Lynnwood Link Metro Bus Restructure Analysis

85 Replies to “Lynnwood Link Metro Bus Restructure Analysis”

1. How do filled garage Majal spaces compare to lost ridership? The big issue may be that taking an infrequent bus to a station can’t compete with driving to a station, especially one with free parking.

   1. Except people took the bus before. Either way it is a failure of the restructure. They used to take the bus all the way down to Northgate (instead of driving to Northgate) but now the buses are so bad they just drive to a station.

      There are also riders who used to walk to a bus and now walk to a train station. This can’t possibly account for a significant portion of the loss. Very few people rode the bus from anywhere near the two stations.

      In Snohomish County you had a lot of people switching from express buses (400 and 800 series) to Link. That wasn’t the case in Shoreline. There were very few express buses.

      It is quite likely that a lot of people who drove to Northgate now drive to one of the two stations (Northgate ridership went way down after Lynnwood Link opened). But that is largely beside the point. Prior to the extension the bus network in Shoreline was designed to feed Link and serve the neighborhood. After the extension the bus network in Shoreline was designed to feed Link and serve the neighborhood. The stations themselves are designed to be fed by buses (they not have a lot of walk-up ridership). Yet the buses perform poorly. The dubious routing likely has a lot to do with that.

   2. One other source of bus ridership loss may be the walkership on the John Lewis Memorial Bridge.

      College students probably would rather walk or bike in the right direction than walk in the wrong direction to wait for a bus that loops around the long way.

      Stop data could give a sense how much that is the case.

      1. The bridge was completed in 2021. The old numbers are from 2024 (the new numbers are from 2025). The people who now walk across the bridge instead of taking a bus “around the horn” have been doing so for a while.

         In other words that would be a loss reflected on an analysis of the Northgate Link bus restructure, not the one for Lynnwood Link.

2. I would still like to see the E Line reach Mountlake Terrace or Lynnwood Station as its northern terminus.

   If the E Line extended to Lynnwood, it could serve Edmonds College. And the Blue Line could also head east after serving EC.

   Lots of businesses between EC and Aurora Village could then get bus stops (contrasting to the super-wide stop spacing of the Blue Line).

   That would also connect both the Blue and E Lines to the ST night owl route.

   1. So would you overlap with the Swift or pull the Swift terminus farther north?

   2. The E should be extended to Shoreline North station. Shoppers going from Link to Aurora Village will lose Swift Blue when it’s moved to go further down Aurora to 185th to the station. It’s just waiting for Shoreline to complete the related street improvements.

      Extending the E to Mountlake Terrace would be another alternative, and one I initially supported. But it may take longer to traverse the intervening streets, I suspect more of Aurora Village’s customers come from the south, and I’m not sure whether Mountlake Terrace residents in particular would use a route to Aurora Village or Aurora much.

      1. So would you use Meridian basically just like the Swift Blue Line does now?

      2. The same pathway. It might have more stops to match the RapidRide standard.

   3. One has to consider the opportunity costs of the transit resources needed for such an extension; how else could they be used and how benefit would they generate (e.g., hours, red buses, capital)? The transfers between Swift and the E line should not be difficult; they are okay at the AVTC; they would be better at North 192nd Street, common stop in peak direction. That could be easily achieved if Swift was shifted to the Aurora and North 185th street pathway. The E line could be like a parallel rail of a ladder with Link; there should be several frequent east-west routes connecting the two, the rungs of the ladder. The more frequent a line is, the better it can stand alone; less frequent lines should be sucked into Link. So, is the direct connection worth the cost?

   4. If I did anything I would do the opposite. I would send Swift down Aurora until 145th and then over to 148th Station. It would make all the stops that the RapidRide E does along Aurora. It would connect all those riders to Link *in the direction they are heading*. It would involve overlap, but then so would sending the E Line north. Even though it shouldn’t be, 148th Station is a major transit hub. Buses from Lake City and Kenmore end there. (They should continue west, but they won’t.) By sending Swift there you have more one-seat connections (along SR-99), a lot more connections to Link and connections to buses going to the east. Swift isn’t as frequent as the RapidRide E but it is more frequent than other buses in the area.

      At that point you really don’t need extra east-west service at 145th or 155th (as I’ve argued previously). The 75 should go to Shoreline Community College. That is how people would get from the college to Link. The 333 could be truncated at the college (retaining only the northern section). It should connect to the 185th station. There are different options but I would either turn on Meridian or Aurora and head up to 185th (instead of crossing under the freeway at 175th). Connecting the 333 to 185th Station should boost its ridership. If not, it is hard to justify running it every fifteen minutes.

      Some of the savings from a restructure could help pay for extending the Swift Blue but it would likely require extra money. As Jack put it, there is an opportunity cost. Extending Swift Blue would eliminate the two-seat ride to Link that exists for a lot of people on Aurora. But maybe we should approach it another way. I’ll put that in another comment.

      1. Extending Swift Blue to the 145th Station would require a lot of work. A simpler approach would be this:

         Continue to send Swift to 185th Station, but via Aurora (not Meridian). Have it stop at 200th, 192nd and 185th on Aurora. This would cost very little. The 200th, 192nd and northbound station at 185th would be combined RapidRide/Swift stations. This would make same direction transfers (for riders just continuing on the highway) much easier and faster. The southbound Swift stop at 185th would be after the bus turned (it would be on 185th, not Aurora). It would be shared with the 348. So riders at 192nd would have a new direct connection to Link. Riders at 185th would have better headways for the connection to Link. More riders along SR-99 would have one-seat rides.

         Meanwhile, you overhaul the Metro routes. Send the 75 to Shoreline College and send the 5 to Lake City. Extend the 65 (or future 72) to Shoreline College as well, via the old 330 route. Have the 333 go up Aurora and cross on 185th. Now a lot of stops along Aurora would now have direct (relatively frequent) connections to Link. North of 125th you would connect 130th, 155th, 160th and all the stops between 175th and 200th (inclusive). You would still have a couple big gaps: between 130th and 155th as well as between 160th and 175th. That is about 3/4 of a mile (or 1200 meters). If you assume that riders won’t walk more than 1/4 mile (400 meters) then riders along those sections of Aurora are split into thirds. Some walk north, some walk south and some are out of luck. Those riders either find a different way to get there (most likely via the RapidRide E) or they make two transfers. But by adding a lot more service on both 130th and 185th that double transfer isn’t terrible. Of course riders to the sides could be out of luck as well but in many cases they would be better off walking east or west (e. g. if you are at 138th & Fremont you would be better off walking west and catching the 75 to Pinehurst Station). Overall it is much easier to get to Link.

3. Ross,

   Route 67 can provide the backfill service on 5th Ave NE. Neither the 67 nor the 75 need to make a u-turn to Northgate.

   1. Just to make sure I follow you: A northbound 67 (coming from the UW) would turn right on 5th NE (north) instead of left. Then it would go up to the station and loop around and head south again.

      That would be a much longer route. The 67 could no longer through-route (interline) with the 65. That itself is a pretty big issue. It is also a big change. I’m not calling for a major overhaul of routes *at this point* even though it is clear that is justified (in Shoreline if not elsewhere). I am calling for a very change that would help riders quite a bit. Note that I’m no longer asking the county to send the 5 to Lake City even though I think that is still the best good long-term option. What I’m suggesting would negatively impact only a handful of riders (while helping many). It would involve very little churn. Consider some trips riders currently take:

      1) Pinehurst (15th & 125th) or Lake City to Sand Point or the UW: The same as it is now.
      2) Northgate to 5th NE: Basically the same (the route number just changes).
      3) Pinehurst to Northgate: Riders take the 348 (or they take the 75 and transfer using Link).
      4) Lake City to Northgate: Riders take the 61 (or they take the 75 and transfer using Link).
      5) Riders in between the major cross streets heading to somewhere in Northgate. For example 125th & 20th to 106th & 5th. These riders will have to transfer.

      The vast majority of riders are in the first two groups. Their trip doesn’t change. Some are in the third and fourth group. They have fewer options but still have a one-seat ride. Very few riders are in that last group.

