Visiting Bainbridge Island will be a bit easier on Saturdays this summer thanks to a new free shuttle operated by Kitsap Transit. The route will operate on Saturdays between June 13 and September 12 (except July 4) from 11am to 7pm.
Route 385 will be timed with the Bainbridge-Seattle ferry and run in a small loop around downtown Bainbridge using Winslow Way, Madison Ave, High School Road, and Ferncliff Ave. On Winslow Way and Madison Ave, the shuttle will use existing stops. On High School Rd and Ferncliff Ave, passengers can flag down the bus at any safe location. The full schedule is available here.
On the other end of the ferry route, King County Metro is operating a free shuttle in Seattle all summer.
This is an open thread.
Curious what “timed with the ferry” means when the ferry itself is running 20-30 minutes late, as it often does? Will the bus follow the bus schedule, even if it means departing empty just before a ferry arrives, will the bus allow itself to be late to match the ferries?
From a rider standpoint, I think the latter is more useful, as most riders will be connecting to/from the ferry, provided, of course, that the bus is real-time-tracked in OneBusAway, so people heading to the ferry can see when it is coming. The good news is that OBA does seem to have real-time info on existing Kitsap Transit routes, something they didn’t use to.
Most Bainbridge local routes make no sense if they don’t time with Ferry.
It takes 14 minutes for the bus to make the entire loop, so I’m not sure how much sense it would make for them to delay the bus half an hour or whatever.
This will not be Kitsap Transit’s first rodeo with late ferries. This is the existing policy for other routes timed with the ferry:
“When Washington State Ferries (WSF) runs late on weekdays during afternoon/evening hours, this route will wait for WSF passengers to arrive before departing. Kitsap Transit will combine bus routes as Ferry-Take-Home bus service. When WSF is late, passengers on the island traveling to the ferry terminal will need to call 1.800.501.7433 to request a ride.
Ferry-Take-Home (FTH) buses make connections with Washington State Ferries (WSF) and do not make pickups after departing the ferry terminal. FTH buses will depart after the ferry arrives and passengers have loaded. With few exceptions, buses will drop passengers only along the route(s) indicated at the bus stop nearest their home. Buses often deviate from the normal route to speed delivery of a passenger to a marked stop.
For alternative bus service, please see Routes 397 and 399.
For mid-day and Saturday service, see BI Ride. To book a ride, download the Ride Pingo app or call 1.844.424.7433. For information about Sunday bus service on Bainbridge Island, visit kitsaptransit.com/Sunday.”
Example from https://www.kitsaptransit.com/service/routed-buses/398-fort-ward#:~:text=When%20WSF%20is%20late%2C%20passengers,Ferry%2DTake%2DHome%20(FTH)%20buses%20make
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Today I’ll be riding the last 424 in history, it will depart 4th & Jackson at 5:10 pm. I’ll be doing a tribute video too.
Have you ridden it before? Are there many riders who stay on the whole way between Snohomish/Monroe and downtown Seattle?
“Have you ridden it before? Are there many riders who stay on the whole way between Snohomish/Monroe and downtown Seattle?”
I have ridden it before. When I first rode it, I was the only person who got on at Snohomish P&R. I’ve seen many people don’t only take it to Seattle, but also to the Eastside. I’ve specifically filmed the part between Evergreen Point Freeway Station and 2nd & Stewart as that part won’t have a CT bus in the future.
I’ll be riding the last 424 this evening with a few other people I know who I’m inviting.
Scooby, we’ve got a short article about the end of CT’s SnoCo-Seattle commuter routes in the works for tomorrow. If you’d like us to include any photos or videos you take this evening, please feel free to share them with contact@seattletransitblog.com!
Ok, I’ll be uploading a tribute video to my YouTube channel. I’m pretty sure many people on the blog already know it.
I’ll record the 5:10 pm 424 departure with two other friends.
I’ll be sure to tell the driver “last ride!”.
