When Sound Transit opened the Crosslake Connection in March 2026, over 200,000 people went for a ride on the first day. Since then, the 2 Line has carried thousands of passengers between Seattle and the Eastside everyday. Many of these passengers are new transit riders who used to drive across Lake Washington, while others switched to the train from an ST Express bus. Sound Transit’s decision to wait until August to restructure its bus network gives us an opportunity to examine the Crosslake Connection’s impact on ST Express ridership.
The agency has not yet published Link ridership data for March and April, but it has shared ridership data for its ST Express bus routes. Unless otherwise stated, the analysis below is looking at the average weekday ridership in April 2026 (percentages are compared to March 2026).
Crosslake Routes
Route 542’s ridership has remained stable, just a 1% increase to 1,517 passengers. This route is significantly faster than the 2 Line (26 vs 53 minutes) between Redmond and UW, so it is unlikely that many passengers would have switched to the train. Last year, Route 542 had a nearly 18% increase in ridership between March and April.
Sound Transit’s other all-day route on SR-520, Route 545, was impacted by the Crosslake Connection opening. Ridership was down 13.5% in April. Despite this, the route’s 4,281 daily passengers still make it the busiest ST Express route. Route 545 saw a slight increase in ridership between March and April 2025.
As expected, Route 550’s ridership has plummeted. The 2 Line covers most trips served by Route 550. In April, the route’s ridership dropped 48% to 2,306 passengers. Route 550 still serves stops along Bellevue Way and near Bellevue Square Mall, making it faster than the 2 Line to some destinations in Bellevue, depending on the time of day.
Route 554’s ridership dropped almost 13% in April. The route overlaps with the 2 Line between downtown Seattle and Mercer Island. Based on Fall 2025 data, passengers traveling between Mercer Island and downtown Seattle accounted for about 16% of the route’s ridership. Based on this, most passengers from Mercer Island likely switched to the 2 Line for their trips to Seattle.
Other Impacts
Sound Transit Route 515 operates between downtown Seattle and Lynnwood to help relieve crowds during peak hours. In April, its ridership dropped over 12% to 796 passengers. The additional capacity provided by the 2 Line has helped ease crowding during rush hour. Last year, the route had a 12% increase in ridership from March to April.
Route 522 had an 8% month-over-month (MoM) increase to 2,425 passengers. This is similar to the 7% increase between the same months last year. Some passengers on this route have benefited from the increased Link frequency at Roosevelt station.
Night Owl Ridership
Sound Transit’s first night owl route, 570, started on March 28. In April, the route carried about 300 passengers every night. This equates to about 17 passengers per trip. This fairly strong ridership bodes well for an expanded night owl network that is anticipated to start this August.
This is an open thread.
One number I’m interested in is how Link is affecting the occupancy levels at parking garages. Does anybody still park in places like Eastgate, Issaquah, or Redmond Transit Center, or are the people driving to transit now driving directly to Link?
“Does anybody still park in places like Eastgate, Issaquah, or Redmond Transit Center, or are the people driving to transit now driving directly to Link?”
I feel like driving directly to Link should be preferred over driving, then taking the bus to Link (for commuters). Another option I would like to see is taking a nearby bus from your home to Link.
I just think a three seat ride (car + bus + Link) can be annoying and inconvenient when you’ll obviously go with the two seat ride (car + Link) or (bus + Link).
Of course, the point is to get people to take the bus. With commuter/express service to Seattle gone because of Link, we should instead invest more in local service within the area rather than just truncating buses.
It’s almost useless to park at a P&R to a bus that takes you to Link when you can park at the Link station or walk to a bus that takes you to Link.
Eastgate’s garage occupancy dropped (and never came back), a few years before the Starter Line opened. Same with some other garages and lots.
I’m not sure about the garages on the Eastside, but I’m working on a ridership analysis of Community Transit’s new express routes (9__) vs the old commuter routes (4__, 8__). Overall, ridership at the park & rides served by these routes has dropped significantly. Unsurprisingly, people would rather drive to the Link garage than drive to a bus to a train, especially when the bus is infrequent.
Which begs the purpose of what, exactly, these garages are for anymore, if we’ve spent so much money to make them obsolete?
The best chance to use the parking productivity is probably for adjacent land uses, rather than transit. For instance, maybe Bellevue College could buy out the Eastgate garage, allowing them to develop some of their surface parking lots into more buildings. Or, perhaps, somebody could build a brand new building next to Issaquah Transit Center and convert the transit center garage into parking for their building.
Otherwise, Sound Transit is just going to get stuck maintaining these giant, underutilized white elephants forever.
“Forever” is quite a long time, and it is (relatively) easy to convert parking into other uses.