      Meanwhile, the addition is much better and makes up for the inconvenience of existing riders. A lot more people can take advantage of the bus that goes down Lake City. A lot more people can take advantage of the bus that goes to Pinehurst Station and Bitter Lake. Metro saves service money which means you can run the buses more often. It is a trade-off (it always is) but a lot of people come out ahead and very few will even notice the change, let alone come out behind.

      1. You missed my second sentence.

         Route 67 could either terminate at Pinehurst Station, or continue past I-5 to do whatever.

      2. There is no easy place to layover at Pinehurst. It makes more sense as a live loop. Continuing northwest is fine but you could do that with a route that started at Northgate. In fact I would do that, as part of a bigger change.

         I agree that the 67 shouldn’t loop around to Northgate. I think it should be combined with the 348 and continue heading north, to Shoreline. That saves a lot of service which can be used to improve a lot of the network. It also means more one-seat rides to the U-District (a much bigger destinations than Northgate). It compliments the other routes and Link. Such a route would be long, which means it couldn’t be through-routed with the 65 (like the 67 currently is). Changes like that would be part of a major restructure. But again, I’m just trying to prevent a major mistake with a simple fix, not overhaul the network (at this point).

      3. Ross, I appreciate your work bird-dogging changing the 75 to directly serve Pinehurst station, for all the reasons you’ve mentioned, and I’ve also reached out to my councilmembers. For those of us east/SE of Lake City along the 75, direct service to Pinehurst will literally be faster than *driving* to Northgate to connect to Link (for me it’s a 12 minute drive to Northgate station; the bus would be 8-10 minutes to Pinehurst). Taking the 75 all the way to Northgate station is a non-starter; if I couldn’t park at Northgate I would drive directly to Bellevue as I need to today, even after the 2 Line opens across the lake. The time difference is too great even when sitting on 520 in the afternoon is factored in.

         Like most on this blog, I would much prefer taking transit to driving and do so whenever possible; shifting the 75 to go to Pinehurst (and beyond) would open up far more possibilities for everyone east of Lake City to do that – even connecting to the E for faster service to the Center and LQA. I’m a “choice user” who can drive should I choose – but why not make it easier to choose transit?

      4. Thanks Scott. That is why it makes so much sense to send the 75 to Pinehurst Station and Bitter Lake. The geography just makes sense. Let’s say you are at 110th & Sand Point Way. The 75 can get you to Link by going south but it takes a really long time. By heading to Pinehurst Station you save a lot of time. Now think of someone in a similar situation with the 77. Let’s say they are at 100th & Lake City Way. They can easily go south and transfer at Roosevelt. Going north and connecting to Pinehurst doesn’t really get them much.

         The Metro planners made similar mistakes in Shoreline and it is clear that it cost them a lot of riders. Let’s hope we can stop them making a similar mistake in Seattle.

      5. Not only does the 75 take a long time going south to Link, it *still* doesn’t connect directly to the first Link station (UW/Husky Stadium) that it comes close to. It’s on campus at that point and is a 5-6 minute walk from the station. It doesn’t connect directly to Link (or, say, the 271, same issue) until U District, which means a trip on the lovely, necessary, but slow routing through UW campus. This is the same problem, of course, it will have on the north end where it’ll bypass Pinehurst and not make it to a station until Northgate. It’s bad on either end if you want to connect to rail unless we can convince the powers that be to connect via Pinehurst.

      6. I generally agree that the 75 should take the route of the 77 west of Lake City Way. The 77 can begin/terminate at NE 145th and LCW. That way, it will cover the route missed by the elimination of ST 522, which will terminate at Shoreline South instead of coming down further south on Lake City Way to reach Roosevelt. However, that will create a gap for people who live on 5th Ave NE between Northgate Way and NE 130th. Someone suggested changing the 67 to serve Pinehurst Station, which would solve that problem, but that’d eliminate the direct bus route from Northgate to the U-District via Maple Leaf.

4. It would be more insightful if we could obtain ridership data per stop for 2024 v. 2025. It’s bewildering that routes 345 and 348 took major hits to ridership yet their routing remain fairly the same. Route 345 was extended along 155th St, which likely attributed to its ridership dip now that it has more geography to cover. But the majority of the route stayed the same – along with the 345.

   Can STB follow up with ridership data by stops?

   1. I have the data on my computer. Micheal Smith is working on a public facing website to provide it to readers. With the website you will be able to look at stop data for a route and period. For now, I’ll provide some data (and opinion). It is a bit tedious because of all the moving parts.

      I was surprised the 348 got worse. Looking at the data, it is clear that the new branch (to the Highlands) performs poorly. The bus used to get about a hundred riders to Richmond Beach — now that section is a bit better (despite no increase in frequency for what is now a branch). But the new branch that goes to Richmond Highlands gets far fewer riders. That doesn’t help but probably isn’t the whole story.

      In Seattle it is a bit complicated. The 348 took over for the 347 there. Thus riders taking a trip completely within Seattle have exactly the same level of service — they just take the 348 instead of the 347/348 combo. It has performed a bit better than expected. Southbound boardings (towards Northgate) are better than the old combination.

      Other than that there is nothing that surprising. There are a lot more people heading north (towards 185th Station) then did before (more than double). But mostly it appears that while service doubled, ridership didn’t. This isn’t that surprising and shouldn’t set off any alarm bells (in my opinion). Maybe the branch isn’t worth it. Maybe Shoreline doesn’t respond that well to increased frequency. But then again, maybe the big problem is the network. Maybe the changes ultimately weren’t that good and riders gave up on the system. The 348 is down a little bit while the 333 performs terribly. This suggests that the network is flawed.

      [I’ll take a look at the 345 when I get a chance.]

5. I hope 61 can be extended westward to 15th St NW or further west.

   It happened to me a couple times last year I needed to run some errands along Aurora Ave.
   Google always told me that riding E Line will be faster than 1 Line transfer Shoreline east-west routes.
   I think the problem is between Link corridor near I-5 and Aurora, the existing routes are neither frequent nor straight enough to make them competitive to E Line. Therefore no surprise that Lynnwood extension takes nothing from E Line.

   1. I think that would be a bit too much of an overlap with the 40 and 45. They already serve 15th Ave and can take riders to Aurora.

      1. I am thinking of some service for NW 65th. Perhaps 61 is not a good candidate to fill that.

      2. Serving 65th is challenging for a couple reasons. It would likely be a new route (a new part of a route) which means it would require additional money. But it also isn’t clear whether buses can go up and over Phinney Ridge (or turn and go down it). It is quite narrow in there. So that leaves maybe overlapping on 8th and then turning which would be good although not very cheap. You would probably have to head up (on 32nd) to use that layover instead of laying over by the locks (the turns don’t favor buses coming from that direction). But yeah, service on 65th would be great.

      3. It could take over 8th from the 28. Though maybe that would be “killing the golden goose”; the 28 does fairly well and follows a straight, logical route

      4. It could take over 8th from the 28.

         I’m not sure I follow you. If the 61 went north on 8th then the 28 could (I guess) end in Greenwood. I’m not sure if the change to the 28 is better than just living with the overlap.

         If the 61 went south then could take over a big chunk of the 28 but I’m not sure where it would go. To Ballard, maybe? That would still leave the little piece of 8th between 85th and Holman Road without service.

         There are a bunch of different options. It gets complicated. At some point I’ll present a big proposal for a major overhaul and we can debate all the nooks and crannies. For now I’m focused on improving the network in Lake City, Pinehurst and Bitter. It is a pretty simple fix but I fear it will get ignored if people don’t contact their county representative and let them know that we can do better than the proposed 77 *while saving money* and changing only one route (and thus effecting very few existing riders).

      5. To clarify I meant to have the 61 take 85th-8th-Market and lay over with the 44. The 28 would be deleted.

         8th north of 85th is already very close to many frequent lines (5, 40, 45, 61, D); I’m not sure it needs standalone service.

