This is part three of a three-part series investigating city-funded bus service in Seattle. Part 1 covered the Seattle Transportation Benefit District (STBD) from 2014 to early 2020. Part 2 covered its successor, the Seattle Transit Measure (STM) from 2020 to present. This article looks to the future of the STM and its 2026 renewal.
In April 2027, the Seattle Transit Measure (STM), Seattle’s 0.15% sales tax that funds extra bus service and other transportation priorities, will expire. Seattle (or King County) will need to place a measure on the ballot this fall for voters to approve to maintain or expand existing transit service.
County or City Measure?
Despite putting the breaks on its electrification plans, King County Metro is still facing a structural budget deficit starting in the early 2030s. Without additional funding, maintaining service will not be possible.
To avert that cliff and expand bus service countywide, transit advocates have urged King County Executive Girmay Zahilay to propose a funding measure to voters (sounds a lot like 2014 and 2020). Zahilay was supportive of this on the campaign trail. However, he said funds generated should also go to maintain and upgrade county roads similar to the failed 2007 ‘Roads and Transit’ measure activists campaigned against and a very similar countywide measure that failed in 2014 that directly led to the creation of Seattle’s Transportation Benefit District (now the STM). We reached out to Executive Zahilay and his office declined to comment.
King County Council met last week to discuss the county’s transportation funding needs and the possibility of a ballot measure. Of note is that the county roads division (which maintains roads in unincorporated King County) will run out of capital funding in 2028 without action. No specific proposals were discussed but Councilmembers Balducci (D6, near eastside) and Perry (D3, far eastside) indicated their support for a 0.1% sales tax to fund only roads (that does not require voter approval) and a potential 0.2% voter approved levy to fund transit.
“I really think we need to chart a course to getting back to 2019 service levels and better. So, that’s a very high priority for me” – Katie Wilson
Without action soon, Seattle will have to renew the STM to maintain service. Measures must be received by King County Elections by May 1 to appear on the August ballot or August 4 to appear on the November ballot and crafting a measure can take months. In 2014, the STBD proposal was unveiled in May. In 2020, the STM was unveiled in July after Jenny Durkan imposed a March deadline on the county to figure things out.
If the county does not propose a transit measure this year, they could blow their chance until Seattle’s measure is up for renewal (again). The county needs turnout and enthusiasm from the voters within Seattle to pass a tax increase countywide. Regardless of which outcome is chosen, the STM pays for some services–like the Streetcar and ORCA passes–that a countywide measure would be unlikely to pick up.
Fully Fund the Frequent Transit Network
The first priority for a transit measure should be to fund frequent transit.
Travel time is the strongest predictor of a person’s choice of travel mode but only on transit must riders wait for discrete intervals of time where travel is possible. Waiting for the bus is one of the least enjoyable parts of a transit journey. Riders perceive waiting time as taking around 1.2 to 4.4 times longer than it actually is. So increasing frequency significantly reduces the amount of time people ‘feel’ the bus takes and recalibrates people’s calculus away from driving.
Increasing frequency also gives riders the freedom to leave when they want and it improves their access to the city by making transfers easier. With a frequent grid, riders can more easily transfer to other routes, significantly increasing access to parts of the city unserved by their route. Further, high frequency transit allows riders to chain trips together like running errands across neighborhoods or dropping a kid off at daycare on the way to work.
This increase in opportunity for riders also represents a massive benefit for businesses who can pool employees and customers from far larger swaths of the city. Most small businesses struggle to attract talent and all businesses could use more customers. Without the ability to trip chain, all the riders passing by shops aren’t getting off the bus to buy anything.
Luckily, a vision for this already exists at SDOT and is waiting to be funded. The Frequent Transit Network is the north star that already guides STM investments but needs more funding to be realized. In it, not only are huge swaths of the city planned to get 10 minute service but a number of corridors are planned to get service better than 10 minutes. Today, only 9 bus routes run every 10 minutes or better all day everyday. A fully funded FTN would have 25-30 routes.
At the county level, the north star for transit investments is Metro’s long range plan Metro Connects. The plan is divided into two milestones: an ‘Interim’ network and a ‘2050’ network (maps here). The 2050 network is incredibly ambitious while the 2035 network provides a more attainable stepping stone for nearer-term investments. The plan does not provide as concrete of frequency targets as SDOT’s FTN by leaving a large range of ‘5-15’ minute frequency for even the best category of route and omitting targets for 24 hour service.
Fund a Basic Night Network
In addition to funding adequate all-day frequency, any renewal needs to get serious about Seattle’s night network. Today, only 14 routes provide all-night hourly service and hourly routes can be tricky to rely on.
It’s a frequent complaint that Seattle doesn’t stay open late enough. Credit card data from Square shows us getting smoked by nightlight capital Detroit. And data from Toast showed a 9% reduction in late night dining in 2024. Despite the complaints, there is a city after dark full of nightclubs, late night eats, comedy shows, concerts, theater, and even late night laserdome. But for transit riders and anyone who wants to drink and not drive, it’s difficult to stay out late without calling one of the most expensive Ubers in the country. Riders have to head home when the buses do which means we can’t work late night jobs and we can’t enjoy the city after hours.
Having a reliable night network would make the city accessible after dark, making it easier to staff late night establishments and easier for riders to go out in neighborhoods other than their own. When Melbourne piloted 24 hour transit in 2016, they found people stayed out longer, spent more money, and “56% [of interviewees] reported increasing their train use.” When Boston extended late night transit, it boosted activity. In 2016, London (which then had no night tube service) began running the Central and Victoria lines through the night and saw a 21% increase in dinner reservations after 10 pm.
Sound Transit is in the process of launching a regional night network of half-hourly express buses across the region but it will skip most neighborhoods in Seattle. This will start with a half-hourly airport express opening on March 28. To keep the rest of the city connected to the region, timed transfers downtown and along Sound Transit’s regional night network are needed.
Another benefit of a frequent night network is improving the rider experience after dark. Metro’s rider survey lists after-dark safety as least satisfied among riders. If a transit rider feels unsafe while waiting an hour or more for their late-night bus, they’re very likely to feel forced to find another way home. Having better frequency at night gives riders more options and 30 minute service would transform the city.