Parking (both lots and structures) has long been a common part of asset-holding and real-estate management strategies in the private sector: land purchased on the cheap serves as parking until the land itself becomes valuable enough to sell at a handsome profit to someone who wants to do something else with it. There’s plenty of incentives and disincentives both ways: an improving economy increases the value of the land, upzones raise property taxes on the current owner in an effort to encourage a sale to a developer, while construction costs drive down demand, just to name a few.
Sound Transit, being a public agency, is more than able to engage in a variation on this strategy. Selling underused assets as surplus at a profit — especially big ones like albatross parking structures — is the sort of thing that should cause the accounting department to see if it can’t knock a fraction off of tax rates here or there. The money would definitely benefit the agency but there’s a political element to it, too.
ST is not a private company that can just sell surplus land for the most profit. It must first try to find a buyer who will build affordable housing on it. This per per state law to address the housing crisis. ST does this with construction land around Link projects, so I assume it would apply to obsolete P&Rs too.
I’d imagine it will have pretty big impact to Eastgate after the Fall service change.
“Which begs the purpose of what, exactly, these garages are for anymore, if we’ve spent so much money to make them obsolete?”
We can’t make long-term decisions based on just one month of ridership. They aren’t white elephants yet; they’re just potential elephants. Garage use may be low now but may increase again over the next several months.
The TIB and South Bellevue garages and the Bel-Red surface P&R are designed to be convertable to housing in the future if there’s a long-term decline in garage use and car mode share and the subareas someday want housing more than they want parking spaces.
I wonder if it is possible to build some housing above some of these now underused garages, and perhaps incorporate some ground retail. The parking would be right there for the residents who have cars, and the location would still be convenient for taking transit without having to drive. Basically, eliminating the car trip to the transit center, even if you still want or need a car for other trips.
Above feels very difficult, if not structurally impossible (short of tearing everything down and building from scratch). But, building new housing *adjacent* to the parking garage and repurposing some of the parking for the housing should be very doable.
It also doesn’t have to be all or nothing. One could imagine a scheme where the ground floor of the garage remains for transit, while an elevated walkway connects the apartments to the upper floors, with a gate installed to allow only residents access to the upper floors. This involves some construction work in the parking garage, but much cheaper than if the adjacent development had its own independent, brand-new garage.
As a daily rider of the 545, I can say that ridership dipped a bit in April as people were trying out the new train, but now in May the buses are all back to standing room only. Seems people (including myself) experimented and found the extra travel time is just not worth it when going from Redmond to Seattle, especially to the Northern side (Westlake and SLU), where many of the riders are getting off.
I do hope ST reconsiders turning the 545 into the 544 at some point, serving more of the north end that link doesn’t reach.
Was the 544 a route to SLU? Did it go to First Hill too?
The 542->Link connection should be pretty close in travel time to the 545. But, the fact that the 542 doesn’t run all that often discourages people from doing that. This is especially problematic on weekends after 6 PM, when the 545 is reduced to just once per hour. Although, I’m guessing people just ride Link all the way, when the wait for the 545 is longer than it’s worth.
Yeah, as a Redmond resident the issue with the 542/545 has always been frequency, especially outside of peak hours. The gap between 542/Link is long enough that I’ll take the 542 if it’s at all available, but that’s the problem – it often isn’t.
I think a Redmond – SLU – Ballard ST Express bus would be a logical choice for ST to take, especially since Ballard Link won’t happen until the heat death of the universe. Not sure on the best routing for it (Denny maybe now that it has bus lanes?), but it could also take over the role of a route like the suspended 15.
“Redmond – SLU – Ballard”
Funny that there is an Expedia Corporate Shuttle route that almost does the same route.
I don’t know if such routes bring any benefit for those who travel from Ballard to the eastside. I can see this route be slower than 44-271/542 from time to time and it is not serving Downtown Seattle like 15 did.
There is really lack of fast path to reach Ballard from the east. This makes 44 feels less slow than it actually is.
What makes Ballard without light rail worse than any other ST3 places without light rail is that there is just not a reliably fast path to reach Ballard even by driving. That makes it difficult to have quality express bus service to serve Ballard.
There may not be a ton of end-to-end riders, but it serves important markets and likely would be faster than 542 – 44. Ballard/SLU and Denny Triangle (express); Uptown to the east side; Redmond to SLU/Denny Triangle are all important markets for some kind of express bus to serve. The 542/44 is about an hour, and the 545/D is ~1:20 but it’s a 20 minute detour to a good D transfer, and staying on Denny instead of going via Queen Anne saves a couple minutes too, as would running express through Interbay (~5 more per the 17/D schedules). I think a 50 minute schedule would be doable, which would be faster than the 542/44 and serve an appreciably different market.
