is that we shouldn’t expect ST, as a regional agency, to build a local network. We should expect them to build a regional one, and we should agitate to get them to build a good regional network. Great cities have both local and regional transit networks that interact to allow easy travel across the urban area. We need both, but we shouldn’t expect ST to build the former. And for what it’s worth, that local network can be buses or surface transit connecting with a regional rail system (ala Melbourne).
Incidentally, I agree that the Brisbane BRT style system probably would have been the right choice for Seattle. But of course, Brisbane also has a rail system that resembles an S Bahn too. And yes, ST made the wrong choice for a regional light rail system, and a Vancouver SkyTrain option would have been great too. But that would have faced political difficulties based on how ST has been set up. We should narrow our ST related solutions to the scope of what ST would actually build based on how they are constructed now.
And not that it matters, but I’m not sure anyone has ever thought of MARC as one of the best regional rail systems in the US. It’s the worst regional rail system of any of the legacy systems on the East Coast, and worse than Chicago (and maybe LA). I guess that still lands it in the top 25% percent though, considering how many wacky peak-only one line “systems” the US has.
But we can’t just wave our hands and make ST focus on Seattle mobility – that’s a losing battle.
That is not my focus. I’m just pointing out how poorly the agency has been managed. It is important to understand that they really don’t know what they are doing. This is not obvious. My guess is the vast majority of people in this region assume that ST sat down with (or is even governed by) transit experts who came up with the best, most cost effective plan they could devise. They focused on regional transportation (not getting around the city).
Except that is *not* what happened. No transit expert in the world would come up with “The Spine”. Seriously, get a dozen agencies in the room and not one of them would propose a brand new light rail line between Tacoma and Seattle. It is even more absurd to assume that this would be the consensus plan.
This isn’t a battle between the suburbs and the city — everyone loses. I’m reminded of part of a comment that everyone who cares about transit should read: https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/02/14/news-roundup-geeks/#comment-292594. Focus on the paragraph that starts with “One might think”. The point is, everyone loses.
At this point it might just sound like whining. But it is very important to understand how ignorance has driven their decisions, before we figure out how to fix it. Tacoma Dome Link is a terrible project — for Tacoma. Everett Link is a terrible project — for Everett. Never mind whether you can build something better in Seattle — those are terrible projects designed by people who don’t have a clue what they are doing. The best approach in both cases is to simply shift the money into buses. Consider the spine complete. Now just improve the bus system in both Snohomish and Pierce County. Not just regional buses, but transit within each county (which more people use).
I would like to point out that the root of this issue is federal funding. In order to get money from the Federal Transit Agency, you have to develop and submit a regional transportation plan. Federal funds are awarded to the regional government (in our case, the Puget Sound Regional Council) and then given out to specific programs and projects.
This is why most cities in the US prioritize regional/suburban rail projects over a more effective use of funds on urban metros.
I would like to point out that the root of this issue is federal funding. In order to get money from the Federal Transit Agency, you have to develop and submit a regional transportation plan. Federal funds are awarded to the regional government (in our case, the Puget Sound Regional Council) and then given out to specific programs and projects.
This is why most cities in the US prioritize regional/suburban rail projects over a more effective use of funds on urban metros.
Suburbanites are 4/5 of the population and voters. So Seattle consistently gets outvoted in Link structural and design decisions. That’s why the Spine is the highest priority
That implies that suburbanites are particularly ignorant when it comes to transit. Sorry, I don’t buy it. There is a tremendous amount of ignorance to go around and it is not just in the suburbs. We’ve seen with West Seattle Link and the second tunnel that Seattle can make really stupid decisions in the city, too.
It is really the same mindset. It is freeway-brain. Imagine we don’t have any freeways at all and we aren’t concerned about the impact they have on communities. Where do you build them? Everett to Tacoma, for sure. West Seattle, too — that way you avoid issues with a drawbridge. This explains the fundamental appeal of “The Spine” as well as projects like West Seattle Link. We know it takes a long time to get down to Tacoma. We know that there is a lot of traffic there (and in West Seattle) so it just sounds reasonable to try and mimic the expressways with rapid transit. The problem is, a metro is not like a freeway.