Unfortunately, Metro Connects is not prescriptive of a visionary night network. Metro’s Service Guidelines do outline “Typical Service Types” that indicate that RapidRide and Frequent routes can get 24 hour service but it stops short of a visionary map of night service.
Luckily, SDOT’s Frequent Transit Network includes very concrete goals for night service. If fully funded, nearly the entire city would be within walking distance of a bus every 60 minutes or better and most riders in the city core would have access to a bus every 30 minutes or better.
Funding More Service: A Transportation Benefit District
The main taxing authority available to both the City of Seattle and King County is the current framework that powers the STM: a Transportation Benefit District (TBD). TBDs are authorized, with voter approval, to levy a 0.3% sales tax and a $100 Vehicle License Fee (VLF), a flat annual fee on a car’s registration.
Seattle already uses its TBD to levy a 0.15% sales tax (the STM) and a $50 VLF for road maintenance. Additionally, TBDs can levy a 0.1% sales tax and $50 VLF without voter approval. Non-voted VLFs do not stack (i.e. the county could not increase VLF’s in Seattle without a referendum) but non-voted sales taxes do. TBDs can also reduce their taxes at any time.
Other revenue sources do exist but many are unproven or likely to be caught up in court. With one year left before the STM expires, revenue is needed relatively quickly.
Funding a Seattle Measure
SDOT tracks progress towards the FTN by the number of trips funded. SDOT estimates that the FTN (and its night component) is 2.6M trips total and 500,000 trips per year short of being fully funded. But Metro is not done restoring service it funds that was cut during COVID. Metro’s contribution to service (i.e. total minus STM investments) is 8% below 2019. 8% of 2.6M trips is ~200k trips that will be added back from Metro by 2027, leaving the FTN 300,000 trips short of being fully funded.
The median bus trip on Metro is about 45 minutes long so 300,000 trips would be 225,000 service hours. SDOT paid around $200 a service hour for service in 2023 and 2024 (the last years with data). This prices fully funding the FTN at about $45 million a year.
Additionally, the current Seattle Transit Measure is running with a $20M deficit. Buoyed by reserve funds accumulated during the pandemic, additional funding is needed lest programs are cut.
| Tax type | Limit | Remaining authority | Additional revenue if authority is fully utilized |
| Sales tax | 0.3% | 0.15% | $53M |
| Vehicle license fee | $100 | $50 | $20M |
Seattle currently utilizes half of its TBD taxing authority. Using its full authority would bring in an additional $73M annually, enough to fund the FTN and fix its deficit.
Finally, if a county measure were to eclipse Seattle’s, Seattle could maintain a 0.1% sales tax without voter approval. That would bring in $35M annually and the STM currently pays about $20M annually on programs other than bus service.
Funding a Countywide Measure
Any countywide measure would use Metro Connects as a guide, not SDOT’s FTN. Metro projects it will restore 2019 service by the end of 2027 which totals roughly 4,650,000 county-funded service hours. Metro Connects estimates the ‘Interim’ network to cost 5.5M service hours (an additional 850,000) and the 2050 network to cost 7.25M (2.6M more). At $200/hr, this would cost $170M and $520M respectively.
Additionally, Metro has a $500M deficit starting in 2031 when it will exhaust its reserve fund. Any measure would need to fill that budget hole in addition to expanding service.
| Tax type | Limit | Remaining authority | Additional revenue if authority is fully utilized |
| Sales tax | 0.3% | 0.3% | $600M |
| Vehicle license fee | $100 | $100 | $100M+ |
King County does not currently utilize any of its TBD authority. Using county sales tax data and assuming similar per capita revenue as Seattle’s VLF, this amounts to $700M of potential revenue. This would be more than enough to fully fund the Metro Connects Interim Network and avert Metro’s impending budget deficit.
If the county does not propose a transit measure this year, it seems likely they will utilize their authority to impose a 0.1% sales tax without voter approval to fund county roads and leave Seattle to renew the STM. However, a Seattle-only measure would not solve Metro’s looming budget shortfall, which the county would need to grapple with before 2031.
Looking Ahead
Over the last dozen years, Seattle has seen the numerous benefits of increasing bus service and providing the opportunity to live without a car across the city. King County is considering how it might reap similar benefits. Regardless of whether funding comes from just Seattle, the county, or both, there are clear needs for transit funding in Seattle and King County.
If Seattle wants to achieve its mode shift goals, climate goals, and safety goals, it needs to fund frequent transit across the entire city, 24/7, and it could do it with a renewal and expansion of the STM. If the county wants to avoid cuts to Metro service outside Seattle in the early 2030s, it will need to find support for a countywide measure. With the right support, we could get back on track to building a truly transit-oriented region.
Nice article Nick!
The most important thing to remember with any government service that’s paid for with sales tax is going to tied to every little upswing or downswing in the economy…. Add in a large swing in fare box revenues and transit funding just becomes more unstable. If Seattle (and the nation in general) go into a recession, even passing a sales tax levy won’t keep Metro from cutting back. Of course that pendulum also swings the other way in good times.
As far as King County raising taxes for transit….. I wouldn’t hold your breath. The order of importance of the issues that Executive Zahilay has to deal with is different that the what Mayor Wilson finds important. I also believe, at the end of the day, Katie Wilson isn’t going to be a big supporter of new funding for transit. It’s not that the Mayor is anti-transit, but let’s just say she made a lot of big promises about homelessness and housing that she’ll likely put first…. meaning transit funding may never make it to “the front burner”.
I also believe, at the end of the day, Katie Wilson isn’t going to be a big supporter of new funding for transit.
Ha, that’s really funny. Oh wait, you are serious. I get it. You don’t understand Seattle. You are from Tacoma. But holy cow, that is absurd. She will not only push for a new package but likely the biggest package available. And it will pass easily (just like previous packages).
Just the other day I attended a meeting with some of the members of the Transit Riders Union. They were talking about priorities for this year. Someone mentioned BAT lanes on Denny and then someone else said, basically, it is going to happen. There is no need to organize, lobby or otherwise push for it. Folks pivoted to the celebration following the implementation. We want to reward people when they do the right thing. The levy is quite similar. No one is worried about Wilson. The city council, on the other hand, is a different issue. Wilson will put pressure on them to pass a large package but there may be some holdouts. We’ll see.