And yeah, express buses to Ballard are hard because traffic is a bear, but if ST is going to functionally cancel Ballard Link, we should exact something from them.
I can see that staying on Denny Way and skipping LQA can make this trip faster than 542-44, but I was thinking this route shouldn’t cross ship canal twice. Instead, it should function as 44X or 31/32X in Seattle. There is also enough demand north of Ship Canal, it just cannot serve Downtown Seattle.
How useful the route will be depends on the frequency. If it runs every 30-minute, people will continue doing 8 transferring 17X/D. If it actually runs frequently, there is a good chance that this was made possible by retiring 545. ST didn’t get to do that this fall, so I am not sure if they ever plan to bring this up again next year.
Another concern I have is how ST can possibly run such route via SR 520 and I-5 without getting every trip delayed by 20-30 minutes during peak. With Roanoke Lid and Portage Bay Bridge construction, it sometimes takes 50 minutes to get from Redmond to Downtown Seattle, I just don’t think this is a good choice of path for longer crosstown express.
I think I can buy that there needs to be a direct bus between SLU and Ballard, I just don’t think it is good idea to have the route start from Redmond.
What makes Ballard without light rail worse than any other ST3 places without light rail is that there is just not a reliably fast path to reach Ballard even by driving.
Yes. This is a very important concept that often gets ignored. To quote this excellent article from Yonah Freemark (which coincidentally happens to focus on ST3 and Ballard Link):
Some years ago, the U.S. Federal Transit Administration required transit agencies building new lines and seeking support from the government to demonstrate the cost effectiveness of their projects by using a formula that divided overall operating and capital costs by the number of hours of rider time savings in the end year of the project.
Thus it takes this idea into account. Consider three projects that all cost the same:
1) Lots of riders but they don’t save much time.
2) Not many riders but they all save a lot of time.
3) A lot of riders and they all save a lot of time.
Obviously the third one is a much better value. The second and third happen if transit is faster than driving, at noon. A good example is trying to get from the UW to Capitol Hill. Transit is the fastest option. In contrast, trying to get from Lynnwood to Northgate is often faster by car (or express bus). During peak hours, Northgate to downtown was faster by bus than by Link. However, every other trip from Northgate was much faster (Northgate to Roosevelt, Northgate to U-District, etc.) and a lot of people make those trips.
While I can understand why it shouldn’t be the only metric worth considering, it certainly can provide some insight into the cost-effectiveness of projects. Done right and it steers you to the best mode as well. West Seattle lends itself to bus improvements for that very reason. For relatively little money you can speed up the bus ride between West Seattle and downtown. Doing so benefits all of those bus riders. It is debatable whether it is worth serving anything in between but if you want to connect to Link before downtown, even doing that isn’t very expensive. In contrast, West Seattle Link will be extremely expensive and a lot of people will be worse off. The overall, net time savings will be small while the cost is very high.
Ballard is different. There are a lot of potential riders and Ballard Link would save them quite a bit of time. But that is because of what is in between Ballard/Interbay/Smith Cove and downtown. A trip from Ballard to Uptown is not much different than UW to Capitol Hill. If you build something that is grade-separated (or even mostly grade-separated) the trip will be faster than driving, at noon. These are the trips that generate a lot of ridership *and* time savings (and thus are a good value if the project isn’t too expensive).
That being said, you could build a pretty good bus system if your only goal was to connect Ballard/Interbay with downtown, as long as you are willing to take lanes. It would not be as fast as West Seattle buses but it would still be quite fast. You have cross streets but with good signal timing a bus could run very quickly from Ballard to Denny. From there it would be essentially downtown (in BAT lanes or the 3rd Avenue transit mall).
Of course the most cost effective project for the region was not in ST3. If you built a subway line from Ballard to the UW then a lot of trips would be faster than driving, at noon. Unlike West Seattle and even Ballard/Interbay there are no east-west expressways connecting Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford and the UW. There are a lot of intersections and even adding BAT lanes are challenging. At the same time, you would save a lot of riders a lot of time given all the combinations. Not only direct trips, but those involving transfers. This again is a fundamental weakness of West Seattle Link and to a certain extent Ballard Link. It is a different consideration that should be at the forefront of every project in most North American cities. You want to improve the network. You want your subway to enhance the grid. A great example is the Canada Line. It is north-south and there are a lot of popular east-west bus routes that connect to it. In contrast, West Seattle has only two stations despite miles of new track. Only one of the stations has crossing bus service right now. Ballard Link isn’t much better. Interbay, Ballard and Denny are about it. There is a huge swath of the city where trains are supposed to run (someday) and crossing bus service is impossible (there is water on one side and a steep hillside on the other). In contrast, Ballard to UW has a bunch of outstanding crossing routes. Every station would serve a major crossing bus route. You also have same-direction transfers.