Part of the problem is that many of the link stations for the federal way segment are next to the freeway and don’t have many destinations. hopefully in the future more apartments and retail gets built next to the federal way, star lake and kent des moines station.
RE: Freeway alignments, they sure get built a lot faster. And I believe ST leases the ROW rather than having to purchase ROW. In Redmond SR-520 just happens to run right through the M$FT campus and Marymoor Station is ideal for intercepting buses coming in from 202 and Avondale (not to mention attending Circ de Soleil). I wonder if Metro will close the Bear Creek P&R?
Star Lake is the biggest problem. Both KDM and DFW stations are in areas have almost 360 degree development potential. The latter station is as far from I-5 as Roosevelt Station is. Most of the East Link stations are also closer to freeways than Downtown Federal Way is.
The bigger question is how will the station areas develop. It’s unfortunate that the mega stroad called 320th bifurcates the DFW area and 99 and KDM/516 split up the KDM station area like wide and noisy barriers. It’s these high speed arterials that hinder the walkability of the station areas probably more than the freeways do.
Good points on development potential, Al. At least those stroads are politically easier to remove (with traffic calming, lane diets, etc.) than an interstate is.
> RE: Freeway alignments, they sure get built a lot faster. And I believe ST leases the ROW rather than having to purchase ROW.
Part of the ease to build them next to the freeway is because of the bridge bottlenecks funnily enough. For los angeles metro when they try to build along the freeway say along SR 60 or i-405 (the one in los angeles) the freeway agency fights it quite hard as it is reserved for the future freeway expansion.
for SR-520 it doesn’t matter if it was expanded to say 14 or even just 10 lanes because there would still be the bottleneck at the floating bridge. so wsdot doesn’t really “care” as much if sound transit used the land for the light rail.
same thing for I-5 (north of northgate) the bottleneck is at ship canal bridge or with downtown seattle ramps.
for the i5 segment from seattle to tukwila actually it would have been pretty hard to build it next to the freeway there. it was a pretty steep hill there. iirc the plan would have been to flyover and build along west of the sounder tracks
In my opinion, lack of destination adjacent to Link stations along Lynnwood Extension or Federal Way extension is not the end of the world. The denser area along SR 99 (Aurora Ave or Pacific Hwy) on either extensions set bar pretty low.
For most of those stations by I-5, you can probably do a TOD project that beats the densest business district in the area.
“Most ridership will likely come from riders along the line, and people who want to go north of downtown and skip the I-5/I-405 bottleneck”
If that’s the case, there would be very few people taking 550 to Bellevue in the morning. If that’s the case, there would be zero people boarding 1 Line in Lynnwood City Center because there are not many people living in the vicinity of that station.
zero people? seems like an absurd exaggeration. Look at all that TOD going up just North of the station as well as the existing suburbs that are connected by brt and milk run buses.
correct. All the peeny wise pound foolish at grade nonsense and excessive stops rob the system of speed and being competitive with cars. But I’ll take it anyway just because SeaTac parking is not secure and expensive. 3 bucks beats an Uber. But it really was a wasted opportunity to try and please everyone with a stop even as that made the system worse for everyone
People on here want Link to be a glorified streetcar. It’s a shame. Trains are supposed to move people quickly, not take an hour to do what is 20-30 mins by car.
Buses exist for a reason. I just don’t get the draw of building so many stops when people can get off at the nearest stop and then take the *bus* to their actual destination. People don’t have to live near a station though TOD would still be preferred.
But station choices should be mainly based on how good of a hub the location is for local transit and access to surrounding areas….not on how dense the area is. For example, Bellevue Downtown station is very dense but it’s not as useful as S Bellevue in terms of being a hub. S Bellevue points north, east, south and west far more effectively…being a better transfer / station point onto local transit. So it’s a bit of a loss that Stride and the 4 Line misses that station and instead goes directly to Bellevue TC where some riders would be forced to “turn around” back south to make a trip to Seattle, TIBS, or Issaquah.