      6. > You would probably have to head up (on 32nd) to use that layover instead of laying over by the locks

         The sad part is a streetcar line used to terminate just west of 65th and 32nd. There’s a neat vestige of a wye at 64th and 36th and the concrete infill of the original streetcar line is still visible along 64th between 36th and 32nd. Of course the segment down 64th is neatly bisected by the traffic-calming-circle at 34th, so that kills any shot at using the original 65th-36th-64th-28th turnback loop today.

         SDOT also recently installed a bunch of speed cushions along 65th west of 24th to protect kids going to/from Licton Springs and Adams, so that poses an uphill battle for removal.

         Service on 65th would also cut a lot of the school traffic as parents and students drive from the east and west to get to Ballard High, and similar traffic from upper Ballard to Phinney Ridge and Green Lake.

      7. The 61 should be extended to at least 15th NW to allow transfers to the D to Ballard.

      8. The 61 should be extended to at least 15th NW to allow transfers to the D to Ballard.

         See my comment below. There is no layover there.

      9. The sad part is a streetcar line used to terminate just west of 65th and 32nd.

         It is possible you could turn around there. Laying over there seems trivial. But comfort stations are not. There are a lot of potential new layovers that would be great to add as out network evolves (e. g. 145th & Lake City Way) but we don’t know if that is possible. That is why I tend to focus on existing layovers.

         The layover for the 44 is unusual. There is basically a triangle close to the locks. The bus basically does this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GquhsRDCQ3eRmBm59. That means it stays straight on Market and turns left on 32nd. Then (after laying over) it turns left onto 54th which becomes Locks Place and then Market again. So two fairly easy left turns. In contrast if a bus was coming down 32nd and then turns (on either Market or 54th) it would have to deal with the hairpin turn at Market and Locks Place. Maybe you could do that (as a left turn) but it wouldn’t be easy. On the other hand, if the bus went north to 32nd & 80th we know the bus can handle turning around and laying over there (since the 17 has done that for decades). That would also provide a little extra coverage for the area (although the geometry isn’t right — it would be looping).

      10. “The 61 should be extended to at least 15th NW to allow transfers to the D to Ballard.”

          “There is no layover there.”

          I said at least. The reason it didn’t continue further west was service-hour limitations.

      11. “There is no layover there.”

          61 is fairly short. Can it just turn around once it reaches Ballard and only layover at Northgate?

   2. I agree that the 61 should be extended although it is tricky. There is no layover in Crown Hill, otherwise that would be the best option. That leaves either overlapping the 45 for a long ways or going up to the Holman Road QFC (and overlapping the 28). Either way that gets you the connections.

      One possibility would be to send the 45 to Holman Road and the 61 to North Beach. That would give you all the connections while minimizing overlap. The problem is that riders in Crown Hill (and to the west) would lose their one-seat ride to Green Lake, Roosevelt and the UW.

      Ultimately I would like to see a major restructure in the area that would involve the 40, 60, D and 45. Even with that you have trade-offs that I find vexing.

   3. I get that NW 65th could be challenging to navigate through. I am curious to learn 8; there was any service in history that run east-west on NW 65th and what kind of bus was used?

      1. Sorry for the typo, I meant to say “ I am curious if there was any….”

      2. Not that I know of. I have links to buses in 1941 and 1988. There is no service on 65th on either. It isn’t on any of Oran’s maps, which start in 2015.

6. I think a large part of the problem here is geography. The east/west width of the Shoreline area worth serving – from 15th Ave. NE to Greenwood Ave. – is about 2 miles. This is far enough to require bus service (e.g. just asking people to walk is not acceptable), yet too short for a bus to operate efficiently.

   In terms of “too short for a bus to operate efficiently”, an efficient bus route should generally take around 45 minutes or so, while going in a straight line. This maximizes the number of overlapping trips that can be served with a single route, while also maximizing the fraction of the time that each bus spends in actual service vs. sitting in layover. But, when the entire corridor only takes 10 minutes to drive across, things get very awkward. For starters, the number of overlapping trips on a route that’s only 2 miles long is already very small. On top of this, to avoid a bus route that spends half its time sitting in layover, the route must invent ways to burn time, usually involving twists and turns to squeeze more coverage out of it. In the case of the 333, you can really think of it as two separate routes (with the break point at Shoreline Community College), stitched together only for Metro’s operational convenience, in order to avoid running routes too short, which would require more layover time and, hence, more buses to run the same service with the same frequency. But, in terms of actual passenger demand, it is still effectively two separate routes, as people do not want to ride west in order to go east. So, the route is going to have much less ridership than a similar-length route that travels in a straight line.

   Before the restructure, Shoreline bus routes mostly avoided this problem by running primarily north/south, rather than east/west. In the north/south directions, the corridors run further, allowing for routes that take straight lines, while being of the proper length. The tradeoff, of course, is then, when Link comes along, you can’t get to it, without either walking a mile or more, or riding the bus all the way to at least Northgate (via the 345 or 346), if not, downtown Seattle (via the 5 or E-line). The switch in emphasis to east/west routes aimed at primarily Link feeders, inherently makes for a network that is less efficient. It serves local trips within Shoreline less well, and, even for Link access, requires relatively long waits for relatively short bus trips, leaving many able-bodied people to conclude that, actually, just walking a mile to the train is faster than the bus.

   Perhaps the original sin here, if we could go back in time, I think the Shoreline transit situation would have been much better had Link followed Aurora, rather than I-5. But, there were other unforced errors. If you look closely at the map, both of the Shoreline Link stations are designed to be served by buses detouring into the station, rather than traveling in a straight line and stopping on the street. At 185th, for example, the 348 is actually trying to travel in a straight line, yet it detours into the station, likely adding more time for thru-riders, than what it saves transferring riders. Then, on 345 and 346, Metro decided to double down on slow detours through Haller Lake and Northwest Hospital, rather than speed buses up to make them more useful. For example, the 346 (now, 365) used to stay on Meridian at 115; now, it does the same Northwest Hospital detour the 345 does. The 345, itself, could serve the same destinations in less time if it just took Meridian->115th->Aurora->130th, rather than crawling through a hospital parking lot and a slow street with a few single family homes next to Haller lake, which already have the 365, anyway.

   Finally, it would have been really awesome if Metro had had the guts to do a large restructure that would allow the creation of routes like this: (https://maps.app.goo.gl/3qUBvHHVj3NHMEHMA), rather than treating Shoreline in a silo, and largely ignoring ways to improve connections to other parts of the county.

   1. It seems the original sin is that Shoreline Community College was built in the middle of nowhere. Serving it messes up multiple bus routes. And yet, serving it is about the only way those buses get ridership.

      1. I think that “original sin” has been repeated with many higher education campuses around our region. Many were sited in the suburban campus era between 1960 and 1990. Link has been recently positioned to serve some with better transit access, but many others are in very awkward locations for great transit service.

         In some cases, I think a campus relocation could be considered. It’s seemingly cheaper to relocate some of these campuses than it is to build light rail lines to them. But for buses, a relocation is a harder sell.

         Finally, colleges around the US are braced for what they call the declining enrollment “cliff”. There just aren’t as many college age students as there were. The recent hostility towards backfilling with foreign students is accelerating the problem. It’s a bleak time for colleges in general.

      2. It really isn’t that far off the beaten path. It is right off of Greenwood Avenue and about a half mile from Aurora. It is awkward to actually serve it, to be sure. There isn’t much point in going further west. There are plenty of riders to the south (along Greenwood) but not many to the north. But that is OK — it makes sense as a terminus. It is a very good anchor. Buses from the north should be coverage in nature. Buses from the south and west can end there.

         It is a really not a tough place to serve compared to some of the other big messes in the area. Northwest Hospital is in a terrible area. So close and yet so far. If it was on Aurora it would be so much easier to serve. But Northgate Station itself is in an awkward area. Link is clearly a north-south line at the point, heavily dependent on east-west bus service and yet you can’t go east-west. So you end up with buses looping around (the one exception being the 61). And yes, part of the problem is that college (North Seattle). Compared to that mess, serving Shoreline College is trivial.