Which brings me back to the Redmond-SLU-Ballard idea. If you are trying to get from Ballard to Redmond, the fastest option is to initially head west (to I-5) then head east on 520. Thus going through the UW is less of a detour than going via South Lake Union. If the segment from Ballard to UW is faster than driving, the trip from Redmond to Ballard (or Kirkland to Ballard) would be faster than driving (at noon) despite the transfer. This is yet another reason why it makes sense to build a line from Ballard to UW next. Alas, that won’t happen and we will be forced to dream up bus routes that are bound to be slow while many people just give up and drive.
One thing I will miss about 550 is that it is always super on time for me because I boarded at the second stop. My morning commute is planned around the very same trip when I was still taking 550 and luckily my waiting time at Downtown Seattle was consistently 3-5 minutes.
Because 2 Line starts from Lynnwood, when it arrives Westlake or Symphony is very random. At first I thought I would spend less time waiting during the transfer because 2 Line runs slightly more frequently than 550, but I feel like I actually wait longer now.
Fortunately, light rail is faster than 550, so overall my arrival time at Bellevue is either the same as before or slightly early.
Concrete and elevators are expensive.
Last I checked, a typical apartment building costs about $300-400k/unit to build (so $100M gets you 250-300 units without parking), but that’s likely gone up in recent years. Parking is often an extra $100-200k on top of that, but standalone parking garages are more expensive per space. $1.3M per space is pretty high, though.
To make matters worse, parking doesn’t pay rent!
Oh shoot, then charge people to park.
When you replace a surface lot with a garage, the cost per space is even higher because you’re paying for every space in the garage, but the amount of spaces you’re actually adding is only the difference.
Thanks for pulling these data! I had poked around a bit to see what effect East Link had.
I usually compare months in different years rather than adjacent months. Things like Mariners games and UW breaks and sessions can affect average ridership and they are predictably seasonal.
I also tend to look at numerical differences more than percentages.
It might help to see if the number of weekday runs changed too — or at least verify that they are held constant between years.
Looking back at the recent set of Link openings and impacts on parallel bus ridership (and in some cases Sounder ridership), it seems to me that the cross lake opening has had a much bigger effect on reducing ST Express ridership more so than the other extension openings.
it seems to me that the cross lake opening has had a much bigger effect on reducing ST Express ridership more so than the other extension openings.
Most of the prior expansions had big bus changes to go along with them. Buses were truncated or eliminated altogether. This is unusual in that they didn’t do anything with the buses.
The shrink of 550 ridership might be just part of it. I feel like there is a shift of mode going on as well. Crosslake section opening might also attract some drivers. I’ve never seen that many people on 550 in the morning going eastbound as I see on light rail nowadays.
Some of it could also be induced demand, that is, the presence of the train causing people (especially people without cars) to be more willing to travel to the other side of the lake compared to back when the only transit option was a bus.
I don’t think so. I took Link when people go to work. Most of others look at they are going to work. Most company has clear onsite policy, people don’t get induced to go to office because transportation is improved.
Seattle to eastside by 2 Line is still a long journey even by light rail. Very few people just come from Downtown Seattle and just go to Downtown Bellevue.
For someone living car-free in Seattle, they probably will join the crowd visiting the eastside during the first month of opening and then never go there again.
If someone were ever interested by things there that they will make recurring visits, they probably wouldn’t live car-free. Eastside destinations are still too far from Seattle and most of them are to o car-centric.
I could also see some induced demand during peak. A lot of employers are flexible. They want you in as much as possible even if it isn’t 9 to 5 every day. It isn’t an all or nothing thing. Personally I much preferred working at the office and the only bad part was the commuting itself. I assume the buses encountered significant congestion during peak and run fairly fast a little while later. So riders who maybe took the bus four days a week from 10 to 3 are now riding five days a week during peak.
That being said, I think most of the induced demand is happening midday and on weekends. I could easily see someone who works in Downtown Bellevue taking the train to Chinatown for lunch. They could take the bus but the train is just more popular.
When considering peak ridership we have to consider other buses. Ridership on the 212 and 218 is down a little bit. Not that much though. But there is another factor. Ridership on these (and other) routes have generally been going up. So a route might be only a bit less than it was last year but without Link it would have a lot more. It is probably a lot of little things that add up.
The 218 is a fast express to the highlands. Not surprising for ridership to stay steady. The 554 + 2 Line is extremely inconvenient since the 554 often runs late resulting in long wait times at Mercer Island… So most would take the 554 itself. Plus the 554 is not as fast to the highlands for commuters.