If a place along the line has really high density and ridership potential, a station can certainly be built. But if it’s just another useless P&R / random street with no real connectivity possibilities that cannot be handled by bus, it should be ignored.
Trains are supposed to move people quickly, not take an hour to do what is 20-30 mins by car.
But station choices should be mainly based on how good of a hub the location is for local transit and access to surrounding areas….not on how dense the area is.
In dense places, close station spacing still beats cars and in general gives you significantly (usually an order of magnitude) higher ridership than the fastest hybrid commuter rail systems with wide stop spacing in less dense places, even ones with good bus connections. It’s true for the LIRR vs the subway, it’s true for the S-Bahn, and it’s true here.
Can someone remind me what the originally promised travel times were for these routes, back when they were planning and trying to get voter support?
This is a useful map, thanks for making it.
As far as I can tell, headways are prioritized over timepoints. So the timetables are only useful for finding the time between stations. Sound Transit should publish something like this instead of the timetables.
(Although I don’t think GTFS allows for such a construct, unfortunately.)
Wesley conclusion included “seamlessly”. This is an overstatement. Transit has seams; it cannot be seamless. Seams can be of time (waiting), distance (walking or rolling), information (wayfinding, complex fare or route networks), or fiscal (fares). So, the ST2 Link network is excellent, but it has seams.
The east and south lines have at grade segments and are limited to six-minute headway (or so), so waiting may be longer than otherwise. The most important waiting may be for connecting buses; their headway may be longer than Link headway, so one must think about and plan their outbound trips carefully, especially at off-peak times.
Transfer walks are a seam of distance. The Sound Move stations include the Mt. Baker and SeaTac stations that have transferring riders crossing wide arterials at grade. Some mentioned the transfers at IDS; that up and over distance is apparent. (It is much shorter than with the Dow split CID stations of the DSTT2!). Metro had to talk ST into shifting the Northgate Transit Center to 1st Avenue NE twice, in 2002 and 2013. Are far away are the connecting buses? In TransLink, they are very close. At Mercer Island, a bilateral agreement between MI and ST has led to longer transfer walks.
Many ST2 stations are in freeway envelopes, so will not have as much TOD potential; if there is interchange traffic, that will slow connecting bus service (e.g., South Shoreline). Wayfinding, real time information signs, and smart phone apps help with the information seam. ORCA and subsidies help with the fiscal seam.
The long suburban tails will be the thin pencil lines of the ridership maps.
I think your definition of “seamless” is too stringent.
Agencies should think about seams and attempt to minimize them subject to the constraints of budget and rights of way. Diction can help them think about the issues.
haha it was just a conclusion statement. I already said a critique in the above part in “comparison to other Transit Systems”
> The east and south lines have at grade segments and are limited to six-minute headway (or so), so waiting may be longer than otherwise. The most important waiting may be for connecting buses; their headway may be longer than Link headway, so one must think about and plan their outbound trips carefully, especially at off-peak times.
The bottleneck here isn’t really at-grade segments but really zoning for more density around the stations. I mean sound transit can technically run it at 6 minute frequency all day but we need more apartments and retail around the other stations.
> Mt. Baker
Mount baker was recently improved with the new crosswalks. It’s not that bad to cross.
> and SeaTac stations
That was more the airport’s fault. if i recall correctly sound transit did want to build closer but the airport didn’t want them to go into the loop.
> At Mercer Island, a bilateral agreement between MI and ST has led to longer transfer walks.
Yeah i agree. though I guess in the end the issaquah busses ended up heading to south bellevue station so this didn’t end up mattering as much.
> Many ST2 stations are in freeway envelopes, so will not have as much TOD potential; if there is interchange traffic, that will slow connecting bus service (e.g., South Shoreline).
I had a previous article that partially critiqued how st2 missed out on density if you want to read https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/01/16/exploring-better-density-maps-and-link-station-areas/
I’ve had some ideas about how sound transit should just pivot to building more trams in center median avenues instead if it is unable to build elevated but still drafting it.