I’m curious how others feel about the various free shuttles. To me, they seem a bit niche and maybe even gimmicky. Like Seattle’s waterfront shuttle should really just be a part of a regular bus route no? I guess there’s more demand in the summer months than the winter months, but people go to the waterfront year round. We don’t stop serving colleges when they’re on their breaks – why not serve major tourist and recreation destinations year round? I feel this frustration to some extent with Trailhead Direct too. I like hiking year round, and having buses on the weekends to major trailheads is something I would utilize fairly equally by time of year.
In the past, people here have said that low productivity routes should be eliminated, and the service hours put into more productive routes. Now people are saying we should actually create low productivity routes. What happened to the idea that low productivity routes should be eliminated?
Okay, did I say those things though? It’s complete nonsense to talk about “people” said this, now “people” are saying that when they are different people.
We should have an eye towards efficiency, but there’s always a trade off between frequency/efficiency and coverage.
I also don’t think a Seattle waterfront service would be low productivity anyways.
Before anyone here thinks a new bus route on, or in close proximity to the Seattle waterfront, would have fairly good ridership, search “Why did King County Metro cancel the bus route 99?”
An hourly shuttle on the waterfront when the Alaskan Way viaduct was still up is not relevant to the dynamics on the waterfront today. If Metro thinks a Waterfront Shuttle running every 15 minutes over the summer is a worthy investment (which they do), I don’t see a reason why regular service on the waterfront is a bad idea.
It’s not a Metro investment. It’s sponsored by Seattle and FIFA. The waterfront plan envisioned an Alaskan Way shuttle but it was not identified as a Metro route and is not in Metro Connects. Seattle was to determine its funding, and it has not yet done so as a year-round or permanent route. The summer shuttle is probably because it’s the first summer since the renovation fully opened and Seattle wants to showcase it, and FIFA apparently showered it with host city money.
Metro thinks a Waterfront Shuttle running every 15 minutes over the summer is a worthy investment
Who said they did? This isn’t a Metro project. This is a Seattle project, led by the tourist board. They work with Metro (of course) and the county may chip in a few bucks, but this is a tourist-oriented project.
I am not bothered by a free shuttle in general, as long as it is short and/ or subsidized for a reason.
The question I have for a waterfront shuttle is simply this: What’s the travel market for it? That determines routing, frequency and hours of operation as a minimum.
For very short trips like under a mile, collecting fares takes more time than operating a moving vehicle. It probably ends up requiring more subsidy than if it’s free.
Short shuttles also tend to get less riff-raff on them because it’s too short of a trip to be a mobile homeless shelter or drug den.
Finally, there are some destinations on the waterfront that do seem to merit enough activity to be on a longer bus or streetcar route where riders pay fares. How best to do that is a pretty broad topic. Certainly ferries, some tourist attractions and some offices and housing are notable. But how best to do that is a matter of focused study. I will add that I would put the streetcar lines on the table as an option.
What’s the travel market for it?
Tourists.
I agree, I think they’re too gimmicky. A more frequent summer schedule (like the water taxi) would be fine and maybe even preferable for the more seasonal routes but I suspect that disappearing for half the year really hurts ridership.
The Seattle waterfront route in particular could easily run frequent service year-round and should just get added to the end of a route approaching Seattle from CID
The whole point is to attract tourists, so being gimmicky has value. As someone who has taken a similar shuttle in a different city, I very much appreciated the different signage and style of the buses. It is easier to navigate a complicated transit system (like Seattle’s) now with smart phones but it is still nice to be able to find “the bus that goes to the Space Needle” easily.
The waterfront streetcar was year round. After that there was alternately no transit or a Metro route that was reduced in winter. In the past few years there have been private summer shuttles, and this year a Metro summer shuttle paid by the city. Visitors really do go down drastically off-season when the weather is unpleasant and tourists are gone, so there’s some sense in a summer shuttle. But it doesn’t help those who live or work there or go to a unique shop at any time. Still, I think this is a starting point for restoring waterfront transit. Start with a summer route and then it can be expanded. The STM also has limited money, so it has to distribute the hours to the biggest transit needs and equity-priority areas. There are doubtless bigger needs that affect more people than a winter waterfront route.