The 212 is the same situation. A transfer just doesn’t work as well for commute speed when it’s a very quick trip across I-90.
And the 111 has no replacement using Link yet. It runs chronically late hence today’s low ridership and more people favoring the 105 + 101.
The 212 runs from Eastgate Park and Ride to Downtown Seattle. I could easily see someone driving to South Bellevue or Mercer Island instead. The 218 also serves the Eastgate freeway station but picks up very few riders there. My guess is the Eastgate riders are just taking the other buses (the 554 or 212). In any event, my point it there are probably some riders who are driving to South Bellevue instead of Eastgate but not a huge number.
The 212 is a good connection to Bellevue College and Factoria / Eastgate apartments near the P&R. That’s gone now.
“The 554 + 2 Line is extremely inconvenient since the 554 often runs late resulting in long wait times at Mercer Island”
What does bus lateness have to do with Link wait times? The route is not time-coordinated with Link, so the wait times are essentially random. I have the same issue with 2 Line+226 at South Bellevue, where the bus is half hourly. It’s not worth looking up the Link schedule and trying to take the train that arrives 5 minutes before the bus leaves, and guess when my first-mile bus will arrive at Westlake Station and how long it will take to walk to the Link platform. So I just take Link whenever I’m ready, and I take a book in case I have to wait 29 minutes for the bus. Usually I only wait 5 or 10 minutes.
Westbound it doesn’t matter at all because the 2 Line comes every 8-10 minutes. The same would be true for 554+Link westbound.
In any case, in September (3 months away now), both Mercer Island and South Bellevue will have 15-minute express bus service to Issaquah daytime at least. Mercer Island will have even more peak hours.
In the time you wait for your bus to show up in 30 mins, a car or express bus would’ve taken you to your destination. Transit has to at least be convincing! Look at Europe or Japan. We have such absurd standards here.
The April comparisons above show about 2,000 fewer riders on STX 550 with 600 more on STX 554 and 1.200 on STX 545. That’s 3,800 in total.
I’m sure there are riders that moved over from cars to Link too, as well as induced demand (as asdf mentioned) to destinations across the lake that have become easier to reach.
It’s too bad that ST still has not released April Link data. That’s likely a factor in the article’s focus on express buses.
I will point to how it’s taken Shoreline Station ridership over a year to build. Even when Link opened, it was seeing steady ridership growth each year those first few years.
Finally, ST doesn’t usually release Link segment data. They generally only release Link station and line boarding data. So when it’s finally posted we probably still won’t know how much is cross-lake versus induced new riders from North Seattle taking into account a doubling of the number of trains each hour (related to the STX 515 drop in the above table) or how the 2 Line on the Eastside now has better frequencies and runs later.
Oh… there are also several Metro routes across the lake that may have lost riders to Link.
“I will point to how it’s taken Shoreline Station ridership over a year to build.”
With any new rail or bus route, it takes a year or really several years for everybody one by one to realize it exists and how it could benefit their trip, or for them to move there, or for their lease to expire or their house to sell so that they can move there, or for them to get a job there, or for a unique business they like to open up there.
there are also several Metro routes across the lake that may have lost riders to Link.
There aren’t that many and I’m surprised at how little it has decreased. The 111, 212 and 218 have seen the numbers go down a bit, but not much (about 100 total).
@ RossB:
While generally at a likely lower reduction, there are also 520 bus routes across the lake with higher demand (Routes 255 and 271) that may or may not have lost riders to 2 Line.
there are also 520 bus routes across the lake with higher demand (Routes 255 and 271) that may or may not have lost riders to 2 Line.
Yeah, but I see the impact as being pretty minimal given those buses don’t go downtown. Someone could stay on the 250 instead of transferring to the 255 (and then transferring again to Link). But there aren’t that many riders for which that makes sense. The 271 is a little different. My guess is riders were never taking the 271 to downtown (they were just taking the 550). They were taking it to the UW (and places north). Now they can take Link to the UW, but it is significantly slower. Where it may be picking up riders is at the other East Link stations. The 542 is a better option if you are starting at several East Link stations. But not all of them. I could see riders heading to the UW from Wilburton, Spring and Bel-Red just staying on the train rather than transferring to the 271. So yeah, that could lead to a decrease in ridership on the 271 (although it wouldn’t actually lead to an increase in Link ridership).
The 257 and 311 would be impacted but they aren’t running them.
The 255 and 271 serve completely different purposes compared to Link. 255 serves Kirkland and effectively gets them to Seattle. Zero chance to be replaceable by Link.
The 271 serves UW students. Not related to Link again.
I think we should stop cutting bus routes in the name of Link. Buses are just way better for many trips. The 2 Line has really embarrassing ridership. Worse than the P&Rs of South King County and stroads in Rainier Valley.