Ross Bleakney,
As a veteran watcher of PNW elections for more than 40 years, I’ve fallowed many, many candidates ho had pretty much the same identical the same platforms run against each other. Everybody runs on a “pro-transit, pro-education, let-fix-the-homeless mess” message. So what’s the difference who’s elected?
It’s not what elected officials say they support during an election…. it’s the level of support they give to different causes once they’re in office. I’m sure Mayor Katie will look at giving buses more of the right-of-way on Seattle streets because she can do that without a huge outlay of cash. But will the mayor support raising taxes for more transit? Hard to say until it happens. Katie has a whole lot of “Lefty friends” right now who all want a piece of the pie (the City budget). So does every city council member. Mayor Bruce, love him or hate him, had an easier row to hoe than poor Mayor Katie.
I’ve asked this question over and over to many of the posters on this blog and I’ll ask you now. If Seattle transit is so tied to the fare box and sales tax, doesn’t service need to be cut in an economic down turn? Because raising sales taxes in a recession may not necessarily bring in more money. Then what? It’s an honest question Portland is struggling with right now. My guess that question will be moving north within a year or so.
As a veteran watcher of PNW elections for more than 40 years, I’ve fallowed many, many candidates ho had pretty much the same identical the same platforms run against each other.
Uh huh. Great. And how many of them have you personally worked with before they became mayor? How many of them headed up a transit organization? How many members of said organization thought that that lobbying her on this issue was just preaching to the choir?
It is really not complicated. This is her bread and butter. This is her claim to fame. To backtrack on this particular issue would be really stupid. Plus, there is no reason to! Remember why Durkan supported a smaller levy? Nick covered it in the previous article. She was afraid it wouldn’t pass. Yet it passed easily. Durkan was wrong to ask for a smaller package and even a less enthusiastic transit supporter (like Harrell) would ask for a bigger package. But you can bet your ass that Wilson will.
Where folks will be disappointed is with things like the streetcar or Sound Transit projects. They want her to perform miracles, but she can’t. She is sensible and understands those projects are controversial. In contrast, the transit community is united around the idea of additional funding.
As for funding, yes, tax revenue tends to go down during a recession. Transit ridership typically goes up. This can cause problems. It is why you tend to have rainy day funds. But you can still pay for a lot of additional service while maintaining a decent surplus.
“any government service that’s paid for with sales tax is going to tied to every little upswing or downswing in the economy”
That’s built into the tax structures the state allows for transit, so the public is well aware of it because it has been affecting Metro and Sound Transit for decades. Metro cuts during recessions and expands during recoveries and booms. Federal Way Link in ST2 was initially going to go to 272nd (the budget wasn’t large enough for 320th), but in the 2008 recession it was truncated to 200th, then in the recovery it was re-extended to 240th. ST3 superceded this by folding it into an extension to 320th. That opened in December.
We can’t do anything about it until the state allows more stable tax sources, so it’s either use the sales tax to get on-and-off transit expansions, or don’t get any expansions at all and even further cuts.
I could be mistaken, but I believe it’s already within the city’s capability to levy a payroll, property, or utility tax to fund transit. My understanding is that these taxes are significantly more stable than sale taxes.
I suppose time will tell but I quote Katie in the article. The full quote is:
“The Seattle Transit Measure renewal coming up, obviously, is another thing that’s very much on my mind. Our transit service is worse now than it was in 2020 when that measure was last passed. And that’s a problem. And so I really think we need to chart a course to getting back to 2019 service levels and better. So, that’s a very high priority for me.”
She wrote an op-ed in the times in 2020 saying to raise the sales tax to fund more service: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/invest-in-dont-cut-seattle-transit-service/
Seattle is losing it’s tax base. The latest in the news today was Starbucks opening a new HQ in Nashville. Nobody in Seattle is being laid off but you have the choice of moving your job (same high salary) to Tennessee where your house in Seattle will buy a full on ranch and your taxes will be substantially lower. Tennessee is a pretty nice place; if you don’t want to be driving distance from a ski area. If horses are your thing then Tennessee over Seattle big time.
Nashville isn’t exactly paradise. They just had an ice storm that left a huge proportion of customers without power for several days. They get tornadoes hit somewhere in town every year or two. Summers are like a sauna.
And Tennessee won’t bond transportation projects like Washington does. That means traffic is awful as they’re 20 years late to taking care of any problem — and they actively refuse to fund public transit. All of this in an area that is hard limestone just a few feet below the surface so building anything is expensive and often requires dynamite.
And that’s not getting into the increasing nuttiness of Tennessee state government. The state legislature is considering some of the most hostile laws imaginable. This week their legislators even proposed banning foreign born citizens and dual citizenship citizens from holding public office!
“you have the choice of moving your job (same high salary) to Tennessee where your house in Seattle will buy a full on ranch and your taxes will be substantially lower.”
Can you get around without a car in Nashville or Tennessee? Can your school-age children get around without their parents driving them? Do the children have sidewalks and signalized crosswalks so they don’t get killed by fast-moving cars? Is it a pleasant place to be in? Is there a good range of cultural amenities? Does the state respect your voting rights, civil rights, and personal rights? Will your extended family and friends all move with you?
Maybe it’s worth a smaller house or apartment and higher taxes for all that. At least for some people.
It’s not much of a loss for Seattle to be frank, Seattle metro residents have been pretty ambivalent towards Starbucks for the last 15-20 years. It’s a place to get coffee than a cornerstone for civic pride in the region like it is for Alaska Airlines. Former Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz burned the bridge with Seattle metro residents when he took away the Seattle Supersonics from us. People have not looked kindly upon Schultz or Starbucks because of that.
I’d say Tully’s is more fondly remembered in Seattle than Starbucks at any point in the last 30 or so years.
“Traffic is terrible, no one would want to live there” is the urbanist version of “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
If a city is rapidly growing such that traffic is bad and rents are rising fast, you should assume that it is a desirable place to live & work, even if you specifically don’t desire to live there.
