Stride 3 BRT Part 2: Kenmore, Bothell, and I-405

34 Replies to “Stride 3 BRT Part 2: Kenmore, Bothell, and I-405”

1. They should have route 251 (Woodinville to Redmond) start in Bothell to connect to brt)

   1. Yeah a Woodinville to SR 522 transfer hub express is too short to run as its own route, but it probably needs to run more frequent than 251..

   2. Agree. I think I suggested this as a comment on another thread. An extension of 251 would be a good candidate for all-day service. Sound Transit can still run its Woodinville->Bellevue express for supplement peak service.

      The only problem is the bureaucracy. When Sound Transit wants one part of a bus route and King County Metro wants another part, neither agency wants to pay for the combined route. But, it should be a solvable problem.

      1. Sound Transit can still run its Woodinville->Bellevue express for supplement peak service.

         If there is/was/ough’ta be a good connection (all day every day) from Woodinville P&R to the Transit Center Presented by WSDOT then the only reason for this peak only express is that ST expects crush loading on S2 south of SR-522. If that’s the main purpose then it makes more sense to just run extra service from Brickyard to DT Bellevue (the S2X). Brickyard will have the fancy new center access which means a big operational saving over the leg from 405/522 through the Woodinville maze. A new shuttle route or 251 tail should extend through the Stride stop into DT Bothell and loop back from UW/Cascada. Avoid using 405 and the outside ramp access at Beardslee. That’s going to be like the 520 to Mercer merge across all lanes of I-5.

      2. “Avoid using 405 and the outside ramp access at Beardslee. That’s going to be like the 520 to Mercer merge across all lanes of I-5.”

         Not sure what service will need to cross all lane like 256 does from SR 520 to Mercer St. Plus the I-405 express lane is buffer (and partially barrier) separated, so won’t allow such maneuver anyway.

      3. “Sound Transit can still run its Woodinville->Bellevue express for supplement peak service.”

         or somehow get Community transit to agree to have 908 stop at Woodinville.

   3. Extending the 239 might be a good option as well, as well as more reliable/frequent. I don’t know what will happen to that once the K line starts though.

      1. The routing of the 239 is such that an extension to Woodinville would make for a very contorted route that doubles back on itself a lot. I could see Metro doing it, if it happens to be operationally convenient. But, from a rider usability standpoint, an extension of the 251 would be much better. Bothell to Redmond via Woodinville is a straight shot, but Woodinville to Totem Lake via Bothell would be a crazy detour.

      2. Yeah it would be awkward routing. I’m thinking more in terms of congestion and frequency, from my (limited) experience redmond-woodinville rd is essentially unusable at peak

      3. During peak hours, Woodinville would presumably get their express bus to Bellevue, so they wouldn’t have to depend on a bus coming from Redmond. During off-peak hours, SR-202 is generally fine.

      4. redmond-woodinville rd is essentially unusable at peak

         Having lived 23 years in Woodinville and most of that working in Redmond I can confirm this is the case. The roundabouts helped a little at the north end but you still have a huge multi cycle wait at 124th and then you are stop and go all the way in and through Redmond. True, off peak it’s not a problem but peak, by definition is when the most people want to use it. And since it is just a peak hours problem there’s zero chance additional lanes will be added. It would be a tough sell but a transit only corridor from Chateau Ste Michelle to Willows would do the trick.

2. A short shuttle between Woodinville P&R and the 522/405 exchange is very strange. Again, why not just run every/other Stride 3 bus to Woodinville? That would be much easier to understand and ride than this peak/off-peak business being proposed. Or if you want less frequency run every 3rd bus to Woodinville. Either way that seems like a much superior solution.

   1. I believe that was the original service plan, Stephen.

      A challenge with that is frequency spacing. The Woodinville runs would be a bit tricky to run and get the spacing right in between those runs that end at 405. It’s not as easy as it would be in an exclusive busway where there are ways to synchronize buses in realtime.

      I don’t think it should be hard to do given better dispatching and geolocation tools now in vehicles and in computers. Slotting in buses from longer runs looks easier than ever — as long as congestion isn’t psunitive on the travel speeds. But even congestion info is available in realtime so there are ways to make that happen. And with the Stride OMF nearby, putting an extra bus run on the street to fill a gap looks like it would only take a few minutes to do.

      1. Is it really impossible?
         It is similar to 24/33 through-route with 124 and it may not provide 124 perfectly even headway, but it seems fine the end of the day.

         To S3’s benefit, at least it has a layover facility at SR 522 transfer hub where it can time its Shoreline-bound departure however it needs to.

      2. Or I should just cite how ST522 operates today.
         ST can send one in 3 or 4 or 5 S3 bus to Woodinville however they can afford. That’s still better than forcing full transfer for everybody.

3. Aloha from the North. It’s also a major feature of this segment that STride and the Community Transit Green Line extension share all three station in Bothell, giving STride users from the east side access to frequent all-day BRT service directly north to Paine Field and Boeing (via Seaway Transit Center). This also creates a high quality connection for residents along the Green Line corridor in south Everett and Mill Creek who work in Bellevue.
   https://engage.communitytransit.org/swiftgreenext

   1. Yeah it is pretty interesting that STRIDE will share the same Downtown Bothell corridor with Swift Green. Community Transit said they are working with Sound Transit and City of Bothell to design the NE 185th transit corridor.
      But I see this more as a upgrade of Bothell Way transit service from semi-frequent to true-frequent. For those who live in Snohomish County and work in Bellevue, they would transfer at Canyon Park with or without SWIFT Green extension. That’s where a lot of people catch 532/535 today.