      3. RossB already suggested a great answer: use SCC as a terminal; see Route 5. In the 2003 network, routes 331-345 went through and changed numbers for the subareas allocation. In LLC two, routes 75.5, 65.330 could terminate at SCC. Given the deviation guideline, it would probably make to use Northwest Hospital, Four Freedoms, and the VAMC as terminals as well.

   2. an efficient bus route should generally take around 45 minutes or so, while going in a straight line

      In general the longer the route the better but the 61 performs well despite being fairly short. Yes, if Shoreline was wider (east-west) then the east-west routes (connecting to Link) would probably perform better. No one is expecting miracles in Shoreline. But the 333 — a bus running every fifteen minutes — is performing like a DART bus despite connecting Shoreline Community College with Link!

      This brings up an important issue. Yes, in *general* the longer the route the better. You just have a lot more combinations. But if a high percentage of your riders are transferring (and in this case they are) then the short distance should actually improve performance. Someone is more willing to ride a bus for ten minutes and transfer (rather than twenty minutes and transfer). I realize these issues are in conflict but such is the nature of transit.

      Before the restructure, Shoreline bus routes mostly avoided this problem by running primarily north/south, rather than east/west. In the north/south directions, the corridors run further, allowing for routes that take straight lines, while being of the proper length. The tradeoff, of course, is then, when Link comes along, you can’t get to it

      Correct. But my point is the routing is full of terrible flaws. The east-west route on 175th — supposedly designed to connect to Link — doesn’t connect to Link! When it does connect at 148th, it does so via a poor corridor. Then it just stops. So yeah, you are absolutely right — an east-west bus can’t go that far east-west. Then why the hell are you stopping in the middle instead of east going all the way east-west! Think of the old 330: . This is a short route. It would be better if the area was “wider”. It would be way better if it was simply part of say, the 65. It wouldn’t be wider but every trip combination makes sense (and you would have a lot more of them). But if you ran the old 330 as often as you run the new 333 it would perform much, much, better. More to the point, it would improve the network a lot more. No more of this or this. Yes, I know I’m repeating much of what was written but these are unforced errors. Shoreline isn’t an easy area to cover but that doesn’t excuse the obvious flaws that people wrote about when they announced the routing and have no performed as poorly as they thought they would.

      The key to serving Shoreline is to balance the two issues you mentioned. Run east-west routes and north-south routes. It is not obvious how to balance the two. I’ve played around with dozens of options. The Haller Lake area is particularly challenging. It isn’t clear whether we should be running buses on 145th or 175th at all. But when we do run an east-bus it should connect to Link and go all the way across. Yet the Metro planners are prepared to make the same mistake in Seattle. The 75 won’t connect to Pinehurst Station — it will mere come close. It won’t go all the way east-west, it will suddenly go south instead (never crossing the freeway). It is quite simple to fix it but county leaders are placing too much faith in a dysfunctional planning department that continues to make big mistakes.

      1. I think it’s obvious that E-W service must connect with Link in the middle. There are only a few cross streets where that is possible (namely 185th and 145th), but the reality is that there’s very little on the E-W corridors outside of Link. Some riders will be headed through to the other side of I-5, but the vast majority would benefit from a Link connection.

         Even N-S routes should probably connect with Link as much as possible. I don’t think it’s at all surprising that the best performing routes (345, 348, 365) connect to Link multiple times rather than only on one end of the route.

      2. I agree, jd. A few points though.

         Generally speaking, east-west routes should go all the way across and not just end at the station. It makes sense for east-west routes to continue north or south in some instances. It is also quite reasonable for a bus to make a few turns on Aurora to better connect Aurora with Link and other destinations.

         For example the 65 could continue past 148th station using the route of the old 330 between the station and Shoreline College (https://maps.app.goo.gl/zqFjBQRDpQzsrFGdA). That would mean a lot of one-seat combinations (Shoreline College, a couple stops on Aurora, various parts of Lake City, Wedgwood, etc.). But it also connects a lot of riders to Link and E Line.

         There is also value in consolidating on the main east-west corridors. North of Northgate, these are 130th, 155th and 185th. Right now they are trying to cover all the east-west corridors and they get watered down. For example if the 333 were to head up to 185th via Aurora and then over to the station it would double up service along 185th between 15th & Aurora (for 7.5 minute headways midday). You probably increase the number of people who can directly get to Shoreline College (simply because Aurora has a lot of people). I’m not saying that is the best routing but it would be an improvement.

         The one time when it makes sense to end at a station is when you have a bus that is mostly north-south. For example Swift Blue.

         I don’t want to imply that network routing is simple. It isn’t. But it really doesn’t make sense to go east-west and then bypass the station, whether it is on 175th (with the 333) or 125th (with the 75). Those buses should connect to Link.

   3. “… rather than crawling through a hospital parking lot and a slow street with a few single family homes next to Haller lake …”

      The Northwest Hospital campus is a sprawling mess. It needs a major overhaul.

      The most recent plan summary I can find does not discuss better transit access nor speed. One would never know that there is Link or RapidRide E nearby. The plan summary seems to only refer to auto access. And any medical facility that does outpatient service should care greatly about transit — as even car owners are told to not drive to many procedures.

      1. Patients are normally told not to drive home from surgery. But, surgery is expensive enough to make an Uber ride home feel like chump change, by comparison. You’re also supposed to have an adult you know accompany you home, so even booking your own Uber, let alone hopping on the bus yourself is strongly discouraged.

         The set of people who do ride transit to hospitals consists primarily of nurses who work at the hospital, just commuting to work like people who ride transit to any other job. They are more than capable of walking a few hundred feet, and do not need door-to-door service.

         Of course, if a hospital really wants door to door service to particular destinations, they are free to run their own shuttle buses, with their own money. But, the transit riding public should not be expected to pay for such service with their time, by subjecting every trip to or from their house into a detour through the hospital parking lot. And, worse of all, a transit bus should never, ever, ever, get stuck behind a line of cars waiting to pay for parking.

      2. There are plenty of outpatient procedures that are not surgery with general anesthesia — yet patients should still not be driving. Eye dilation is an example.

      3. Patients also go to clinics, tests, and consultations with the surgeon before surgery and follow-up visits afterward. Family members visit patients. Medical students and volunteers go to hospitals. All that can be done on transit if the transit is good and the hospital layout is conducive to transit access.

      4. Correct. And they can walk 500 feet from a bus stop on the street. If they can’t walk, then they can take Uber or get driven by a family member. For a person who can’t walk 500 feet, transit is probably not an option anyway, otherwise, how do they get to the bus at the other end?

         Again, if the hospital believes that to be insufficient, they are free to run their own shuttle buses to Shoreline South station, if they want. But, a special-purpose shuttle like this should not be paid for at the expense of general transit riders.

      5. “ And they can walk 500 feet from a bus stop on the street. If they can’t walk, then they can take Uber or get driven by a family member. For a person who can’t walk 500 feet, transit is probably not an option anyway,…”

         It’s about a half-mile from RapidRide E to the NW Hospital outpatient registration in the very back side of the main building.

         “Again, if the hospital believes that to be insufficient, they are free to run their own shuttle buses to Shoreline South station, if they want.”

         They should! UW Hospital has bus shuttles in place between Harborview and UW campus already. They have that capability.

         Northgate Station is probably a better location for it. Pinehurst is possible but it’s rather circuitous to reach from NW Hospital. Northgate is pretty direct.

         Of course, Routes 345 and 365 connect at Northgate. But the current bus routing is circuitous. It’s not inaccessible; it’s just not fast.

      6. “It’s about a half-mile from RapidRide E to the NW Hospital outpatient registration in the very back side of the main building.”

         I was proposing that route 345 would take 115th between Meridian and Aurora, then Aurora to 130th, skipping the Haller Lake section, which is already covered with the 365. This gets much closer to the hospital than the E line does, but still stays on the street, and does not detour into the parking lot. I think this is a reasonable compromise, as it gets you from Aurora/130th to Link faster than the current 345 would, even without the hospital detour, while still serving the hospital quite well, in a way that is “on the way”.

         Again, if the hospital considers this insufficient, they are free to operate their own shuttle van, with their own money, that stops exactly where they want it to.