Proposed route 556 would result in slower service for Issaquah riders than if Route 554 connected at Mercer Island. Even with the agreement, it could still be done. The route 556 pathway encounters congestion eastbound.
“I mean sound transit can technically run it at 6 minute frequency all day but we need more apartments and retail around the other stations.”
ST should run it every 6 minutes to make the transit network high-quality, regardless of whether more apartments and retail go in. Rainier Valley has already had a lot of apartment growth since the 1990s.
my point of that sentence is that the bottleneck of frequency is not due to street-running but due to seattle and other cities insufficient zoning. if we want sound transit to have higher frequency all day more upzoning which costs zero money could have been done 2 decades ago.
No, it’s due to Sound Transit’s decisions. If there’s a zoning threshold to unlock 6-minute service, what is it? What if the city upzones but ST still doesn’t budge with frequency?
It’s ridership that is the goal and yes that’s how all transit agencies worldwide do it
So what’s the threshold for 6-minute service? Do Sound Transit and Metro and Seattle have the same one? Is it coherent and consistent? Why can’t it be transparent so we all know what it is? Then we could ask the cities to zone to that level.
@Mike
> what’s the threshold for 6-minute service
10 minute is 6tph and then 800 passengeres for 4 train cars. once it is more than 2400 people per hour then sound transit needs to increase it.
> Why can’t it be transparent so we all know what it is? Then we could ask the cities to zone to that level.
it is transparent, this was never secret? they talk about matching frequency to ridership at the sound transit meetings. That’s also why they modeled the estimated ridership. It’s also why they implement TOD.
this is literally how every transit agency does it, Im not sure how much more convincing you are requiring.
like for example bart https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/Quarterly%20Service%20Performance%20Review%20-%20Third%20Quarter%20Fiscal%20Year%202024%20-%20Presentation.pdf they check the ridership per hour and then if a line is reaching too high etc… they’ll increase it.
of course operationally they cannot go suddenly surge in frequency in peak times nor do they want to do the opposite with very little frequency. and they still want to minimize operational costs somewhat, sound transit isn’t going to be running 6 minute trains in the middle of the night. but there’s really no technical reason they couldn’t be running more trains more frequently all day. it’s always been about the all day ridership.
Note that some important markets are off the ST2 Link alignment. They will be dependent on good bus networks with good connections with Link. Some are being decided today. See the ST September 2026 SIP bus network. IMO, all Route 522 trips should extend to/from Woodinville and not turnback short at the UWB/CCC; Woodinville is a real place in the ST district. Issaquah and Eastgate (local bays) should be connected with Link at Mercer Island and NOT South Bellevue. There is regular congestion on southbound Bellevue Way SE and its ramps to eastbound I-90. Route 556 (and future Route 111) trips will be stuck in that congestion. The SIP calls for Route 556 to consolidate with the arterial segment of Route 550. In I-5 South, the connectivity with Link makes it worthwhile to deviate routes 590 and 594 to/from the Federal Way Link station. Route 574 could be folded in for shorter headway and waits. Route consolidations yield shorter waits and more attractive networks, but they should be smart consolidations that avoid known traffic congestion.
I never thought about how transfers at CID will work. I see now that it will involve going up a set of stairs, across the station, and down another set of stairs.
They really should add a 3rd platform in the middle (Spanish solution) so that if people want to transfer they can bypass that transfer.
It looks to me like there’s room for that, especially now that busses are no longer operating there.
Is there a plan for something like that? Was it ever seriously discussed (here or by ST)
Found this on Google: https://seattletransitblog.com/2012/05/26/no-center-platform-at-chinatowninternational-district/
I think the biggest barrier is the assumed requirement for a full-size elevator serving every platform. ST installed a temporary center platform during in early 2020 to facilitate cross-platform transfers at Pioneer Square, so it’s not impossible but apparently very difficult to make permanent.