Yes, there’s definitely more activity in the summer than in the winter, but even then there’s probably more activity on the waterfront and First Ave than just about any other part of downtown. Surely at least one bus could be routed to Alaskan Way via Elliott and Western in Belltown. And in any case, I am sort of skeptical that tourists ride the waterfront shuttle in the first place (though I haven’t ridden it yet, so can’t really say).
My 2¢: either route the 1/14 via First Ave extend the 10 and 12 to Pioneer Square. There’s already trolley wire to support that. Also route one bus that travels via Belltown to Alaskan. I think the 24/33/124 is the most natural choice there. I don’t think we need to run every single bus down 3rd Ave, and if a route goes to the waterfront via a major corridor like Jackson or Queen Anne, riders can still easily transfer to/from that route as needed.
1st Avenue service is different from waterfront service. The only reason the 99 was partly or fully on 1st Avenue was distruption on the waterfront with the viaduct project. When it’s running solely on 1st or one-way on 1st, it’s not really serving the waterfront, so it’s no wonder waterfront riders didn’t use it.
Yes – this is why I think both streets should have service. Though admittedly, I think the waterfront (Alaskan/Western/Elliott) is much more important since the busiest parts of First are at about the same elevation as Third.
Here’s a map of the two different routings of the route 99. Up until late Sept 2013, the route went north on 1st, south on Alaskan Way, and made its way up to the 8th & King St. terminal. After that date, it went north and south on 1st. When it was on the Alaskan Way routing, I believe it was half hourly service, and used to get delayed by train traffic on Broad St.. The route was free until 2012, when the Ride Free Area was eliminated. Both routings had extremely low ridership.
https://kingcountymetro.blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/99rev.pdf
OK, so now we are back to the old buses-on-First/Waterfront discussion. This goes way back but I think the last time the blog covered it was about a year ago. As I wrote in the post, there are trade-offs with every option you choose. But serving First just seems a lot easier, as I wrote in this comment.
As I wrote there, the best option would probably be the 4. But that is tricky because the 4 would continue on James which then becomes Yesler. Yesler doesn’t go to the waterfront. You could turn on Western, but then what’s the point (might as well just have service on First with a different bus). There is also the issue of breaking the 3/4 combination much sooner. Right now a lot of riders take the combination from the north end of downtown to the Central Area. The 3/4 are basically one bus to them (which runs every 7.5 minutes midday). Instead they would have to take the 3 (which runs very 15 minutes). I suppose they could just take any bus to get down to James but the transfer is a bit awkward compared to the same stop transfer many take today (if they miss the 4).
In contrast, serving First is just a lot simpler. You avoid a lot of back and forth. I also don’t see serving the waterfront as being better. You lose coverage simply because there is nothing to the west. You could serve both but I would rather double up service on First. It is steep getting from the waterfront to First but there are elevators in a lot of places.
From a November 5, 2011 STB post:
“Route 99 reduced to peak-only. This belongs in the previous category, but, knowing the proclivities of my readers I suspect this will dominate the comments and probably deserves its own bullet point. Beyond having a farebox recovery of 0%, Route 99 has performed poorly off-peak for as far back as I can find performance reports; hence the deletion in those time periods.”
That was probably the seasonal reduction I mentioned. Come to think of it, it probably was peak only winter and all day in summer.
The waterfront streetcar ran every 20 minutes, so it wasn’t that big a deal to wait for it. (I always thought it should be 15 minutes, but it was single-tracked so that limited the frequency.) The 99 was hourly, so that made it practically useless to go to the waterfront, or go from one part of the waterfront to the other. Nobody is going to time their transfer to match an hourly route if they don’t absolutely have to, so if they’re thinking of going to the waterfront they just don’t go because the transit is so infrequent. That’s a big part of why the 99’s ridership was so low. I took the Waterfront Streetcar sometimes, but never the 99, or if I did once it was to go from one part of 1st Avenue to another when it happened to be coming. And I think the 99 made a one-way loop on Alaskan Way and First Avenue for a while, and them moved entirely to 1st Avenue when viaduct demolition ramped up.