      7. There are a number of different ways to serve Northwest Hospital. I’ve discussed this with a former planner. He has his favorite option, I go back and forth. My main point is that there is no really good way. It is a very awkward place to serve. Most of Meridian has very little on it. You’ve got some clinics but they are either south of Northgate Way or only a bit farther north. If not for the hospital you just cover it with an infrequent route and call it a day. But the hospital should have good service. But the hospital isn’t really on Meridian (it is merely close to it). It is basically off 115th. That means you either detour to it, end there, or serve it on the way between Meridian and Aurora.

         Then you have the stations to the south. Northgate Station is very awkward. Serving it means doubling up with the 40 (which doesn’t need the extra service) and backtracking (going well south before heading north). You could keep going and connect to Roosevelt but there is no layover on that side of the freeway. You could keep going and head to the U-District. That is a lot of overlap.

         Maybe you don’t serve it from that side at all. It really isn’t that far from 130th. So maybe you approach the hospital from 130th and then just end there. There are a lot of options — I’ve yet to see one that is satisfying.

      8. “My main point is that there is no really good way.”

         I agree, Ross. That’s exactly the core problem. It’s not only a site hard to reach with a bus, it has terrible on-site circulation too.

         For all the money it rakes in with parking charges, I feel like they could find the funds to piggyback on the UW shuttle program to have one or two vehicles run back and forth to Link. Or they could set up a Metro Flex arrangement. I even think that as a public entity, they even could be allocated a bus bay layover at Northgate. The advantage to a two-stop medical center shuttle is that the driver can be more accommodating to riders with mobility challenges more easily than a Metro bus stopped on the curb that is on a much longer, meandering route can. I’d suggest sending the shuttle to Pinehurst but there’s not really a good place to pause even a shuttle at that station.

         It’s too bad that the surrounding residences, narrow streets that don’t go through and general location away from a major arterial combine to make Metro bus service to there hard to structure. The cost of making major pavement changes would be so huge and the effort wowyskd be so disruptive (so more buses could easily serve it) that the shuttle is probably the most strategic way to provide better transit to the hospital and medical center.

      9. There are bound to be awkward places that are difficult to serve. For example the top of Queen Anne. The area gets a lot wider there so buses naturally fan out (or branch). Back when there wasn’t much up there it wasn’t a big deal. Now it is. Now you have areas with lots of people and they have infrequent service. Every solution you come up with will be awkward.

         I can live with that. It isn’t the biggest problem in the area — it isn’t even close. The fact that no one can come up with a highly satisfying solution for serving Northwest Hospital just shows that the current routing isn’t that bad. Maybe both routes should loop around the hospital — maybe neither. Pick your poison. Whatever.

         What bothers me is the obvious failures in the network. Why does the 333 not serve 185th Station? Why doesn’t the 65 take over between 148th Station and Shoreline College? Why not use the 155th pathway since it is faster and connects to more people? These are clear flaws and they hammer ridership. They make taking transit way too time consuming. As a result, bus ridership continues to struggle and we just shrug. We blame it on the pandemic even though other cities have fully recovered. We assume that Link just poached all the ridership but overall transit ridership is down. Shouldn’t we be seeing a big increase in unlinked trips given the massive (and hugely important) additions to Link since the pandemic. Remember, before COVID there was no U-District station (let alone Roosevelt, Northgate, etc.). Meanwhile, the city has grown considerably, especially around the stations. Yet overall, unlinked trips are way down.

         Of course the lack of bus service has a lot to do with it but a lot of it just bad routing. No one should be surprised that the 333 performs poorly. Many people (including me) predicted it. The problem is, we are in the midst of making the same damn mistake in Seattle, with the 75 and 77. Unlike Northwest Hospital these are not fundamentally difficult places to serve. Yet the planners seem hellbent on screwing it up (again).

7. Do you have a map of the network pre-restructure?

   1. https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/programs-and-projects/lynnwood-link-connections#gallery-1

   2. Here is another map: https://web.archive.org/web/20240508070900/https://kingcounty.gov/en/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/maps/system/03302024/metro-system-map-nw. I think that is the one from before the restructure.

8. What are Shoreline’s current transit mobility gaps? Who wants to go from where to where but doesn’t have a good route for it? This is a starting point for figuring out what network changes might make transit more feasible for more people’s trips.

   1. Do you mean coverage? If so, there are plenty of places without coverage. They suffer from the poor routing decisions as well.

      If you mean a lot of people have to deal with bad routing, that is covered in the post. At noon, someone at 175th & Aurora has to spend 25 minutes on the bus before they get a connection to a Link station (https://maps.app.goo.gl/AbHQkZQnZwpeVRhMA). This is despite the fact that it is a ten minute bike ride to the 185th Station (https://maps.app.goo.gl/6Ph2GBAu7ZDboByn8). The whole trip takes so long that you might as well take the E Line all the way downtown and backtrack. Again, this is with a relatively frequent east-west bus, literally right there.

      To get from Lake City to Shoreline College requires a transfer (it used to have a direct connection, albeit the bus was infrequent). But the transfer is unnecessary and forces riders into the awkward trips I wrote about.

      This is just bad routing and it is reflected in the bad numbers. Many of us knew the routing was poor when they came up with the proposal. Yes, it is challenging. You can’t easily make a grid. But they are ignoring the basics.

      At a minimum the east-west routes should connect to Link. For coverage areas (like Meridian) the buses should go north-south as much as possible (to save money) even if it means it takes longer to get to Link (the shortcut to Link obviously didn’t pay off). We should consolidate on major east-west corridors that connect well with Link (130th, 155th and 185th) before trying to have east-west service everywhere. East west buses should connect to stations, whether it is a bus like the 333 or the 75. It isn’t easy to come up with a satisfying network for Shoreline, but there is no reason to make big mistakes like that.

   2. More so, what’s the nature/demographics/needs of Shoreline? Having lived near the 185th Station before it was built, I can tell you the majority of Shoreline is the typical low density, single family homes. If you have a car, you’re driving to a park & ride to take transit. If you don’t have a car, you’re walking to Aurora to take the E-Line or the 346 (no defunct) to Northgate. If you live between Aurora and I-5, you’re a 20 min walk from Aurora, 185th St Station or North Shoreline Station.

      In order to provide both good coverage and frequency, this would mean running buses every 15 minutes along 185th, 155th & 145th to whatever light rail stations. And I’m pretty sure that’s not feasible. Shoreline may benefit more from Metro Flex.

      1. In order to provide both good coverage and frequency, this would mean running buses every 15 minutes along 185th, 155th & 145th to whatever light rail stations. And I’m pretty sure that’s not feasible.

         Except they are doing that. There is plenty of service going east-west. Remember, there are only two stations in Shoreline. It would make sense to consolidate on two corridors, 155th and 185th. You could go on 145th instead of 155th but 155th is a lot faster. Either way, just pick one. But right now we have buses on 145th, 155th, 175th and 185th. Oh, and the bus on 175th doesn’t even connect to Link! So basically you have:

         185th — One bus every fifteen minutes.
         175th — One bus every fifteen minutes.
         155th — Two buses every half hour (which costs the same as one bus every fifteen minutes).
         145th — One bus every fifteen minutes and another bus half hour.

         There are plenty of buses crossing the freeway, they just aren’t being used in a smart manner. I understand that Shoreline has a lot of low-density areas but we can’t dismiss the fact that the restructure performed so poorly. Somehow the buses performed better before, even though the fundamentals (a slower trip to Link) were so much worse.

         There are just so many flaws. These flaws were mentioned *before* the restructure. Now it is obvious that these flaws are reflected in poor ridership. I mentioned these in the post. At 175th & Aurora — one of the few areas of density in Shoreline — you have a bus running every fifteen minutes towards the 185th Station. But it doesn’t go there! It basically just avoids it as if magnetically repelled by the station. But it isn’t just that. It is all the extra transfers and indirect trips.