This STB post has a photo of it: https://seattletransitblog.com/2020/03/16/connect-2020-not-done-yet/
An early Urbanist article argued for making it permanent: https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/01/06/the-case-for-a-permanent-center-platform-at-pioneer-square-station/
I don’t understand why a permanent elevator at one end or the other of the platform is so difficult at Pioneer Square. The center roadway is wider than necessary for a bus in it to pass between two buses stopped at the respective platforms. With the mirrors, that means it’s at least eleven or twelve feet wide. A small elevator could be placed at one end of the platform and one-way “switchback” staircase at the other end with an exit-only turnstile at its upper exit onto the mezzanine.
The trains don’t stop right at the end wall; they stop a few feet short of it, and the first doors in the leading and last doors in the trailing cars would be at least twenty-five feet from the wall. That is enough for an elevator at one end and a staircase at the other.
There is room to do this; ST is being jerks about it.
Addendum: the article says that the center platform is 16 and a half feet wide. That is PLENTY for an elevator at one end and (pretty wide) stairs at the other.
Just Do It!
Great, we can’t have a center platform because too many people would use it? Seems like the one at Pioneer Square would definitely be the way to go. It would alleviate some of the pressure on CID.
Yes, we asked ST repeatedly in ST2 and ST3 to reconfigure CID to center platform to facilitate east-south transfers. It said it would consider it as part of the ST3 CID reconfiguration but then never did.
There also appears room to replace the north stairs on both platforms with down escalators, and replace the stairs with new ones (maybe switchback stairs) — pushing into the open air slot between Union Station and the platform on the west or southbound side and using some of the open area to do the same on the west or northbound side.
The area for a middle platform has an essential rail track now. It could be done at Pioneer Square — but will riders go to the extra station before doubling back?
I really think the easiest project is to simply add down escalators as mentioned below.
I mean above!
It seems to me they should be able to come up with a plan that doesn’t require this center track.
I see people adopting different strategies to cope with the CID transfer situation.
If you’re going from the Eastside to the airport you can take the 560/Stride 1 and transfer at TIB. The walking distance is longer but you have elevators both directions, and the station is feels designed for transfers so that gives a psychological boost.
If you’re going from the Eastside to Federal Way or Tacoma, you can follow the same strategy as to the airport. This can be more frustrating because you’re spending more time on a freeway bus and the total trip is longer, when the Eastside just spent a lot of money for a Link line, but that’s Sound Transit and you can’t do anything about it.
If you’re going from the Eastside to Rainier Valley, you can get off at Judkins Park and transfer to the 7, and a lot of people will do that anyway.
If you’re going from the Eastside to Central/North Seattle, you don’t have to transfer because it’s a one-seat ride.
Transferring at TIBS will also be a two elevator requirement That’s no better than CID. Plus it will be a longer distance between the elevators. The adopted plan diagram is shown in this presentation:
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2025/Presentation%20-%20Stride%20BRT%20Actions%20M2025-50%2C51%2C52%2010-23-25.pdf
And Stride only stops in Downtown Bellevue. There are 10 other stations on East Link that riders will be using if they want to get to SeaTac — and won’t want to transfer twice.
There are 10 other stations on East Link that riders will be using if they want to get to SeaTac — and won’t want to transfer twice.
Nor will they want to ride the train for an hour. Many will drive (or call a cab). People who work at SeaTac (who likely make up the bulk of those taking transit to the airport) will choose whatever option works best for them.
“ Nor will they want to ride the train for an hour. Many will drive (or call a cab).”
Driving/using ride-hauling service to SeaTac airport nowadays for someone who are 1-hr train ride from SeaTac is much much more expensive than taking transit.
That’s why I would rather leaving earlier and taking transit if I can. Sometimes I would pay $50 more on flight ticket so that I can catch my bus during the time when it still runs frequently.
If S1 can send one trip from/to SeaTac once every hour, I think that’s still much better than having everyone transfer at TIBS. People are more mindful planning their trip to airport, so I think hourly service is more than enough.
I agree, Mike. This is why the transfer there is not a big priority. The only thing you have is Beacon Hill to the East Side. That just isn’t enough riders to worry about. Even if the transfer was ideal (with a center platform) you wouldn’t get that many people transferring there.