If the 405 transit and traffic problem is solved, then nobody would even bother with the 2 Line except to cross I-90… And express buses (or an actual express metro train) would’ve been preferred regardless.
“The 255 and 271 serve completely different purposes compared to Link.”
“I think we should stop cutting bus routes in the name of Link.”
Nobody is suggesting cutting bus routes like that. Those are pre-existing “Link feeders” that should be increased with Link. Other routes like that are the 542 and 48. When Link goes in a U or V shape, the 48, 271, and 542 cuts across the top of the bend, providing a more direct way than the U and serving neighborhoods in between that Link doesn’t. The 255 is like a spur or branch, connecting Link to a city that doesn’t have Link (Kirkland). These are corridors where you want more bus service post-Link, not less.
Routes where you want less bus service post-Link are parallel express routes that are largely redundant with it, like the 512 and 550. Some would say the 545 and 554.
“The 2 Line has really embarrassing ridership.”
Are you talking about a bus route to Enumclaw or North Bend? The 2 Line has surprisingly high ridership. It’s not like downtown Seattle or Manhattan, but it’s more than the Lynnwood or Federal Way tails get.
“If the 405 transit and traffic problem is solved, then nobody would even bother with the 2 Line except to cross I-90”
What are you talking about? Going from where to where?
“It’s not worth looking up the Link schedule ”
That’s why people don’t ride transit. Imagine having to be stranded at a station for 30 mins or longer… When all we need to enforce basic decency in our bus operators to just be on time. It’s fine if the traffic is out of their control, but a lot of buses come late for unnecessary reasons.
““It’s not worth looking up the Link schedule ”
“That’s why people don’t ride transit. Imagine having to be stranded at a station for 30 mins or longer”
I’ve said countless times that almost all bus routes in Pugetopolis should run every 15 minutes nimimum full time. In Seattle a couple dozen should run 10 minutes minimum. That’s what comprehensive transit looks like.
The reason they don’t is the agencies don’t have nearly enough money, the politicians don’t prioritize it, and the last countywide Metro meaure was voted down. All this has to change in order to get to a situation where transit is convenient everywhere and cars are optional.
The work on I-5 probably impacted the 515 as well. I don’t remember when it started. But since the express lanes are no longer going south in the morning, the bus is stuck in traffic. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of people take the train in the morning and the bus in the evening (which is the opposite of what they used to do).
Delete this comment, I can’t do math, its $130k 😭
$130k divided by 3650 (10 years).
$35 per spot per day. A bit expensive to charge someone to use the spot..
Hopefully they reduce unnecessary routes and frequency. Invest the money in literally anything else. So much waste on empty buses when parking garages are bursting because there’s no feeder lines commuters can rely on to avoid driving to link.
Which of these buses are empty? These all see tons of ridership (some of the highest of all STX)
“Which of these buses are empty?”
None of them. The emptiest bus routes were deleted in the 2014 recession cuts. That’s over a decade ago now. “Empty buses” is just a slogan people say who don’t know what the ridership numbers are, don’t see the passengers that get on after they get off, or have an unrealistically high picture in their head of how full a bus “should be” to be justified.
10 passengers per hour is a general threshold for worthwhile a bus route. That could be 10 all at once, or 5 in the first half and 5 in the second half, or some other distribution. Even lowly coverage routes get that. When I’ve taken the route from Southcenter to IKEA, Carr Road, and Fairwood (although I haven’t gone as far as Fairwood), it already had 8 people by IKEA or Valley Medical Center, and that’s only half the route.
Frequency is what’s needed to attract passengers. Cutting frequency is counterproductive, because it makes the route less useful, and less feasible for people’s trips.
Yeah. This idea is so common that it is called the “empty bus fallacy”. Jarrett Walker writes about it a lot: https://humantransit.org/2013/02/countering-the-empty-buses-myth-with-video.html, https://humantransit.org/2012/11/eric-morris-on-the-freakonomics-blog-has-fallen-into-the-familiar-trap-to-put-my-remarks-in-context-ive-been-a-trans.html, https://humantransit.org/2020/04/whats-wrong-with-an-empty-bus.html.
Paul’s statement is also contradictory: “parking garages are bursting because there’s no feeder lines commuters can rely on to avoid driving to link”. But now imagine what the feeder lines would look like. At best they have a lot of riders during peak. But it is quite likely that during the middle of the day they wouldn’t get many riders. People who commute would then reject the peak-only service for fear of being stranded if they have to get home early. So they end up driving anyway and you have a vicious cycle of poor ridership on the feeder buses, even during peak. Next thing you know the agency just gives up and you are back to where you started.