Couple years ago, someone I know moved from Tennessee to near downtown Port Orchard, specifically for a better quality of life.
Among the long list of reasons includes fewer shootings. Tennessee is one of the top 5 states in crime rate.
Washington is ahead of Tennessee in overall crime according to World Population Review. Tennessee is 6th in Violent crime vs Washington 14th. Homicide and aggrevated assaults are double. But the big driver for homicide is Memphis which is #2 in the nation only behind New Orleans. And overall violent crime Memphis is #1 far outpacing Oakland at #2.
Property crime Washington is 5th and Tennessee 12th where we’re about 60% more likely to have our home broken into or car stolen.
Ranking of US Cities By Violent Crime Rate Per 100K in 2024
#1 Memphis 2,501.28
#30 Nashville 1,124.06
#35 Tacoma 1,063.04
#47 Jackson 950.41
#71 Chattanooga 823.74
#85 Seattle 775.07
#95 Knoxville 740.31
Spokane, Lakewood, Vancouver Olympia Federal Way. Yakima and Auburn all fall between 100-200.
Kent and Burien 200-300.
Kennewick, Bellingham, Pasco, Renton 300-400
Everett doesn’t show up until #475 and Richland just makes the cut at #495.
Bellevue wasn’t even on the list but is obviously a major part of the Seattle metro area. So it makes a lot of difference where in a “city” you live.
My read on the situation is that Metro’s budget hole doesn’t arrive until the early 2030s, so King County may end up waiting for a transit-supportive measure until the 2028 election which will have a stronger progressive turnout than the mid-year election (assuming we’re still having presidential elections by then).
It’s shocking to me (and, it seems, to most who aren’t already familiar with the situation) that the roads division of King County’s Dept. of Local Services has basically no baseline funding whatsoever. Maybe it makes sense since the DLS only serves unincorporating King County and many of the major roads are managed by WSDOT as state highways, but it’s still very strange. I don’t know how similar the political vibe of 2014 was to today, but I do get the sense from County politicians’ comments that there’s not much interest in raising taxes across the whole county to pay for work in unincorporated areas.
I think Seattle will have to continue going alone.
The county could have a measure in 2006 and supercede it in 2028, when it becomes clearer what the 2028 financial situation and federal situation will be like. If the 2028 one fails, the 2026 one can continue until it expires.
The problem is how to arrange it on the ballot, and voting psychology. Will Seattle voters check yes to raise taxes for transit twice on one ballot?
It would be odd to spend the County staff effort to build a ballot measure for 2026 and then again in 2028. Do you tell voters you’re going to go back to the ballot in two years? Voters don’t tend to like that.
South and East King County just got light rail; would enough voters out there be willing to boost Metro’s funding to a full 1% sales tax to take a bus to the train?
The last time King County tried a TBD measure, it was in a low-turnout special election. Maybe a mid-year election will have better turnout. Very hard to say.
You don’t have to advertise the second one now, just have one now and a larger one in 2028 that would replace the first one. Or it could subtract the amount in the first one and go on top of it. That way you get something now, and a better chance for a yes vote in the presidential election, which will coincide with more willingness for a higher rate. By 2028 it will be two years since 2026, so voters won’t think “we just had one” but “that was a while ago and a lot has happened since then, and I may not even remember it”.
Is it even true anymore that the electorate in presidential elections is more progressive than in a midterm election? The past few years, we haven’t really seen that at the national level. If anything, nowadays, the people that vote only in presidential elections tend to be more conservative.
That hasn’t been the case here. Here many conservatives vote in every election, while many liberals vote only in presidential elections. So transit measures have their best chance in presidential elections. Part of it may be a mindset issue (many liberals think voting doesn’t matter or won’t change anything). And part of it is that the average liberal is lower income so more of their time and energy goes to the logistics of working long hours or multiple jobs, being single parents, doing necessary errands maybe without a car, etc — leaving them with less time or energy to vote, so they only do it for the “big elections”.
Nationally over the past year there have been a surprising number of Democratic upset wins. That’s probably due to the extreme nature of the federal administration, which is violating or attempting to block people’s constitutional freedoms and is behaving erratically. That’s probably a short-term phenomenon until the federal administration can be stabilized. I doubt it will affect Washington state as much as those states, because Washington state is already majority Democratic so we don’t have as many of our congressional or state officials making those problems worse (so that they must be voted out).
It’s possible Washington’s off-year voting profile is changing, or is changing long-term, but we’ll have to see more election cycles to be sure. One thing that has changed is that the Eyman/anti-tax initiatives used to win many times in the 1990s and 2000s, but several recent attempts have failed. That probably indicates the entire electorate is getting more “good governance” rather than “slash taxes and services”. But whether that means off-year tax-funded projects have a safe chance of winning yet remains to be seen, so we must still be cautious.
Older voters tend to vote in every election. They tend to be more right wing than younger voters. Thus off-year elections tend to be more to the right.
But the influence is relatively subtle and there are a lot of other considerations. Trump was able to get a lot of young, ignorant men to support him. Thus the youth vote wasn’t as left wing as usual. Mid term elections almost always trend towards the opposite party. Thus with Trump in charge, expect lots of extra votes for Democrats. Trump is also very unpopular now. I would have no hesitation with putting a left-wing proposal on the ballot in November for that reason. In contrast, 2027 might have fewer voters (as the House and Senate would no longer be up for grabs) and passing a left-wing measure could be more difficult. In 2028 there might be just as much passion about the presidency but it is hard to tell. A lot depends on who is nominated (by both parties).
“Older voters tend to vote in every election. They tend to be more right wing than younger voters. Thus off-year elections tend to be more to the right.”
Conservative, not right-wing. Older voters in Washington state have a longstanding tendency to be more skeptical on taxes, transit, and a complete social safety net. That reflects their formative years in the mid 20th century. But they’re NOT right-wing in the sense of all being rabid tax-haters, MAGA, anti-civil rights, etc.
There’s been a theory that the Boomers/Silents are leading the dismantling of support for the young and the MAGA wave, but I don’t believe it. I used to think my parents’ generation had all the advantages and mine didn’t, until I realized that things were now worse for my parents too than they had anticipated in their young adulthood, so it’s not just affecting the younger generation, it’s affecting everybody who lives in the 21st century. Likewise, the MAGA wave and the collapse of the social safety net for young people is not led by one particular generation: it’s by some members in all generations.
