Spring 2026 Service Change

48 Replies to “Spring 2026 Service Change”

1. Will the new bus stops under I-90 at the west end of Judkins Park Station, serving routes 7 and 106, be open at the start of service on Opening Day, Saturday, March 28? Or not until after the ribbon cutting? Or will they not even be ready yet?

   Likewise, will the new bus stop at the east end of Judkins Park Station be open before the ribbon cutting?

   1. It will surely be in the early morning. When has Metro ever started a new routing in the middle of the day? Metro doesn’t know exactly when the ribbon cutting will be, because even Sound Transit doesn’t know: it depends on whether the speeches start on time or run long. The only issue would be whether the bus stops are accessible or if those fences are blocking them, but I can’t imagine ST removing the fences exactly at ribbon-cutting time, so the sidewalk will either be clear in the early morning or it won’t be that day.

      1. The fences are already removed.

   2. Unless otherwise mentioned in a rider alert, I would always assume start of service that day, so the first trips of those routes will be using the new stops.

2. Route 8 is moving from Jackson to Massachusetts, not from Yesler to Massachusetts. It has long jogged to 23rd between Yesler and Jackson.

   1. I read that to mean the 23rd Ave deviation will now run from Yesler to Massachusetts St.

3. “Most of the Metro fleet has ORCA readers at each door, so riders are expected to tap in when they board (with an ORCA card or credit card).”

   I’ll be driving the 255 next shakeup and I’m already regretting the decision. Two doors on 6900 series coaches without back door readers 😱

   Don’t forget curb readers…. Please! Far too many people don’t take advantage of available curb readers on the B Line (Crossroads !) or fumble for their ORCA card at the front door (everywhere). And, of course, there are still a lot of bus stops missing concrete pads near the back doors, though they are lightly traveled in my experience.

   1. Have you noticed a reduction in change or cash fumbling since debit card fumbling was rolled out?

   2. This is going to be a disaster for east base routes. The 372 is also impacted heavily as a lot of uw students ride that.

      Is there a reason the 68/6900s don’t have rear door readers?

      1. A couple South base routes also use the 6900 series buses. Most of them are 8100 series, but occasionally they run a 6900.

   3. So what is Metro telling drivers to do if the rear doors don’t have readers?

4. There is a cut-and-paste typo in the Route 31 passage with a West Seattle address.

   1. Thanks for catching that, fixed.

5. Will there be a first ride on Friday for politicians, officials, and media?

   1. Press preview ride is on Thursday.

6. Surprised that they didn’t make 165/A Line southbound pull over under Kent-Des Moines station.

   1. Those southbound and Highline College need an overpass.

7. You have done nothing for Route 79. It needs weekend service; there is none at this time. It would also be nice to have it arrive every half hour rather than once an hour.

   1. FYI, the people making this blog aren’t actually part of any transit agency. They’re just volunteers running a blog.

      If you really want to be heard on this, you might do well contacting your city council representative. Contact info is here:
      https://www.seattle.gov/council/members

      Ring ’em up and tell them why it’s important, and they’ll likely bring it up to the people who make the decisions. Plus, their word carries more weight than any of ours.

   2. All the STB editors and authors are amateur transit fans. Some work in adjacent fields like engineering or environment (in the sense of “environmental review”, not “environmentalism”), but none are affiliated with a transit agency or a city/county council that oversees transit. I don’t think any have ever worked for such, though I’m not 100% sure. We are all unpaid volunteers, just giving our own opinions on transit and what the agencies are doing or should do.

      Yes, the best way to get weekend service on the 79 is to tell both Metro and your city councilmember and mayor. Metro may be reluctant because it has a limited number of service hours so it would have to take it from another route, and route 79 may not score high on its ridership or coverage metrics. Metro has a list of corridors that are underserved per the metrics, meaning it should have more service and Metro will do it when it gets sufficient hours someday. I don’t know where route 79 scores in that regard.

      The 79 was created because people had been asking for decades for bus service on NE 75th Street. In the past there was clamor for bus service on Denny Way, NE 40th Street, and 23rd Avenue: this led to the creation of the 8, 31/32 (originally as a variation of the 74), and 48. All of these were so popular that Metro repeatedly expanded them with more frequency and weekend/evening service. So Metro was hoping for that when it created the 79, 62 and 40. I think route 79 ridership is still anemic, so it may not be on the list for expansion.

      If Metro isn’t interested, a city councilmember can rattle Metro’s chain, and might be able to get Metro to raise its priority. The next service change it could go into would be September. I’m not sure if September is finalized yet; the King County council vote would probably around May or June.