That would need more context, that was a decade and a half ago. The waterfront area is much more populated and desirable than back then.
I am fairly confident that frequent waterfront bus (like the existing shuttle service) or a bus on 1st would do well. Maybe not well enough to add additional service, but there are more than enough routes running up and down 2nd/3rd/4th to shift some service closer to the water.
there are more than enough routes running up and down 2nd/3rd/4th to shift some service closer to the water.
Agreed: https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/06/30/add-bus-service-to-first-avenue/
The one time I took the privately run waterfront shuttle, it spend so much time stuck in traffic I wound up mystery getting out and walking.
You don’t want to subject a regular route to that.
As to if it’s a gimmick or not, that depends a bit on what it is.
The 99 buses with a streetcar wrap while operating so infrequently the transportation provided was almost useless were a gimmick.
The actual Benson Trolley might fall into the gimmick category , but was an actual waterfront attraction in its own right.
Some of these seem like pretty useful things to have, especially if you do t want key tourist locations to turn into congested parking lot.
Gig Harbor seems like it should have transit all year.
Winslow is sort of pushing it. I can see where it might be useful, but almost everything is really close to the ferry.
When was that? Traffic on Alaskan doesn’t seem to be too bad when I’m down there (though I’m almost always biking). I think the park alone is reason enough to have service, let alone the businesses. It may be on the tacky side for me, but I think it’s a big enough draw for year-round service.
I think it was in 2018 or so.
The traffic might have been from the merge with viaduct traffic. It doesn’t seem quite as bad now.
I definitely would like to see some sort of transit on Alaskan. The several times I took the Victoria Clipper, I found it annoying to have to schlep my bags uphill and 5 blocks up to 3rd.
You are going to want exclusive right-of-way for any bus that runs downtown. Fortunately, we have a lot of it. There are bus lanes on Alaskan Way but they end at Columbia (where the buses turn). There are bus lanes on Broad but they don’t go west of First. There is nothing on First either but the city planned on taking lanes there. That seems fundamentally easier for that reason. Of course extending BAT lanes on Third all the way to Denny should take priority over either project.
They are tourist shuttles. Lots of cities have them. There just isn’t enough demand to justify the route year round. While locals take advantage of them they are often geared towards tourists and at least partially paid for with those funds. I would say they are generally a good idea and the specific routing of the one in Seattle is excellent.
The game day shuttles seem a bit wasteful, since they overlap existing routes almost entirely. The could help with crowding but they are a bit small. They are free, so there is that. But it would probably be simpler to just consider a World Cup ticket as free fare (on game days).
What is there along the route? I went to Bainbridge in the 90s a bunch of times when my dad lived in Poulsbo and we knew a family in southwest Bainbridge. Outside the small Winslow village at the ferry terminal it was all rural with only an occasional business here and there. I imagine Madison Street now is all strip malls with chain stores and High School Road and Ferncliff are all rural nothingness. Is there anything more interesting or unique along the way to see or to go to? Who do they think would ride this shuttle, and why would they do that? Just to go on daily errands or get home from the ferry? But they need to do that year round, not just in summer. If it’s for summer tourists, what tourist attractions are there along the route?
A shopping plaza with Safeway is located northwest corner of that rectangle and of course Winslow Way on southwest side if someone is too lazy for 15 minutes interesting walk. It covers good part of city’s denser area, but I don’t know if it has tourist destination on the far side. To me it looks more like route for local to run errands.
Every time I go to Bainbridge Island, I didn’t go beyond Winslow Way at Madison Ave. I always want to visit Bloedel Reserve at very north end of Bainbridge Island. I heard parking is very limited, but I looked into Kitsap Transit’s website. It looks like I can reserve a BI Ride to go there.