I think Seattle will have to continue going alone.
That is my guess as well. I think it is highly likely that Seattle will have a measure on the ballot. The timing is right. No reason to wait. Having another county-wide ballot would be odd.
It would be nice to see two or three more maps if feasible.
1. How much daytime service would have to increase where to reach the FTN’s goal.
2. How much total service (including evenings) would have to increase. Maybe excluding night owl. Or maybe just evening service.
3. How much night owl service would have to increase.
This would show the deltas between the current service and the goal. And to the extent that more frequent service increases ridership and rider satisfaction, how much of that pent-up demand the current network is leaving unaddressed. Or in other words, how to get Seattle’s frequency up to a level closer to Chicago, Vancouver BC, and San Francisco.
For instance, several corridors are already at the daytime goal, such as east Seattle to 15th, and the RapidRide lines and 7 (future R). But many of those are lagging in evening service, like the 8 and 11. And others are too low both day and evening, like the 5 and 50.
I also see some reductions compared to 2019. The 65/67 (35th NE, Roosevelt) were 10 minutes in 2019; now their goal is 15 minutes. The 10-minute goal has moved from 35th NE to 25th NE. I have no strong opinion on this: I always thought 35th was a bit high for its minimal retail destinations. I wonder what the reason for 25th is though: it doesn’t seem more dense than 35th. I’d expect the 67 to remain high because of the higher-density streets it serves (Roosevelt, U-District, Northgate), but this may reflect an actual shift in how many riders switched to Northgate Link, and Roosevelt Way doesn’t have as much remaining demand as previously estimated (or that the 10-minute boost in the 2010s should be seen as a stopgap until Northgate Link started, since we don’t know what the planners in the 2010s intended for the 2020s).
For instance, several corridors are already at the daytime goal, such as east Seattle to 15th, and the RapidRide lines and 7
I don’t think the 7 is at the daytime goal. I think it is supposed to run better than every ten minutes. For a while it ran every 7.5 minutes which would be consistent with the goal. It got cutback late, so it might be more of a driver shortage issue rather than a funding issue.
But I see your overall point. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how much funding is required to reach this level of service, assuming we follow the current network. But I see no reason why we should be wedded to the current network. Restructures might help us achieve the goal more easily.
Restructures are also a lot easier (politically) with additional funding. This happened with the U-Link restructure. People lost their one seat ride from various north end locations to downtown. But the bus ran twice as often to the UW. So the transfer was a lot more palatable and a lot of people (especially those headed to the UW) came out ahead. The same sort of thing was supposed to happen with the 255. Riders were supposed to get a a more frequent trip to the UW in exchange for losing their one-seat ride to downtown. It didn’t work out that way. Service got cut back and people still complain about the change. In contrast, I’ve never heard anyone complain about similar changes in the north end.
I also see the network as more of a guideline than a detailed plan. Routes are bound to change. The city will change. To a certain extent they anticipated that. For example the 8 is supposed to be a “better than 10 minutes” route, but only from Uptown to MLK. From MLK to Mount Baker is only listed as 15 minutes. Thus they are anticipating a change (or at least accepting of one). In contrast, a lot of the goals seem to accept the current routing. For example, it has the 10 and 12 running every fifteen minutes. If the 12 instead followed 10 to Thomas and branched there it would alter the map.
Thus I wouldn’t put too much stock in the 25th versus 35th situation. It is quite possible they were anticipating the 372 becoming RapidRide, which was the plan way back when. That might happen but I don’t see it as inevitable. Likewise if we adopted the 5/75 pairing then the 125th/Roosevelt/130th corridor would have better than ten minute headways while Lake City Way would vary between better than ten minutes and fifteen minutes depending on which part you are on.
“It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how much funding is required to reach this level of service”
What I want to see is color-coding based on how many more bus trips have to be added. That’s how Metro ultimately publicizes its changes: “Add 6 weekday trips and 50 Sunday trips to bring the 107 up to 15 minutes both day and evening”.
You can multiply that by the cost/hour to get the total cost, but that’s more of an issue for Metro and the governments than for us. They can calculate the total cost and tell us in the measure. What people can ride is a bus run, not an amount of money. Bus runs are what make the difference in whether you can get around the city easily on transit and fufill your travel needs.
What I want to see is color-coding based on how many more bus trips have to be added. That’s how Metro ultimately publicizes its changes: “Add 6 weekday trips and 50 Sunday trips to bring the 107 up to 15 minutes both day and evening”.
That wouldn’t be that hard, just tedious.
“Restructures might help us achieve the goal more easily.”
Increasing service hours and restructuring gets too complicated. There are multiple restructuring models that different people are advocating, and they all have tradeoffs. We mustn’t make increasing service hours dependent on some particular restructure proposal: that would turn off people who don’t like that particular restructure. Even with a restructure, we need more hours to reach the FTN goals. There are tradeoffs between making certain trips easier and other trips more difficult that can’t really be addressed at the level of deciding whether to increase service hours, and the controversy would be distracting and could lead to a greater chance of failure.
Metro already has service guidelines and restructure goals. We need to make them better, and get Metro to follow through on them more. But that’s really a separate issue from increasing the service hours. The most prudent thing is to raise the service hours to the FTN level for the current network. Then any efficiencies gained by restructuring will create even more service hours — a win-win. Because there’s a chance we’ll fail at the restructures. We failed on the Pine/Broadway/Denny/Seneca-related restructures, because we couldn’t overcome Metro’s, politicians’, and opponents’ opposition. We need to ensure that even if we fail with these, we’ll still have the FTN level of service on the network we do have, not some lower level that leaves mobility gaps (like the 5 and 12 being 20-30 minutes, or the 8 having 20 minute evenings).
We mustn’t make increasing service hours dependent on some particular restructure proposal
I’m not suggesting that. I’m just saying we really need to restructure the routes. That should be obvious. Anyone who has read transit books by Walker or Higashide would agree. Anyone who has read Metro’s own service guidelines (which are based on common-sense routing principles) would agree. There are also a lot of planners (current and retired) that agree. Since we need to to restructure the routes, it makes sense to do that at a time we are increasing service, not decreasing it. That is just common sense. It is like increasing service on a route after they make it faster. But again, I’m pretty sure the transit authors discuss this idea (although I can’t find a reference).