8. Such a waste that the ST 550 will keep operating until the fall.

9. Not mentioned in the summaries, but on Sundays, the 2 Madrona will run every 15 minutes between Madrona Park and downtown. Currently the 2 has 30-minute headways on Sunday between Madrona Park and downtown.

   1. Very excited about this improvement on the 2 for First Hill and the CD! Kind of strange it’s not mentioned anywhere in Metro’s list of changes.

      1. Yeah, that seems like a big improvement.

10. I know that transit on Mercer Island is a lost cause but has metro considered cancelling the 630 and reinvesting the service hours into the 204? As a MI resident the 204 is way more useful to me then the 630 ever be and I would like to see the 204 have better frequency, especially during school bell hours.

    1. Mercer Island is paying for the 630 is far as we can tell. So if the City of Mercer Island wants to redirect the money to boosting the 204, it can just do so, assuming Metro has no logistical objection.

       But one Mercer Islander told us islanders want to keep the 630, because doctors and nurses take it to First Hill, and transferring from Link to an east-west bus route on 3rd Avenue would take too long and be unsafe, or at least women would feel unsafe and wouldn’t take it. At least that’s what he said. So it would depend on whether most city councilmembers and residents want to keep the 630 or not. It exists because somebody wanted it at some point.

       1. Hmm, if Mercer Islanders don’t want to transfer downtown, any chance they’d be willing to transfer at Judkins Park Station instead? The non-downtown part of the 630 is on Rainer, Boren, and Seneca; if Metro starts the Rainier-Boren route we’ve been wanting, would that open the possibility of cancelling the 630?

       2. Yeah, that would be the way to do it. The 630 is basically doing four things, three of which are redundant:

          1) Running on Mercer Island
          2) Crossing the lake
          3) Running along Rainier and Boren.
          4) Looping around via the pathway of the 2 on Seneca and other buses on 5th.

          If you added a bus on Rainier/Boren then the 630 becomes completely redundant and unnecessary. The same thing is true of the 303 and 322 (from the north). The 9 is also redundant. All could be replaced if they ran a Rainier-Boren-SLU bus. The big challenge with such a bus is that during peak it would encounter congestion. The irony is that is the only time these existing buses operate.

       3. “ If you added a bus on Rainier/Boren then the 630 becomes completely redundant and unnecessary. The same thing is true of the 303 and 322 (from the north). The 9 is also redundant. All could be replaced if they ran a Rainier-Boren-SLU bus.”

          This is the missing direct service that I’ve be eager to see!

          One could argue it’s almost available today with Route 4. But it’s an “almost” route that still misses both Judkins Park and Mt Baker Link station entrances by several blocks even though it’s so close! And it’s also a bit circuitous and it never runs on Boren.

          One could argue that shifting around other bus service hours to create an all-day, frequent Route 9 would also do this. Of course it runs to Capitol Hill rather than SLU.

          One could argue that this is Route 8, except Route 8 doesn’t serve First Hill at all (even though it serves Capitol Hill and SLU) and suffers from structural speed and reliability problems.

          Regardless of how it’s done, I think that the connection is needed — not just to serve Link transfers (that can still happen at CID or Pioneer Square or even Beacon Hill with the painfully slow Route 60 just for 1 Line) but for SE Seattle bus-riding residents too.

          And a side benefit would be to siphon off some riders coming from/ going to the east and south before they reach the most crowded Link segments in Downtown Seattle.

          I see three different general approaches:

          1. An overlay shorter route between Mt Baker TC and either Capitol Hill Station or SLU. This approach could include revisiting the role of FHSC.

          2. A reimagined RapidRide R to Rainier Beach that ends at Capitol Hill or SLU.

          3. An east-west route that begins at SODO or maybe even at Alaska Junction that directly connects West Seattle to Link stations before turning northward to reach First Hill. A good routing and the best stations to enable Link transfers would need to be analyzed.

    2. The hours should stay on the island and service should be two way. Route 630 duplicates Link.

       1. Frankly, it always has duplicated ST Express over Lake Washington anyway. MI just wanted a direct bus for hospital employees (no transfers rather than two transfers).

11. “1 Line will no longer run trips between Federal Way and Beacon Hill at the end of the day. The last northbound train will leave Federal Way at 11:48pm on weekdays.”

    Going to suck for Sea Tac travelers coming home late trying to get into Seattle. Is this to shift people on the new owl bus?

    1. I agree; this’s a disappointing change. I’m guessing they’ve decided to leave more time for track maintenance now that there’s the new owl bus, but the owl bus doesn’t actually run to Rainier Valley!