         Just consider the old 330. It used to run between Lake City and Shoreline College. As you can see, it had 18.5 riders per service hour. This is better than every new bus serving Shoreline. Now that same route would connect to 148th Station. That little stub of a route would outperform every bus currently serving Shoreline by a huge amount. But instead, riders have to transfer to get from Lake City to Shoreline College. WTF? Instead of recognizing that this was a solid segment that should be tacked onto another route they just killed that connection entirely.

         Some of the ideas are contradictory — even on the same route! Now we are back to the 333. On 175th it apparently doesn’t need to connect to Link — going east-west is what is essential. On 145th it doesn’t need to go east-west because apparently connecting to Link is essential. Make up your mind! Sorry, I guess there are other buses you can use if you want to go across. Oh wait, you can’t! The 333, 345, 346 and 365 all cross the freeway and just end at the station. The 65, future 72 and 522 all connect to the station from the east and just end there. You would think one of these seven buses would go all the way across — but they don’t. WTF?

         Look, I get that the particulars are challenging. But there are some basics to consider:

         1) If you go east-west, you should go all the way across.
         2) If you go all the way across, you should connect to a station.

         That is just basic stuff that was ignored. The problem is, it is about to be ignored in Seattle! They are making this same mistake. From Lake City (one of the most densely populated neighborhoods between the UW and the Canadian border) the bus will head straight towards the Pinehurst Station. Then (just like the 333) it will avoid it as if magnetically repelled by the station. These are avoidable mistakes.

   3. “In order to provide both good coverage and frequency, this would mean running buses every 15 minutes along 185th, 155th & 145th to whatever light rail stations. And I’m pretty sure that’s not feasible.”

      That’s what needs to happen, and I was going to comment that what Shoreline really needs is 15-minute service on all local routes. The proper government response should be “how can we make it happen”, not a defeatist “it’s not feasible”. Shoreline alone may not be able to do it right now, but really, all the cities and King County should acknowledge the transit gaps countywide as a serious infrastructure problem. and prioritize solving it, and talking to the state if necessary. This is the minimum level of service in other industrialized countries, most of them poorer than the US or Pugetopolis. So enough with the “it’s not feasible” or “it’s not important enough to fix”.

      1. You are missing the point, Mike. The problem isn’t service levels — it is poor routing. From what I can tell, they are running a lot more buses in Shoreline. It is just that they are wasting the service. A lot of the routes are spending a lot of time picking up very few people. They are busy going back and forth, making a lot of turns for nothing. They are forcing people to go way out of their way or make extra transfers. Of course it would help if the buses all ran every fifteen minutes but the 333 runs every fifteen minutes and performs horribly.

9. One of the problems is they’ve split a few logical routes.

   Eg: the 348 used to go on Meridian all the way to Northgate. It now connects to Link at 148th, but that means the people along the route no longer have a connection to the small commercial areas at the southern end of Meridian. Instead, they have to transfer to the 365.

   The 365 wanders south to the 148th station, then goes back north to 155th to cross I-5, then completes the old route of the 348.

   O get that it’s good for these routes to serve Link, but they also need to serve the corridors that are orherwise connected.

   I think the 348 did better as a single corridor on Meridian, and I think the 365 should keep going south at 148th station, continue to Pinehurst station, then head east to Lake City.

   1. I agree. They went overboard in terms of going east-west. To be fair, this was one of the big complaints about the network before the restructure. Lots of people requested more east-west routes. But they added too many *and* in the case of the 333, it doesn’t connect to Link. There are a lot of different ways of fixing the problems (jd has one) but they generally involve buses going more north-south.

10. I put together some of the concepts from this thread and the previous one into a proposal for a restructure. This assumes that Stride and Pinehurst are already running.

    1. Looks good. I think it is a clear improvement. A few things:

       Extending the 72 to Shoreline College in that manner was proposed way back when (https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/08/14/bus-restructure-for-lynnwood-link/). I’m sure I wasn’t the first one to come up with the idea. It was always considered a no-brainer.

       Metro’s initial plan was to send the 65 to Bitter Lake in the exact manner you suggest. This was one aspect of the plan that was popular with everyone who commented on the blog (or I talked to about it). Unfortunately, that wasn’t everyone. Parents of students living close to the path of the 65 (north of 125th) complained that they would lose their one-seat ride to the high school and middle school. It was thus scrapped after that. That is another reason why I prefer sending the 75 there. Not only do you avoid the redundancy along 125th, but you avoid that issue.

       For sake of argument I will call the extended 77 (the route that goes to Aurora Village) the 377.

       The northern part of the 333 is much better. I think everyone agrees that is a better routing. It would lose its connection to Shoreline College and Aurora. That may be acceptable, but about 100 people travel between there and places north. There is some value in going east-west (beyond just connecting to Link) even if the planners exaggerated that value. Then again, there is value in going north-south as well. I could see the 333 ending at 148th Station. That is a logical ending point. I’ll call the southern part of the 333 the 388. I don’t think there would be many riders on the 388 between 148th Station and Northwest Hospital. That means that we could go back to splitting the route that goes to the hospital. At 125th one bus could continue up Meridian and over to 148th Station while the other bus turns left and lays over at Four Freedoms. For sake of discussion, the bus that goes to the 148th stations is still called the 348 (the other branch is called something else).

       Given all that, I would have the 377 and 388 use 155th instead of 145th. I realize they are both coverage buses but there isn’t anything on 145th between Meridian and the station worth covering. If you are at 1st & 145th you would just walk over the new bridge to the station. 155th is faster (it has less traffic).

       1. How would you propose sending the 377 and 388 to 155th? Turning around after serving the station I presume? There’s not much on 155th either, the general area is mostly low-density housing.

          The 388 isn’t a coverage bus, it’s a direct bus between some of the larger destinations in Shoreline and North Seattle. Ballinger, North City, Ingraham, UWMC, North Seattle College, and Northgate are all on the way, not to mention a decent amount of retail and housing. It’s comparable to the 348 in that regard. I’m not sure it’s worth delaying riders for a bit more coverage.

          The 377 could potentially be better angled toward 155th. There is some value in through-routes, since the 377 heads down a fairly busy corridor after winding around 145th; by that I mean I could see riders from 145th/Meridian wanting to head to Lake City. However it is a low-frequency coverage route and most people will likely just walk across the bridge and take the 72 or Link.

       2. On the 72: Yeah I saw it in one of the earlier proposals. It seems like a no-brainer to me, it’s obviously better. The 333 was chosen as the E-W connection to Shoreline CC, but the jog on 175th just doesn’t work.

          On the 65: I think ideally it would be the 75 that heads to Bitter Lake since it approaches from further east. It’s the 65 here to keep the 65 from doglegging to head up north. That routing might have made sense in the past, but now there are plenty of N-S routes heading through Lake City and I believe the 65 should not make that awkward turn. Moving both the 65 and the 75 is an option but that’s another route to shift and might be a bigger lift than moving just the 65.

       3. There’s not much on 155th either, the general area is mostly low-density housing.

          Agreed, but it is faster and more consistent to go via 155th. It is a little bit farther but you avoid the congestion.

          The 388 isn’t a coverage bus, it’s a direct bus between some of the larger destinations in Shoreline and North Seattle. Ballinger, North City, Ingraham, UWMC, North Seattle College, and Northgate are all on the way, not to mention a decent amount of retail and housing.

          OK, that is an argument for your 333 (as displayed on the map). I initially assumed that a truncation and branch made sense, but now that I’ve looked at the numbers for the 365, I’ve changed my opinion. It does quite well on Meridian between 145th and 130th. Your original 333 is probably the best option. I don’t think you will get a ton of people heading towards Meridian from 15th but you wouldn’t need that many either (since it does well already).

          That does leave Four Freedoms without service to Northgate. That branch does as well as the branch of the 365 (if not better). Using your map I would send the 65 to Shoreline College and the 5 to Lake City which means really frequent service between Bitter Lake and Lake City. This makes up for the transfer. The only significant loss would be to Four Freedoms itself. That sucks but maybe a DART bus could help. If we go with this approach then it wouldn’t take much to send a branch of the 76 to Four Freedoms and maybe even to Broadview.

          It’s the 65 here to keep the 65 from doglegging to head up north.

          OK, but then I would just end the 65 in Lake City.