It is also clear that we can’t implement what is on the map without a restructure. You can’t have the 8 running 7.5 minutes on one segment and then 15 minutes on another. Not without a restructure. This is a good example for mixing the restructure with an increase in service. Assume for a second that we do something simple and just turn the 8 back at MLK & Madison. Assume we do it without increasing headways. So now the 8 runs every fifteen minutes to the west of that point and every half hour to the south. We take the extra savings and just apply it system wide. A lot of people would hate that. Now, in contrast, assume that this restructure occurs with an increase in frequency. To the west it runs every 7.5 minutes and to the south it runs every 15. This would be much more popular.
The same is true if we make a bigger restructure. A simple example would be branching at that same spot and sending half the buses to Madison Park. If that happens and the main trunk runs every 6 minutes then riders at Madison Park (and MLK) would get 12 minute frequency. Some people at Madison Park would complain, but the improvement in frequency would be so big that a lot would favor it.
Again, this is what happened with the U-Link restructure. It is important to remember how controversial this was. There were plenty of people — including those who normally fully support aggressive restructures — that didn’t want to truncate the express buses. I remember d. p. (who contributed to this proposal) opposing those changes. He wanted to wait until Link got to the U-District. But Metro made dramatic changes anyway. But despite forcing tens of thousands of riders to take a different (and often slower) route to downtown the results were positive. Overall transit ridership went up substantially. The combination of extra service and the restructure went hand in hand at it worked out really well.
Again, I’m not saying it has to happen that way, but it is easier, politically, when it does. Either way, restructures will influence service levels (and vice-versa).
“we can’t implement what is on the map without a restructure. You can’t have the 8 running 7.5 minutes on one segment and then 15 minutes on another.”
Yes, SDOT must have some routing assumption behind it, although it’s not clear what. That will emerge as they have more hours to work with, so that it’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul as much.
“I wouldn’t put too much stock in the 25th versus 35th situation. It is quite possible they were anticipating the 372 becoming RapidRide, which was the plan way back when.”
The SDOT FTN was written in the last year or two, wasn’t it? That’s long after RapidRide 372 was withdrawn.
“I also see the network as more of a guideline than a detailed plan.”
It’s a statement of frequency principle, not a wedding to the current routes. But it also reflects where SDOT thinks 10-minute service is needed, and 15-minute service is needed. So the future service must reflect those corridor decisions (e.g., level of service on 35th Ave NE), even if the routes change some details (like whether the 75 serves 130th and Shoreline College). The FTN is more the principle that there should be 15-minute service on Sand Point Way, not getting into whether Sand Pointers should have a one-seat ride to Northgate or Shoreline South or Shoreline College. If they have more frequency, they’ll find it easier to transfer to any of those.
The map also has some oddities, where part of a street is high-frequency but the part beyond it or a tail is lower-frequency. How can routes achieve that? We’ll have to see.
It’s a statement of frequency principle, not a wedding to the current routes.
Yes, exactly.
But it also reflects where SDOT thinks 10-minute service is needed
Only at that moment and time. And even then it can be considered more of a guideline, rather than a blueprint. Even the choice of ranges is arbitrary. Why not run a bus ever 12 minutes? That isn’t on there, even though it is a common headway. It is especially common as a branch (with the trunk running every 6 minutes). It is pretty obvious why they don’t have that level of granularity — they want to keep things a bit more broad. This is a guideline — a set of broadly defined goals — not something that has to be met exactly as specified.
I can also see areas where it is simply flawed. For some reason they don’t have buses running through the UW campus.
Even if you put aside the mistakes as well as the ranges, there are bound to be disagreements. If this was an actual blueprint then the debates over particulars should occur with lots of public feedback (like a restructure). When we debate this map on this forum (on this thread) it is a good mental exercise but ultimately it doesn’t matter. What are we supposed to do, send a letter to our representative telling them to change the map? That would be silly. It is a fluid process, as it should be.
With that in mind, allow me to critique the map. I want to be clear. Overall I think the map is great. But I see some flaws. In some areas we actually exceed the recommendations and should exceed the recommendations. For example, 85th in Greenwood. We have two buses along the corridor, both of which connect to a Link station. That means better than 10 minute headways (assuming they are timed correctly). Yet it is only slated for 15. It is easy to chalk this up as luck (it would be OK with 15 minutes service) but I disagree. At the very least it should have 10 but given the routing in the area (which I fully support) it makes sense to have better than 10 minute headways.
I also have quibbles when it comes to some of the low frequency routes. The bus to Summit should run at least every fifteen minutes. We still turn back a Metro 4 bus in downtown every half hour. That bus should just go to Summit and provide those riders with 15 minute headways. The cost would be minimal and the benefit would be huge. They also show a bus on 15th between Roosevelt and Pinehurst. This is basically the old 73. But they plan on running it every half hour (or maybe every 20 minutes). This is flawed. That is what the 73 used to do, and it is why it failed. Riders just used more frequent buses. That corridor needs to have frequent service or nothing. These two areas are similar — routes running infrequently should be coverage routes (i. e. they should provide a substantial benefit in terms of walking-distance to buses). The 73 doesn’t do that. Even if you support sending a bus from Pinehurst to the U-District (and I do) it should either be frequent enough to warrant running on 15th or just run down Roosevelt.
I have some other issues. In West Seattle the H Line corridor is 7.5 minutes, the C Line corridor is 10 minutes and the corridor for the 21 is 15. That seems off. It seems to me it should be C and H Line every 10 minutes and the 21 every 12. The Magnolia buses aren’t quite there but Magnolia is always tricky. It needs a restructure and it isn’t obvious what it should be. I’ll let them slide on that one (especially since I don’t see an easy fix). South of Roosevelt Station I would have better than 10 minutes on The Ave and through campus (by combining several routes). But again, they don’t show buses running through campus.
“Why not run a bus ever 12 minutes? That isn’t on there, even though it is a common headway.”