    2. I’m guessing one reason for the night owls is to end Link service earlier to enlarge the maintenance timeframe, but there’s no direct evidence of it.

       Link needs a lot of maintenance to get to average subway reliability, so if this is needed for a couple years, go ahead, but in that case I’d want ST to be transparent about why it’s doing it.

       When I was younger in the 2000s I went to bars until 2am and bands that ended after midnight. I needed the night owls and late-evening service to get home to the U-District. Nowadays I can’t stay up late any more or it throws me off for days. But if I’d had Link’s current service then it would have been wonderful! An easy way to get home to either the U-District, southeast Seattle, Lynnwood, or Federal Way. Replacing Link’s last hour with ST Express night owls will leave a hole in Seattle mobility that we should probably write an article on and quantify.

       1. Based on a last minute add to the south link connections im thinking there’s substantial changes for the other night owls in terms of frequencies.

          RapidRide A line getting added night trips so that buses operate at least every 30 minutes (currently every hour between 2 and 4 am so at least two new trips each way). This helps explain why the night bus this fall doesn’t serve angle lake and kent des moines station.

12. I think we need the night owl bus on MLK and Rainier maybe the route 48 may run to Rainier Beach for a night owl service potentially

    1. The 7 on Rainier already has 24-hour service. MLK doesn’t have overnight service but Beacon does via the 36 so there’s arguably decent coverage in the area.

    2. The 7 on Rainier Avenue is a 24-hour route. So are the 36, 44, 48, 49, 70, 160, 161, A, C, D, E, and H. Smile, your Seattle Transit Measure taxes are funding the Seattle non-RapidRide ones. Some of these have a 2-hour gap between 3am and 5am (most likely on Sundays), but at least they have regular overnight service.

       The link includes some routes that aren’t 24 hour. That’s because Metro has redefined night owl from “between 2am and 5am” to “between midnight and 5am”, apparently so it can claim it has more night owl routes. I included only those that run at least hourly all night, with up to one 2-hour gap.

       1. The A line is max 30 min gaps as of this fall

    3. The key thing that is lacking is a night-owl connection between Rainier Valley and TIBS/SeaTac.

13. Will there be any good connections between Redmond and Woodinville?

    1. Proposed route 251 to be added this fall.
       But I heard 222 has been running dead head to Woodinville for layover after dropping off passenger at Cottage Lake. Don’t know how much more it would cost to just run 222 revenue service to Woodinville.

       1. I suggested that to Metro last month. They said they’d pass it on to their service planning team.

          I can’t assume it would add any cost, except maybe a marginal cost if people actually ride it and use intermediate bus stops.

    2. I was told previously that route 251 will start on March 28 this spring. Has the start time been pushed back to Fall of 2026?

14. Cheers to ST for extending the first S-Line PM Sounder trip all the way to Lakewood. South Sound commuters are sending thanks.

15. I was reading through all the change of Intercity Transit bus network re-design.
    It looks like they drops 13 as a frequent route, but it compensates most part of the original Route 13 corridor with a new Route 15 with coordinated schedule to form 15-minute frequency service between Downtown Olympia and North St SE.
    I wish this kind of thing was articulated in the re-design information when the redesign was presented.

    ST did great job by showing schedule of Pierce County routes with coordinated schedule in one pdf. This helps people realize their ride to place like Tacoma Dome actually comes more frequent than it seems like by just looking at schedule of single route.

    1. When I looked at Intercity Transit’s service a few years ago when I was contemplating a trip to Olympia and Evergreen College, I was impressed by how frequent some of the local corridors were. I wouldn’t have expected 15-minute service in such a small city.

       1. Certainly!
          Actually, there are lot of cities of this size actually have good transit. Many of them do because of the state university in town. Bellingham also have decent number of corridors frequent service although not by a single route.

          I spent last couple days re-mapping this agency’s footprint after May 3rd (as part of my personal mapping project), I believe I added for segments than removing.

          Regardless the new network will serve more one-seat rides or not, this feels like an increase in coverage and maybe service hour.

          The main east-west corridor through downtown continues to have frequent transit (9X), but they combine 1 and 62A/B as one route. 13 won’t run four trips an hour anymore, but the new Route 15 with coordinated schedule makes sure the same frequency north of Custer Way and then again two routes meet at current 13 southern terminus.
          In Lacey, College St will have two routes with combined frequency of 15 minute between Corporate Center Dr and Lacey TC

          I found this documentation probably communicates better about the network design ideology.
          https://www.intercitytransit.com/sites/default/files/2026-03/FinalMay2026-ServiceChangeSummary.pdf

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