Bainbridge Island is quite nice once you get away from SR 305. Don’t miss the great views of Seattle from Fay Bainbridge Park, the historic sites of Fort Word Park, and the natural beauty of the Gazzam Lake Preserve!
I once saw the 4th of July Elliott Bay fireworks from Manitou Beach. That’s something Bainbridgers did when there were fireworks. From there it looked low and small.
I think the intended use case is more than just summer tourists, it’s also about providing an option for Bainbridge Island’s own residents to access the ferry terminal to go Seattle.
As to the weird schedule…on weekdays, this route is not necessary, as there are other bus routes people could take instead. These bus routes don’t run on weekends, hence the special shuttle on Saturdays. As to why Saturday only and not Sunday, probably because they don’t have enough money to run it both days. As to why summer-only and not year-round, probably because they don’t have the money to run it year round, and ferry ridership, in both directions, is considerably higher during the summer.
Or, to put it differently, if the bus did run on Sundays, or year-round, they would have to cut frequency to keep the service cost within budget, with the effect being spreading service too thin and making it nearly unusable. Having usable service on at least summer Saturdays is better than nothing.
I think this shuttle will get decent use. Of course, extending the area a bit would make it even more useful. But, that would increase costs, hence the tradeoff.
Winslow is super busy with tourists & visitors on Saturdays. I think it’s fair to target the busiest days when weekday commuter-oriented service isn’t running.
Route schedule of Kitsap Transit really puzzled me when I tried to summary service level by frequency for Kitsap Transit. This is still a working progress I do to kill time. You can see that there is very small part of Kitsap Transit’s network actually have headway of 30 minutes or better.
Because of Ferry, most part of Kitsap transit network doesn’t operate on a headway-based schedule. It highly depends on ferry arrival/departure. Some route have two trips departed at the same time of ferry arrival.
That is especially the case for Bainbridge Island. Within city limit, it has good coverage of fixed route service, but almost every route has a big pause of few hours without service even though some are bi-direction peak only routes.
From Bainbridge Island, there are a few routes (such as 390) connecting different parts of Kitsap Transit maintaining some frequency level (50 min) throughout the day while still having some periods with uneven headway to accommodate ferry schedule.
You can find routes with normal and uniform schedule is Bremerton and Port Orchard. KT 212 and 217 go from Bremerton Ferry Terminal to Silverdale from east and west side of Dyes Inlet. Bremerton is probably the only place KT thinks it is big enough to have its own half hourly service that doesn’t have to work around schedule of ferry to Seattle. Bainbridge Island transit demand is probably still very dependent of Ferry from/to Seattle.
Port Orchard also have a couple routes that run every 30 minutes. I think that’s partially because Port Orchard & Annapolis Foot Ferries to Bremerton operate quite frequently.
The Annapolis foot ferry only runs on weekdays during peak Bremerton shipyard commuting hours. The Port Orchard foot ferry runs every day, and effectively serves as the major public transport link between Bremerton and Port Orchard.
BI Ride and KT 394 go to the Bloedel Reserve in northeast Bainbridge. I hadn’t heard of Bloedel or I didn’t know what it was, but it has a dozen gardens including a Japanese garden or some others. I might go there someday. BI Ride is a hybrid demand-response van with a few fixed-route trips on weekdays. The 394 is a peak only route. So it’s not exactly easy to get there. This where I think a weekend shuttle would be useful, and attract visitors who might shop in Wislow while they’re there.
I thought BI Ride was a cutaway van or mini van like Metroflex or Zip Shuttle, but it was operated by an city bus on the day I spot it in Bainbridge a while ago.
https://flickr.com/photos/zhenghan1994/53946292374/
Bloedel is pretty awesome, actually.
I’m surprised they aren’t serving more of the business district and density (such as it is) west of Madison, and instead choosing to serve Ferncliff, which has next to nothing along it.
I’ve attempted to go to Bloedel once but for some reason it was closed that day. Nice to see better service to it than was available then.
Yeah, it has very limited hours. Very.
Does anybody know about the Harbor Hopper pilot project? It uses charter Hat Island ferry boats and runs between Everett and Langley.