You can’t just throw away the most fundamental principle in a multi-line subway. It’s supposed to be for trips from every station to every station. Half or more of the destinations require a train-to-train transfer, so the transfer had better be good. That’s a bedrock principle. Discouraging riders from using the subway because you can’t be bothered to build a good transfer, is just throwing away part of its potential and your investment in it. It’s not what cities who want the most effective transit system do, or who want to make the most of their capital dollars. That’s what really bothers me about this CID situation: we spend all this money on light rail but then just light some of it on fire.
It is not a terrible transfer — it just isn’t a great one. Transfers are important but you also have to consider the geography. Almost every trip would involve a huge amount of backtracking. Consider a similar trip, but this one involving the buses (the RapidRide E and 5). If you are headed southbound on the E Line (from say, 105th & Aurora) and want to get to Phinney Ridge, the first shared stop is at Lynn Street. But that means going up and over Aurora. That sucks. But realistically, there aren’t very many people doing that. Even if the transfer was perfect it wouldn’t get many riders — there is too much backtracking. Riders would walk instead. Those who don’t want to walk may make that transfer but they also might just wait until they get to South Lake Union. That way they can have a very short walk.
That is basically what Google Maps shows me. If I want the fast way, I just take the E Line and walk. If I want the option with “Less Walking” I ride all the way to South Lake Union, cross the street and ride all the way back.
That is basically the same thing here. Given the geography, there won’t be that many people making the transfer. It isn’t the fastest option for Rainier Valley to the East Side. It isn’t the fastest option for TIBS to the East Side. This means that for a lot of riders (e. g. Federal Way to Bellevue) it is significantly faster to take the bus. Very few people will make this transfer no matter how good it is. A lot of those people will simply walk up and over. Yes, it will be annoying for riders in Beacon Hill trying to get to Bellevue but they will manage. Then there are those who don’t want to go up and over. Well just like the folks on the buses, they have a simple option. Just stay on the train until Capitol Hill, which has a center platform.
Look, I get it. The station is flawed. Join the club. UW Station should be in the triangle, with better access to the hospital and better transfers to the buses. Mount Baker Station should be where the transit center is, with better access to the neighborhood and better connections to the buses. Pinehurst Station should straddle 130th for better bus transfers. There are a lot of station flaws that hurt a lot of riders. This isn’t one of them. Yes, the station is flawed but not that many people are hurt by it.
STRide or the 560 is not a full substitute for Link for most airport users. The ST buses are not set up for luggage whereas Link is pretty good for it.
Now, of course we then get into the argument that Ross likes: “Well you only go to the airport once or twice a year.” That’s very true for almost everyone, but there are a whole lot of “everyone” on the East Side, and they have the buckos to travel.
A very large number (six digits) multiplied by a small fraction (1/365) is still a lot of potential riders every day.
It appears ST3 is having issues serving the Tukwila International Boulevard Station (TIBS). That could be a transfer point for East riders to reach SeaTac.
In ST3, how important is Burien as a market? Perhaps Stride1 should be truncated at TIBS. The F Line connects TIBS and Burien.
It would impact me personally if stride 3 truncated at TIBS instead of Burien. Coming from the eastside, that would make it harder for me to reach my place of work (kush 21 sodo burien), which is also one of the cheapest dispensaries in the area. From bellevue transit center, it would take 30 mins longer to get to.
@Jack @tee
Stride 1 can either stop at Burien or at SeaTac. It can’t stop at TIBS with the bus station (assuming the center bus station is built).
Truncation would avoid cost of station in the middle of the freeway.
@Wesley — I think Jack is saying if we can’t afford to build the center freeway-station for TIBS the bus should just exit the freeway and drive to the station instead. Or go to SeaTac. The drawback (as mentioned) is a longer trip for those headed to Burien. The last time they showed stop data for the 560 it had plenty of ridership at Burien (and the section to Westwood Village). So this would be a substantial hit for those riders.
“ The last time they showed stop data for the 560 it had plenty of ridership at Burien (and the section to Westwood Village). So this would be a substantial hit for those riders.”