The Future of Seattle Public Transit, according to journalists in 1975: https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=SQEDzRQPmG-mnqKO&v=FtU5qydn6Fs&feature=youtu.be
This video or a similar one was brought up in the comments a couple years ago. It’s a good reference to see how the living environment, population level, and attitudes have changed. It’s not so much about transit per se but about what kind of growth to have.
One blind spot is they talk about open space or green space around the growth clusters, but those have filled in with single-family houses. That’s not open space, green space, pristine nature, or a natural habitat. It’s chunks of small lawns separated by fences and roads and driveways.
Another point is how downtown Seattle would “not be allowed to grow” beyond its quota. So office buildings would be forced to suburban centers. This is similar though not identical to the Seattle CAP initiative in the 1980s, which limited downtown office buildings to 40 or so stories maximum. That was their idea of downown nimbyism.
The concerns were completely different then. Seattle was predicted to continue declining. The planner wants the suburbs to offer housing for “a range of incomes”. This would “relieve some of the burdens on the central cities” (public-service cost burdens apparently) and “allow blue-collar workers to live in the suburbs where the blue-collar jobs are increasingly located”. So the core cities would just be thrown away and all levels of jobs and residents would live in a doughnut around it like a black hole. No cost of housing was mentioned because it was a non-issue then. Now the high cost of housing is the primary issue.
11:36 John Spellman, then the King County Executive, answering what kind of “long-haul transit” between clusters is best, says “Ultimately I favor a grade-separated, that means not in with the automobiles, electrically operated, automated system, because of the fact that it can operate [without being] in the traffic lanes, it can operate cleanly in terms of the environment, and automation is necessary in terms of economy of operation so that you can operate in the black instead of in the red.” Emphasis added.
So automation was already envisioned in 1974, fifty years ago, and two decades before Sound Transit chose light rail mode. The Vancouver Skytrain was built in 1985, halfway between Spellman’s statement and ST1. And Spellman was King County Executive, which became a prominent position in the ST board, where later officeholders could have pushed for automation in the 1990s and 2000s.
15:14 The narrator says, “Today no-one is proposing we build a BART system. Nor is anyone suggesting we rely on buses forever. Instead whatever transit system is developed for metropolitan Seattle, will almost certainly begin with a series of exclusive bus lanes, some of which will later be converted to an automated electric-powered system.”
18:04 A longer DSTT from Union Station (CID) to Seattle Center, then east to the I-5 express lanes. This would be combined with two I-90 transit lanes on the then-future Hadley Lake Washington bridge.
So what we got was basically this plan from Mercer Island to CID and Westlake, then it was cut short to connect to I-5 there. No bus tunnel/future rail tunnel to Belltown or Seattle Center, no siree. And the feds might pay 90% of it because it connects to two interstate highways.
Just waiting for the next service change that starts on August 29. Pretty much all the I-90 routes to Seattle CBD will terminate at either S. Bellevue Station or Mercer Island Station and a forced transfer to LINK to finish the trip. Normally this would not be a problem, but the 2 LINE is running with mostly 2 car trains, and occasionally 3 car trains. So, will there be enough space on the trains to accommodate the transfers, mainly in the peak hours. I did testify back in April to keep the 554 just in the peak hour/peak direction as a backup. Even Lynnwood has a 515 backup, and Federal Way still has the 577/578 backup. Issaquah did not get a backup at all. So, if the trains become overloaded, there will be some unhappy riders (If the 2 Line ran with 4 car trains, I think this would not be a problem, but ST does not have enough LRV’s to make 4 car trains on the 2 line). Of course, ST and KCMT uses a standard, that a trip on a bus vs a train takes more than 10 minutes, then the bus route stays (why the 545 got kept). However, it does not take in account in rail car capacity, I just hope I wrong, but if the trains get overcrowded on Monday, August 31 during the peak hour, ST and KCMT staff should get roasted.
The Eastside might get some crowding-relief bus service just like Lynnwood did, if the issue is that not all of the 2 Line railcars are available yet. What kind of route this might be I don’t know.
A 515-like route would be like the 550 but on 405.
Here’s what this weekend’s Link closures are for:
“Workers will replace a recently discovered cracked rail near Westlake Station to reduce risks of a sudden disruption during the FIFA Men’s World Cup, said Sound Transit spokesperson Henry Bendon. On the lake, a safety platform to prevent worker falls, more security fencing and power-line accessories will be added. ” –Mike Lindblom in the Seattle Times.
Lots of 1 Line shuttles downtown. I’ve seen four on Pine Street or 3rd Ave in the past twenty minutes on my way to Costco.
That’s four southbound. I just saw my first northbound. And another southbound just passed me now.
Two more northbound together.