       4. Speaking of which, if we ended the 65 in Lake City the fastest way to do that is just to keep going on 30th and end by the old Fred Meyer. The fastest way to do that is just stay on 30th until it reaches the old Fred Meyer. The 64 used to do that (you can see it on this old map — https://seattletransitmap.com/version/2303/SeattleTransitMap_web.pdf).

          If we did that then I would try and send the 72 and full 77 up to 148th Station via 30th. That gives you two buses going from lower Lake City Way to upper Lake City and 148th Station. If you are trying to get from Lake City to Kenmore, that would be a big improvement over the current plans. It is one of the more densely populated areas north of the U-District and can justify the extra frequency.

          This would take advantage of the new bus stops on 30th being added. Northbound it is a bit awkward making the angle turn. I don’t know if a northbound bus will be able to stop at 120th (https://maps.app.goo.gl/X4pBNiqDX76bqzt67) before making that left turn onto 30th. If not that would be a pretty big gap. Southbound it would be really smooth as 30th merges with Lake City Way though. You could also have both go up Lake City Way and turn (or mix and match). There is something to be said for going north on 30th and south on Lake City Way since that gives a lot of riders an easy walk. You would have to move the HOV lanes on Lake City Way but at least there is space there.

          But again, I would probably leave the 65 alone. The dogleg isn’t that bad. They fixed the problem with the turn so now a northbound bus just turns onto 30th from 125th. With the 65 going to 148th I would again combine it with another route — either the 72 or 77. The other bus would end at Fred Meyer. So you would still have a pair of buses going from Lake City to 148th Station. They would have to add a bus stop just north of 125th (on 30th) so that riders heading north could take either bus but otherwise it would be pretty good.

       5. On the 333: Yeah there would be a large amount of turnover at 148th. I’d expect the proposed 333 to do pretty well, probably a little better than the existing 365. North City and Ballinger should make the route more productive, and the additional frequency would make it more usable.

          On the Four Freedoms: I don’t understand why it gets door-to-door service. It is a large assisted living facility but it is far from unique in that regard. It is minutes away from 130th or Aurora. With a 65 or 75 on 130th they would lose a 1-seat ride to Northgate, but gain a (longer) 1-seat ride to Lake City, U Village, and more. I think that’s at least net neutral, though of course any loss feels worse than a gain.

          On Bitter Lake vs Shoreline CC: The benefit of Bitter Lake is that it serves a node of fairly high density at Linden/143rd. In some sense that “extends” the E-W connector route a bit to the north. How is the ridership of the 333 along the 145th corridor? Does it do better at Shoreline CC or at 145th/Aurora?

          On 5th south of Pinehurst: Does 5th needs service there? It’s primarily low-density housing, and no residence is more than a 10 minutes walk from fairly high quality transit. By the time Pinehurst opens, the vast majority of the service area will be within a 15m walk of a Link station.

          If it does need to be served, the 76 would be an okay option, but I’m not sure about connecting at Northgate. That is just too short. I’d just send it straight down 5th as a tail to the 79, roughly something like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/mwEK5qTWCET7mxGx8

       6. On the 65: Truncating it at Lake City would be fine, though it feels like a bit of a waste. But sending the 75 all the way west and keeping the 65 as-is would be reasonable

          On 30th west of Lake City Way: I don’t think this corridor needs frequent service. At the end of the day 30th is a coverage corridor and is very close to existing frequent service on Lake City Way. I think Metro’s proposed 65 tail that jogs around is about as good as it gets. Spacing-wise, ideally the tail would go up 25th instead of 30th, but that’s obviously not possible due to the street grid.

          On increasing service along Lake City Way: The 72 should probably just get run more often. The proposed 72 (that truncates at 148th) and the proposed extension (that goes to Shoreline CC) will both be top performers in terms of productivity. I expect the route to be at least as productive as the 40, and potentially as productive as the E/D.

          The 372 is already a top performer, and it includes the low ridership portion through LFP and Kenmore. The 145th corridor will be fast and connect with a relatively dense node at 145th/15th, and the extension to Shoreline CC would pass through another busy corridor at Aurora/155th-160th in addition to the college itself.

       7. OK, to help the discussion I copied three spreadsheets to my Google Drive: 333, 345, 365

          On the Four Freedoms: I don’t understand why it gets door-to-door service.

          It gets more ridership than Northwest Hospital. The only stops that get more riders are Link Stations. I’m not saying it has to be served, but it offers relatively good coverage *and* ridership. The big problem is that it is awkward to serve. Service on 130th is now unique but it won’t be. You can argue riders there deserve a one-seat ride to Northgate as much as riders on Meridian but that means running a bus on Meridian somewhere else (like on 5th).

          On Bitter Lake vs Shoreline CC: The benefit of Bitter Lake is that it serves a node of fairly high density at Linden/143rd.

          Yeah, it is close to Four Freedoms :)

          Seriously, I agree. You get really close to a lot of potential riders. This is why I have no I have no problem with the current plans to end the 77 there. I just don’t think it should be the 77. Note that my short term proposal (the one that is the basis for this post) is to end the 75 there. The main reason I would send the bus to the college is that we can then send the 5 to Lake City. Otherwise it isn’t worth doubling up service to the college.

          How is the ridership of the 333 along the 145th corridor? Does it do better at Shoreline CC or at 145th/Aurora?

          The college is the second most popular stop (it gets more riders than Mountlake Terrace but fewer than Shoreline South Station). The section between 145th & Greenwood and the college has a lot more riders than the section between there and the station (both directions).

          That being said, there are a lot more riders heading south, rather than north. One of the main benefits of the 333 is that it allows riders from the northeast (Mountlake Terrace, North City, etc.) to get to the college. Only about fifty riders a day are taking advantage of that. About twice as many are coming from the south (almost all of them are coming from Link or some other bus). There are some other people crossing (175th & Aurora is a popular stop if you are heading east) but overall there just aren’t that many people taking the bus across 175th which contributes to the poor performance.

          I am a bit surprised there aren’t a lot of people taking the bus on 145th (other than where it overlaps the 5). Remember, this is a bus that runs every fifteen minutes. Yet other than the college and the Link stations, the ridership isn’t that high. For perspective, look at the 345. It gets more riders along 130th, especially if you include Four Freedoms. This for a bus that runs half as often. This is for a bus that takes a lot longer to get to Link (even with the construction on 145th). To be fair, maybe this bus will get a lot more riders on 145th once they finally fix the road.

       8. On 5th south of Pinehurst: Does 5th needs service there?

          OK, now you are repeating the same arguments used in the previous post. This is related to your followup suggestion.

          You are conflating two different things. The proposal for the 76 is not a complete restructure. That is not what this post is about. This post — and the previous one I just referenced — is fairly simple in scope and limited in purpose. I’m just trying to prevent the county from making a terrible mistake. I want to fix this one, glaring error and I believe the easiest way to do that is with a minimal amount of churn. The 76 backfills service on 5th. This means riders who are used to catching a bus to Northgate on 5th can continue to do so. It also means that the number of buses on 5th south of Northgate Way remains the same. The only thing that changes is that riders can’t take the 75 between Northgate/5th to 125th/Sand Point Way. Not that many people do, and most have direct alternatives (the 61 and 348 in particular). I believe the county can and should do this instead of what they are planning on doing. It is a last-minute change but it would be significantly better. Like all changes there would be winners and losers but there would be very few losers. That is the point.

          Now if you are talking about a major restructure, there are a couple reasons to serve 5th, north of Northgate Way. One is coverage. The other is additional service on 5th south of Northgate. This brings up other issues. Is it best to go on 5th or Roosevelt? 5th is a bit faster, but Roosevelt runs by more apartments while providing similar coverage. (It isn’t that easy to get over to Pinehurst Way/15th from the west which is why two routes are good for coverage.) By using Roosevelt, you add additional service on Northgate Way between Roosevelt and 5th — this is a bonus. This is the argument for serving the area — a combination of coverage and extra service to the south (forming a small spine).