   2. hi yeah i forgot to mention that, thanks for reminding about that

      I actually wondering if they could further extend that to woodinville one day if stride 3 doesn’t head there.

   3. Good precedent for a Woodinville-UW route sharing the Stride stations between Bothell and Kirkland. Then if you’re at Totem Lake, you can go to either Bellevue or the U-District, or either Lynnwood or Woodinville.

      1. It wouldn’t be surprise to me if they would make 256 to make all the Stride stops it can. So 256 is sort of that 405 to 520 connection although it doesn’t directly go to UW (but people can transfer at SR 520 inline stations) and it doesn’t run all-day.
         Or maybe when 256 is more popular 5 years from now, King County Metro or Sound Transit will give Woodinville/Brickyard can have its own UW all-day service like Redmond having 542.

4. My brother lives near downtown Bothell, and walks to Bothell Way to catch the Metro/Sound Transit bus to Seattle. This Stride route would make those trips much more easy for him.

5. Thinking a bit more about Woodinville, as long as the end destination is downtown Seattle, even if S3 did extend to Woodinville, you’d likely want to transfer anyway, to the S1 bus, since a straight shot down 405 is a much quicker path to Link (the 2-line instead of 1-line) vs. taking a surface street with a bunch of stoplights to the 1-line at I-5/145th.

   So, the forced transfer to reach S3 from Woodinville might not even matter, at least for trips to DT Seattle. (Of course, for more local destinations, such as Kenmore, Bothell, or even north Seattle, that’s a different story).

   1. Shhh, don’t tell Bothell it’s wasting its money on Stride 3.

      1. To be clear, S3 is still plenty useful for Bothell. It’s Woodinville, where the value is more questionable.

   2. When I had little understanding of difference among SWIFT/STRIDE/RapidRide in the region, my first impression of seeing S3 was that it is not a freeway express type of BRT like S1/S2, why wasn’t it a RapidRide?

      1. The naming of the transit services around here is done by what agency funds it and not how the actual service is like. Sound Transit is a bit more notorious with mis-naming stuff though.

         * Link 1 Line (light rail)
         * Link 2 Line (light rail)
         * Tacoma Link (streetcar)
         * Stride 1/2 (freeway center running brt)
         * Stride 3 (curbside avenue running brt)
         * Rapidride (curbside avenue running brt) by king county metro

      2. 522 is a state highway, so it fulfills the criteria of being mostly highway-running. Stride has limited stops like Swift, while RapidRide is full stop. BRT means it’s full-time frequent and faster than a regular bus; it doesn’t have to be freeway-running. The best BRTs run on arterials, for the same reason the best metro lines run on arterials, because that’s where the concentrations of pedestrians are that would use it.

      3. “ 522 is a state highway, so it fulfills the criteria of being mostly highway-running.”
         You can say the same thing to A and E Line. I think it really just comes down to who wants to fund such service.

      4. I like the term Arterial Rapid Transit, which includes Stride 3, the Swift network, and RR A & E. S1 & S2 are something different, perhaps Freeway BRT?

         The FTA has formal definitions. You can see that with the FTA, Sound Transit reports Tacoma Link under “streetcar” not light rail.

         https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/national-transit-database-ntd-glossary

      5. I would have called Stride 3 a RapidRide. However, as an ST service it makes sense to call it Stride. That’s because it will abide by ST fare and operational rules.

         Honestly, Stride is actually enhanced ST Express rebranded. ST wanted to differentiate the service quality and frequency but at the end of the day it’s still a bus vehicle.

         And at some point, the larger challenge of having two major transit providers offering similar services with an urban area will have to be reckoned. ST is no longer primarily a niche transit provider. Integrated branding seems inevitable.

      6. ““ 522 is a state highway, so it fulfills the criteria of being mostly highway-running.”

         “You can say the same thing to A and E Line.”

         And ST’s long-range plan has high-capacity transit on Aurora, so we may see Stride there someday.

      7. “Stride is actually enhanced ST Express rebranded.”

         That’s all it has to be. The problem with ST Express is it’s not always frequent. Fix that, and it doesn’t matter what you call it.

      8. S3 will actually be less frequent than the buses it replaces.

         Currently, the 372 + 522 average 8 buses/hour along SR522. S3 will only run 4 buses/hour, maybe 6 during peak.

6. Appreciate the coverage of this exciting project!

   Couple of small corrections – Kenmore’s Downtown Plan you pointed to was our mostly completed 2003 plan. We are starting work this year to update our Downtown Plan for the future. The picture you used for downtown Kenmore was a planning drawing from many years ago – showing “planned” buildings that have been built for years.

   And re:Kenmore P&R, the vision has always been something mixed-use and transit-oriented. We have talked with Metro (who owns the P&R), ST, and other property owners, about long-term planning for the P&R and the surrounding area. In a perfect world we’d be able to leverage the new parking spaces to be shared parking for commuters, customers, and residents. All of that said, it is a ways off.

   Looking forward to the S3 line!

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