It only runs Thursdays and Saturdays seasonal only though. It costs 12 dollars one-way and 20 dollars for a round trip. I was hoping for all-day service and reasonable fares though.
It might be good for the world cup though.
I suspect it is intended to capitalize on the extra visitors our region will be welcoming for the World Cup this year. Beyond that, it will have to embraced by local tourists.
I also suspect another reason for route 385 is that people have found BI ride to be unreliable, thereby necessitating a fixed-route alternative, at least for the loop that the 385 runs, which is probably where most/a lot of the BI ride trips are going. Yet another sign that microtransit does not scale. If even Kitsap county has too many riders for it, microtransit, in general, does not work.
“ Zahilay announced a plan for King County Metro over the next decade that would include nine new bus routes, four new RapidRide routes and increasing the number of routes with buses coming at least every 15 minutes.”
That’s very specific number of new hus routes in their mind. Anybody has any clue what they might be?
Quote from https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/zahilay-wants-more-king-county-childcare-funding-bus-service-housing/
This probably includes RapidRide I, J, K, and R. The I (Renton-Kent-Auburn) and J (Eastlake) are under construction and will open in 2027. The K (Kirkland-Bellevue) is in design and will get NEPA approval in July and open in 2030. The R (Rainier) I think is awaiting funding to finish design.
If Metro sticks to its prioritization, the next RapidRides after that are the 150 and 36.
No doubt on the RapidRide part, I am more curious about the what are 9 new routes.
There’s still the final phase of the Lynnwood Link and East Link restructures to come. That includes the 77, 215, 220, 270, and the restructures of the 111 and 269 that are large enough to be “new routes”.
I don’t know what he might mean beyond that. Metro intends to restore all the pre-covid service hours by Fall 2027 but it hasn’t said how it will distribute them to routes. Metro may have plans for new routes beyond that it hasn’t announced yet.
Service along SR 18 between Snoqualmie and Federal Way would be great! It would open up new options for people up and down the SR 18 corridor to be able to reduce their dependence on cars.
Apparently 9 new routes, 4 new RapidRide routes, and more 15-min service originate from this:
https://kingcountymetro.blog/2026/06/11/metros-next-stop-king-county-metro-moves-people/
Thanks for the link. The four RapidRide lines are the I, J, K, R. (page 16) “by 2038”.
Page 22: “Metro’s New Stop requires more funding.” So it’s not a done deal. We know Metro will reach a fiscal cliff ca 2033 when its reserves run down. “Metro is exploring strategies to keep existing services and implement new ones. This includes new partnership funds or in-kind investments, new countywide revenues, and working with the state legislature to get more flexibility with existing funding tools.” I see preparation for a countywide Metro levy that the county has been talking about since 2016 but never scheduled. I don’t know what the state legislation or partnerships might be. Maybe it’s thinking of the STM as a partnership.
A Times article showcasing the passenger ferry routes and their walkable tourist-friendly destinations on the west sound.
https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/3-walk-on-ferry-trips-from-downtown-seattle-to-kitsap-peninsula/
Bellevue homeowners ask that the 2 Line operate more slowly to reduce noise.
https://youtu.be/FaNyEc2FgzA
They do need to be able to get a good nights sleep, but having the trains slowed down in the 5am to 7am time period on weekdays is not going to serve commuters well. A balance is going to have to be found.
It looks like Westlake tunnel station service booth reopened during world cup, after how long?
For the World Cup. In the World Cup article I have a comment on what ST has done/is doing for the games.
Anyone know when the night buses start?
And anyone have any idea why both Google and thee transit app claimed there was no more 594 service to Tacoma until the morning, when I tried to get home at 10 pm last night? The schedule says it should have half hourly until almost midnight.
I was surprised to see this shuttle today on my visit to Bainbridge. I was biking however, so I neededn’t it.
Also how do people generally refer to this area of Bainbridge? Town center? Downtown?
Winslow.
This is correct. “Winslow Way” also works.