          If you are going to have a major restructure and run a bus up 5th (or Roosevelt) to Pinehurst Station then it should definitely keep going. It should not loop around. It should cross the freeway and then serve Shoreline. How it does that gets complicated. I have ideas but that will be another post.

       9. On 30th west of Lake City Way: I don’t think this corridor needs frequent service. At the end of the day 30th is a coverage corridor and is very close to existing frequent service on Lake City Way.

          I don’t think you follow me. I am suggesting we consolidate service. There should not be buses on 30th *and* Lake City Way. Pick a corridor (whether you have multiple buses or just one).

          I would rank them in this order:

          1) Go north on 30th, south on Lake City Way.
          2) Go north and south on 30th.
          3) Go north and south on Lake City Way.
          4) Go north on Lake City Way and south on 30th.

          Most of the density is between Lake City Way and 30th. This is why I favor the first option. Riders in this dense area would walk west to go north and east to go south — on the same bus(es). Another issue is stop spacing. The stop spacing on 30th is much better than the stop spacing on Lake City Way. The bus stops are too far apart on Lake City Way. For a southbound bus it is 580 meters between the stop 145th and the stop at 137th. This can easily be fixed by just adding a southbound bus stop just north of 140th along with a signalized crosswalk. But it can’t easily be fixed going north. It may prove too difficult to serve a bus stop on 140th and then move into the left turn lane. I think the best you could do is add a stop at 145th just west of Lake City Way. Otherwise the closest bus stop is at 30th, quite a ways away.

          If you go with the second option you avoid all that. You don’t need to add bus stops or crosswalks. I could easily go with that option. That might also make sense until SDOT did the work. The first step is the crosswalk (which has value unrelated to transit). Once they do that, adding the bus stop is trivial. But they would also want to move the BAT lanes. Right now they are northbound. They are about to be obsolete. They could go southbound instead (which would improve option 1).

          In terms of the routes, there are basically five future routes that converge onto Lake City from the south: the 61, 65, 72, 75 and 77. I would continue to terminate the 61 in Lake City. I would send the 65 to 148th Station for the reasons mentioned earlier (no reason to stir that pot again). I would send the 75 to Pinehurst. This works out well from a geographic standpoint. That leaves the 72 and 77. They could both end in Lake City (at the old Fred Meyer). One of them them could end there and one could join the 65 (and follow the same pathway between 125th and 145th). There is value in doubling up service along that section. It is quite densely populated. I don’t think tripling up service is worth it though. I would send the 72 there, not the 77. South of Lake City, the biggest destinations on the 77 are Roosevelt and the U-District (Link destinations). If someone along 145th is interested in going there they could just go to the 148th Station and take the train. In contrast the 72 goes to U-Village and the UW campus. It would save them a lot more time if they could take the 72. But I would also be fine with just one bus between 125th and 145th — it is a close call.

       10. On Shoreline CC to Link: One of the benefits of extending the 72 is that it could take over the Link-Shoreline CC connection, meaning the Pinehurst bus could terminate at Bitter Lake. I’m not sure there should be two separate Link-Shoreline CC corridors; I think it would be better to increase service on the 72 rather than adding a second corridor.

           The 72 extension corridor is likely ideal for that connection. It’s the fastest path to Link, mostly travels down low-traffic streets, and still hits a large node of density at Aurora/155th-160th.

           I’m also surprised there aren’t more riders on 145th between Shoreline CC and 148th. I suppose for riders headed to downtown the E might be preferred?

           On 5th: Ah I didn’t realize the 76 suggestion was a more targeted restructure. It might make sense as a short term fix, though it does need to get extended somehow.

           5th is definitely a little close to Roosevelt. I’m not sure it’s worth serving with a separate route. But if it is served, I think it would be better to add a unique connection to Green Lake rather than jogging east to head down Roosevelt, unless the bus heads all the way down the couplet. A lot of the value of the 67 is that the connection to U District; the 67 has some churn but certainly does not turn over at Roosevelt Station.

       11. On Lake City Way: Ah that makes more sense. I will say there is a decent amount of density at 145th/LCW that would be a bit far from 30th/145th. There’s also a benefit (admittedly marginal) to keeping the route simple and sending it down a single corridor.

           I think the best option would be to improve LCW. That is obviously much more expensive but is probably what should happen in the longer term. LCW should get BAT lanes and sidewalks in both directions down most of the corridor. In the short term more targeted improvements could go a long way.

           On doubling up service: The 72 corridor is very strong and it will be a high performer. I think the 72 should get above-frequent (10-12m at least) service, and I’m not sure adding a second route to the corridor is worth it, it’s just very expensive.

11. I’m pretty sure this is an interesting bus network structure, sending the route 75 to Ballard again and I thought the route 77 peak-only runs in downtown seattle again, potentially.

12. Re: Tangletown service

    I’m all in favor of beefing up NE 56th St so Metro can move the 62 as they proposed in their long-range plan. It would speed up the route for people not stopping in Tangletown. Selfishly speaking it would also reactivate the now-defunct bus stops outside my house. Losing the 20 meant we now have to walk nearly 10 minutes to get to the nearest transit stop of any kind and it’s closer to 15 minutes for those down by I-5. This is kind of a weirdly long walk for being in a neighborhood with above-average population density in the city.

    I will quibble with your assertion in your linked post that this change would cause the bus to have a more central routing through the neighborhood. Maybe a little, but not much. The problem with Tangletown bus service is that there are two north/south corridors suitable for bus service and they’re both out toward the edges. When we deleted the 20 everyone east of Latona had to walk an extra ten minutes to access transit, and if we moved the 62 over to Latona everyone west of Kirkwood/Meridian would experience the same issue. The latter group looks to be a bit smaller, but who knows if it will stay that way in the long run. I’d have to guess that with four-story condo/apartment buildings legalized everywhere we might see some more density overlooking Green Lake sooner rather than later.

    What I’d love to see is a small extension of Route 79 to cover whichever corridor the 62 doesn’t run on. This is already an infrequent coverage route. Turning it into a more circular route via Latona (or Kirkwood if/when the 62 moves) would make the 79 perhaps 25% longer and would restore a similar level of service to the neighborhood to what it had a couple of years ago.

    1. I still contend there is a coverage benefit to moving the 62, although I admit it is minimal. Here is the way I look at it: Imagine you can build the streets from scratch and have only one bus route through Tangletown. You are only concerned with coverage (i. e. you want to reduce the distance that people have to walk to a bus stop). South of 50th it doesn’t really matter (riders will walk to 45th). Starting at 50th you want to be midway between the park and the freeway. Between 45th and about 59th, the line is straight (north-south). But then the park curves west and the midpoint does as well, angling northeast. That is basically our starting point — our ideal line. Of course we have to work with the streets we have. Of the arterials, Meridian and Latona are closest to that ideal line. Not only that, but by going east-west (to connect the two) you also provide plenty of people with a walk south (instead of east). The streets are also often angled that direction. So it would be a walk to here, not here. As you go further north, going south no longer makes sense. But at that point, you don’t have that many people to the west.

       But again, it is close. I get that it is borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. It may be a wash. But even if it is a wash, it would be a huge improvement. The main benefit of moving the 62 is that it would be faster. Normally you lose coverage when you make a route faster. In this case we don’t — we might even gain coverage.

       I agree about the 79 and you aren’t the first person to propose that. After moving the 62 you could extend the 79 to the east. It could loop around using Woodlawn and layover close to Ravenna (where the old 26 laid over). So basically this. This adds significant coverage at very little cost. If no one uses the bus — if they just decide to walk in what is one of the nicest walking neighborhoods in the city — then they could always scale it back and focus their coverage efforts somewhere else.

    2. The current Route 62 pathway uses several blocks of narrow roads that are only 25 feet wide and parking is allowed on one side. Buses have to wait for buses or other wide vehicles. See Meridian Avenue north and Kirkwood Place North. Both Latona Avenue North and NE 56th Street are wider; they had the Meridian streetcar before 1940, the streamlining of Route 62 is dependent on SDOT improving the NE 56th Street pavement. One that North 55th Street between Kirkwood and Meridian got the treatment and has been worn down and repaired many times since 1940.

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