Because 10 minutes is better than 12. The whole point of the FTN is to articulate a good service level. I think the only reason Metro has 12 minute service is, “We believe this corridor should have 10 minutes, but 12 minutes is the most we can do right now.” And ditto for 20 minutes: it’s a stopgap for 15 minutes. So you don’t need 12-minute or 20-minute colors because in the target system they wouldn’t exist.
“For example, it has the 10 and 12 running every fifteen minutes. If the 12 instead followed 10 to Thomas and branched there it would alter the map.”
That’s an example of a restructure disagreement.
1. Metro wants the current 10 and 12, and 2 and 11. Because it proposed it, and pushed against anything else, and is still pushing against anything else. Metro says the current 11 needs higher frequency — and the current 10, 12, and 49 don’t. Apparently it wants to increase frequency in the downtown-Olive-John corridor, and it seems to think Madison Park needs it too. So that will be one of Metro’s priorities when it assigns more hours, if it doesn’t change its mind again between now and then.
2. You want the 12 to follow the 10 to 15th & Thomas, and then turn east for the 19th tail. You think this is blindingly obvious and transit best practices. But you’re one person. Your position hasn’t been joined by other transit activists or organizations or a group of local residents, and hasn’t been vetted much by others whether it’s really the best transit best practice for this area. Metro and the politicians haven’t acknowledged it, and they’re the decision makers, so it will be an uphill battle to get it implemented.
3. I think the best route for this area is the old 11 (Pine-Madison). This should be the most frequent route on Capitol Hill. Now that the 11 has moved, the 12 has inherited this role — at least east to 19th. The 12 doesn’t address 23rd, Madison Valley or Madison Park, but at least it addresses it east to 19th. So I’d like to see the 12 become more frequent, and to restore the old 11 routing. I’m just one person too. But my intuition is based on 46 years of experience going to and between various destinations and people’s residences on Capitol Hill, Midtown, Madison Valley, and Madison Park, and seeing other people’s trips. And 22 years of direct experience living in this area, from 2003 to present. The Pine-Madison corridor connects the most activity centers and destinations, and it’s in the middle for people going to destinations north and south of it.
So that’s three different ideas of what routing or restructure is best. There are doubtless more. All of them have tradeoffs: they benefit some trips but unbenefit other trips. In the end it will have to be a compromise, and it will be weighted heavily by whatever Metro and SDOT want at the time. In spite of that, the fundamental need for more service hours remains, no matter which alternative is chosen.
Despite being RapidRide-lite and having millions of dollars in capital improvements, the 40 drops to 30-minute headways after 7PM on weekends. Fifteen minute headways until 10PM to match the 62 are badly needed and also shouldn’t cost too much.
There is a new relevant factor at the countywide level: New Link extensions now open or will open in just four weeks to Shoreline, Mercer Island, Bellevue, Redmond, Kent and Federal Way. Stride will add Redmond, Burien, LFP, Kenmore, Bothell and Renton. And Des Moines and Newcastle are just a few blocks from Stride (near future) or Link.
Link was mostly previously portrayed as the “future” strategy while Metro was the “current” strategy in prior referenda.
This is no longer the case. Link is here! There are many who can now or in a few weeks patronize transit by only riding ST vehicles. Notably, this is a new 2026 status for about 500K residents who don’t live or vote inside Seattle but have Link with about another 300K that will soon have access to Stride. In total, that’s a population similar to Seattle (800K).
Any future Metro measure likely has to demonstrate relevancy to Link and Stride going forward. I’m not sure how that it will be portrayed, but the chronological messaging no longer is convincing.
Oops … Stride will add Kirkland (not Redmond)
Anyone who knows transit knows the vast difference between what ST serves and what Metro serves. This includes politicians whose grasp of transit is weak, people who ride Metro, and people who think there should be local bus service. Some people will ride only Link or express routes and drive to P&Rs, but even some of those know local Metro service is important for the city as a whole, essential workers, and their own coworkers.
Take Northgate Link. It has stations at 37th, 43rd, 65th, and 100th. But many people live in between, like I did at 55th, and are going to places in between like I did to 40th and 80th or on to Eastlake. In the Eastside, East Link serves its stations, but it doesn’t serve Crossroads, or 8th & 124th, or Factoria or the area between NE 8th and Factoria, or Bellevue College or Eastgate.
Stride 1/2/3 will replace existing ST Express routes, not Metro routes.
Unlike the City of Seattle, most voters in these newly served cities never or rarely use transit. When they do it’s usually to get into Seattle.
While I think that our regional electorate understands the need for local service, having Link and Stride does change the perspective of “need” within a segment of the non-riding voters who are a large voting block. I think it’s a political mistake to act like Link and Stride are not worthy of being mentioned in the renewal discussion. ST Express is just buses, while Link and Stride now have a notable physical presence.
Like I said, I don’t know how they should be mentioned. I’m only saying that they shouldn’t be ignored.
The proper way to mention them is that both the ST improvements and the Metro improvements combine for a better network that serves many more people and trips than either can do alone.
The 342 and 167 were never restored. Stride is also replacing former Metro service but not quite as good of a one seat ride.
I think there’s an argument to be made that people will support more bus service because it will connect to Link. Eastsiders are going to find out real fast how quick those parking garages fill up
Yep. The Shoreline garages are apparently full now. I’m not sure how full the Federal Way garages are. We should know pretty quickly what the cross-lake opening does to Eastside garage demand.
Voters like to know what they’re voting for. Metro likes to develop long suburban routes — but voters may respond to shorter, more frequent routes feeding Link better with augmented Metro funds. I can’t really say. They may even want things like Metro Flex if service is supplemented with funding at a suburban city level.
My bigger point is that I think that Link can’t be summarily ignored in a transit referendum any more. It’s too important now. The question becomes how best to get riders to Link since they’ll be unable to park at a station. For example, a referendum that promises to meet every other scheduled Link train (15 minutes peak and 20 minutes off peak) with a route that will get someone home from a station within 20 minutes would be very persuasive.
But outside of Seattle, density is very distributed. It may not even be “low” necessarily, but it’s very distributed. That means they need a lot of bus routes to accomplish what you wish for, for everybody.