I took the 2 Line Shuttle to South Bellevue this morning. I could have taken the 550, but I wanted to see how the 2 Line Shuttle worked. It’s a very convoluted route between C/ID and Mercer Island, to say the least. The bus doesn’t (can’t?) turn from 5th Ave. to Dearborn, it goes down to Charles St. turns left and weaves its way back to Dearborn. The shuttle serves the Rainier Avenue stop for Judkins Park, turns left on Massachusetts, then right on 23rd, right again on Plum St. and northbound on Rainier to I-90. It took forever to get to Mercer Island. For the return trip to Seattle, I took a 550.
The bus was a plush charter bus from Bellair Airporter Shuttle. Very comfortable but it didn’t appear to have any ADA accommodation.
That’s surprising that it wasn’t Metro-operated. I wonder if Link has gotten complicated enough that ST can’t scare up enough replacement transit buses even on weekends?
I’m actually surprised that Sound Transit doesn’t include Trailhead Direct in the bus alternatives for the 2 Line, because it actually is a pretty direct way to get from Capitol Hill, downtown, and Mount Baker to South Bellevue.
7 people got off the 131 go to Costco. Three with rolling carts. I was carrying a rolling cart on its canvas bag. Going early avoids both traffic congestion, full buses that are hard to take my stuff home on, and late buses.
Sunday video candidate:
That was linked above, and I put it on the list for a future Sunday.
Pine Street was thick with pedestrians midday today at 9th and 5th, as if it was one of the comic-con weekends. The Paramont crowed filled the sidewalk around it completely. On the other side of the street was a crowd that didn’t seem to be going toward the theater. At 5th it was thick with shoppers like pre-Covid. Pike Place Market was its usual busy with tourists taking photos.
In terms of being a tourist destination, my guess is downtown is as strong as ever. This goes for both people from out of town and locals. Where it is still struggling a bit is weekday midday foot traffic. I don’t think there are as many office workers as there used to be and the increase in weekday tourists aren’t enough to make up for it.
The Pike Place Market elevator to the lower shopping levels is broken, and at street level the up/down buttons are gone. This is the one at the bakery corner. I took the ramp down to the level below that, and the up/down buttons are covered with a sign saying temporarily closed. I wanted to see a shop I heard about that was at the level below that, but there was no working elevator down to it and it would be hard for me to take the stairs. I also had to take the other ramp back up, which is also somewhat difficult.
The next elevator north of it is staff freight only. The two elevators north of that don’t go to the lower shopping levels: the building with the lower floors ends before them.
I told the staff at the produce shop I frequent to ask the managers to make sure the elevator is reopened quickly. Earlier this year, the northernmost pair of elevators (the ones that go down to the Overlook Walk, which I called one elevator above), one of them was broken for months. At least there was one elevator working, but there was always a 2-elevator-full line for it and it was extra slow because it was the only elevator and was stopping at every floor. Fortunately the last time I was there when we did the STB walk in April, both elevators were working.
The Wild Waves property is Federal Way is going to be demolished and rebuilt into a 1 million square foot warehouse.
It’s quite close to the proposed South Federal Way station with the new TDLE extension.
I feel it would have been a good idea for that site to go towards a large urban village with housing, retail, and other attractions… And a reliable bus shuttle to the Link station.
Warehouse for whom?
Good question. The tenant is not revealed – but judging by design and size it is thought Amazon. Regardless – sad to see that site turn into a warehouse. Wild Waves was in disrepair but had many memories there. Also – a large amount of large trees on the theme park side will also be coming down with this.
Wild Waves is “quite close to the South Federal Way station.” It’s 3/4 of a mile. But I thought the comment section said 14th Ave NW isn’t remotely close to Old Ballard, and that’s only a distance of 1/2 mile. Why is the shorter distance too far, and the longer distance quite close?
The comment section did not say that 3/4 of mile is close. Even then the commenter made it clear that it wasn’t close enough for walking — there was mention of a “shuttle bus”.
People in large walkable villages have higher expectations and ridership. If it looks like San Francisco or Paris, there should be a metro station a few steps away. It’s why it was so important for U-District station to be next to the Ave rather than at I-5.
In areas where nothing is walkable, or only a token couple blocks, or only one or two token retail businesses, or it’s all big-box stores and strip malls, people have less expectations. The thing to do there is make the whole neighborhood more walkable, and then expectations and demand for transit will rise along with it.
Mike, that’s actually a very good answer.
The curious thing about a single-story warehouse is that it is a more temporary land use than lots of other possible ones. Ownership stays unitary and the buildings are usually modest and cheaper to demolish. That’s unlike land subdivided and redeveloped to become single family homes.
Hopefully this will be a big story on the Seattle Times tomorrow I’d love to see their commenters react to this.