I guess the question is where does the ridership at Burien go? If it is not from/to Bellevue, then F can serve that too. The stop data being presented in the blog only reflects stop popularity for the route, it doesn’t reflect Origin-Destination travel pattern.
I am not questioning that whether Bellevue-to-Burien travel demand is high, just trying to point out ST560 boarding data’s limitation on telling us whether S1 should go to Burien or not.
I guess the question is where does the ridership at Burien go? If it is not from/to Bellevue, then F can serve that too.
It is mostly to Bellevue. I realize I forgot to include the link (sorry about that). Here it is: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020-service-implementation-plan.pdf#page=148
As you can see, a bus that starts at Westwood Village drops people off along the way (in Burien, SeaTac and Renton) but most of the riders are heading to Bellevue. About 2/3 of the riders on the 560 use the Bellevue stops. One of the big selling points of the Stride line (instead of the 560) is that riders from Burien get a faster trip to Bellevue. It would be silly to throw that away.
“Stride 1 can either stop at Burien or at SeaTac. It can’t stop at TIBS with the bus station (assuming the center bus station is built).”
I’ve noted before that Stride 1 could serve of free Link transfers at SeaTac and continue on the way to Burien. It just would skip TIBS.
A diversion to SeaTac that turns around under the Link station may not be the most direct routing to Burien, but it’s not an unreasonable alternative to consider — given that RapidRide F offers redundancy between TIBS and Burien already, and riders from Renton or Bellevue that are traveling that far on Stride are probably going to SeaTac or they want to transfer to Link to go further south. With Metro 101 headed into Seattle from the new Renton TC, there will be very few to no riders taking Stride to transfer to Link headed north.
What a great set of charts. Thank you
yes.
I put the latest ST GTFS to my old data transformation template to generate the 2 Line Weekday Schedule similar to those train schedules posted online. ST used inconsistent stop sequence for those half trips in and our East OMF which messed up the format, so I excluded them for now.
Personally, I normally take bus to Downtown Seattle walk to Union at 4th, catch the 550 leaving around 8:10am-ish, and arrive at Bellevue TC around 8:46 am. To achieve similar arrival time, I will need to board the eastbound 2 Line train leaving Westlake at 8:19 am. Considering the my current transfer to 550 at Union at 4th is shorter walk, I probably won’t save much time in the morning, but in the afternoon which I typically leave work around 4:10pm, I definitely can save 15-20 minutes between Bellevue and Downtown Seattle.
I have a similar experience with morning/evening traffic. In the morning, the 550 is fairly fast. In the evening, the 550 gets stuck in traffic on Bellevue Way. Once it hits I-90 it’s usually smooth sailing.
27 mins from the UW to S Bellevue??
The current 271 takes me from Bellevue College to UW in just 40 mins. Now apparently I’m supposed to use the 2 Line and the 271 will no longer exist. It would easily take over 13 mins to connect to South Bellevue with all the transfers and waiting time.
Transit is just unusable at this point. Nothing is stopping me from driving and parking at a P&R instead… Or just driving all the way.
Why would you go to South Bellevue? If you are trying to get from the UW to Bellevue College you would take Link to Mercer Island and then take the bus from there to Bellevue College. That’s 22 minutes on the train and about 6 minutes on the bus. So not counting the transfer that is 28 minutes. That gives you 12 minutes to get from the train platform to the bus stop (and wait for the bus). There should be buses running every fifteen minutes between Mercer Island and Eastgate. I think most of the time you will save time but it really depends on that transfer. The best thing Metro could do is run those buses from Eastgate to Mercer Island more often.
In the long term the best thing Sound Transit (and WSDOT) could do is connect the HOV lanes of I-90 and 405. That way a bus could run from Eastgate to Downtown Bellevue (using the HOV ramps). That would make going between Downtown Bellevue and Bellevue College much faster. Then you could extend the 270 to Eastgate (and/or Bellevue College) very cheaply. This would be considerably faster than what exists now and faster than the East Link/bus connection.