I think routes should highlight major roads and focus on apartment complexes instead. Then toss in Metro Flex, and a small P&R per area to make a fast bus connection to Link / Stride / ST Express / or any Metro express route. If ridership grows to even fill those P&Rs, then obviously Metro can justify more buses and replace Metro Flex with DART routes.
Additionally these routes should avoid making deviations that add too much time, even if it serves an extra apartment. A local route can supplement those deviations instead. The connections should be direct and fast for people to agree to using a bus instead of driving and parking to Link.
I wish the Metro Connects plan had more parity with the SDOT Frequent Transit Network. The psychology of waiting and the reality of many transfers makes headway benefits pretty nonlinear: 10 minute headways are much better than 15 minute headways, and since Metro Connects makes much less concrete promises than the SDOT FTN, it really seems like we might end up stuck with 15 minute peak headways where we could have had 10 minute headways in the city. I hope any county initiative is paired with as much transparency as the STM would be so we know before we vote.
The rest of the county should definitely have (and should fund) better service, but until proven otherwise, this seems like a case where people in the city get binned with more skeptical suburban voters whom they have to appease with a less appropriate and less ambitious initiative than what would get approved in the city. This is how we have a light rail system with an alignment and stop spacing that is often inappropriate for the city, even though that’s where the majority of ridership comes from. It sure seems like it might also be how we end up locking in insufficient service levels for a couple years in the parts of the county with the highest potential for ridership.
Metro was more effective in the 2010s when Metro Connects was written and it had the bold RapidRide C, D, and E restructures, the 2014 cut restructure, and the U-Link restructure. Since 2020 it has gotten more timid and less transparent again. We thought the 8-Madison route (Uptown-Madison Park), the 49 split (a north-south route), and the 2-Pine route were waiting for the RapidRide G restructure or 2 Line restructure, but those came and went without those Metro Connects routes. I asked the planners during and afterward whether that meant those concepts were dead, and they wouldn’t give a straightforward answer: just that they’re not doing them now, but they’re still alive and might be implemented in the future. But they couldn’t give any certainty on when or whether they’d be implemented, or what criteria would trigger them. So we’re left in limbo on whether Metro will implement them someday or not, so people can’t plan their housing/work decisions on what the network will be like in five or ten or twenty years, they just have to guess and hope they guess right.
Nice piece and discussion.
The question is posed: city or county measure? Clearly, the governments are having behind the scenes discussions. Perhaps the answer is both. Both have needs; both have TBD; could they be layered and interdependent? Could different Seattle rates kick in with affirmative or negative votes on the countywide measure? The unincorporated roads fund is a huge issue; the lack of transit service in South King County is a huge issue. How to get to an affirmative vote? I assert running an election in April, as in 2014, is a way to lose. Seattle is likely to vote yes. Seattle has also benefited from decades of better transit service funded by the county. I expect that about 60 percent of Metro service is in Seattle. It is effective there as its has a walkable street grid. But Seattle also has higher incomes; South King County has lower incomes and latent demand for transit service.
There are many households not served at all; see the Metro system map for the southeast:
https://kingcounty.gov/en/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/maps/system/08302025/metro-system-map-se
Metro Connects is largely unfunded. It cannot be a good “blueprint” for the network. It did not have much rigor. There should be rigor in the restructure projects; they also have fixed service budgets. The service guidelines are better for the projects; they follow the geometry of transit: route spacing, stop spacing, deviations, pathways, etc. There are examples of conflict between MC and the guidelines.
In route spacing, MC has “too many” routes in Seattle; SDOT has the Harrison Street project a few blocks from Denny Way; routes 8 and 48 are too close together for maximum ridership attraction in the Central Area. MC predates the G Line and several restructures. It would be better to have fewer routes and shorter waits.
The SDOT FTN could use a reset. It still shows the Haller Lake local streets; they have had low ridership for decades; the network should be reset around the Pinehurst Link station. SDOT did not include the Ave. The FTN does include the streamlined Route 62 in East Green Lake; so, Seattle needs a paving project. The FTN does include the Roosevelt couplet; it will be choked with the J Line, Route 67, and routes 31-32. SDOT was dreaming of the Roosevelt BRT.
The Wilson BAT lanes on Denny Way and potential resets around the Judkins and Pinehurst Link stations are hopeful.
There is room for more route consolidations; they yield shorter waits and attract more ridership. In the past, there were the Aurora Consolidation in 1999 and the Ambaum Restructure in 2004; they are now the E and H lines. The G Line changes were the opposite of a consolidation; coverage was retained and longer headway and waits were provided nearby routes. Metro went the correct direction on Mapleleaf by focusing service on Roosevelt Way NE; but the 2024 changes were a set back as waits are longer again; it is time to consider the RossB consolidation of routes 67 and 348. With the smaller STBD (STM) in 2020, Route 67 is less frequent.
“MC predates the G Line and several restructures”
Hasn’t Metro been updating Metro Connects as its preferences evolve? It used to have the 48-Rainier route when that was popular, but when the city turned against it, it disappeared from the map.
On the other hand, we were assuming the 8-Madison, 49-Beacon Hill, and 106-Boren were just waiting for the RapidRide G or East Link restructures to trigger them, but those came and went and they weren’t implemented but they’re still on the map. Yet the 2-Pine wasn’t implemented and a new 12-Pine was, and the map was updated for those. I asked the Metro planners both during and after the G restructure why the 8 and 49 concepts weren’t implemented or offered as alternatives, whether that means they’re dead now, or whether they might still happen someday, and if so when or what criteria would trigger them, but they never gave me a straightforward answer. They just said they’re not doing them now, they’re not dead, and they might happen in the future, but they couldn’t say when or under what circumstance. That just leaves people in limbo for years, not knowing whether the network will change or how, so that leaves people uneasy not knowing whether it will be easy or hard to get to certain places, and not knowing whether it’s a good idea to move somewhere or work somewhere or whether that will be better or worse in a few years if the network changes.
Can’t Metro at least be more transparent about what it really wants in the future, and which things will or would likely be in future service changes? Rather than just saying nothing, or giving us a long-term map that it takes some things from but not others and never telling us why it chose these but not those?