Friday Roundtable: Sound Transit’s 2027 Service Plan Proposal

85 Replies to “Friday Roundtable: Sound Transit’s 2027 Service Plan Proposal”

1. I very much welcome moving hours from the Westwood-to-Burien segment of STX 560 to the more productive rest of the route. Consider this the overdue ST portion of the H Line route restructure.

   That said, I presume ST’s north subarea will no longer be paying for any of the 560’s operating cost.

   I would still love to see the H Line extended to the most popular transit destination in south King County by far, the airport. But that’s a Metro upgrade for another day.

   1. I very much welcome moving hours from the Westwood-to-Burien segment of STX 560 to the more productive rest of the route.

      The section they are removing is productive. It accounts for about 20% of the ridership*. The bigger issue is redundancy. The H Line also provides that service. Shifting service to reduce redundancy is a good idea. It allows the bus to run more often (at no extra charge) while the riders are delayed only a little bit. It is the same argument for ending the 545 and running the 542 more often (something ST has been reluctant to do). But I digress. I would say this is a good improvement and long overdue.

      I think extending the H Line to SeaTac would be ideal although I see some issues. One is simply the time it takes to complete the route. That might be pushing it. Another is reliability. It isn’t hard to imagine bus bunching on Delridge. It would also make it more difficult to extend to South Lake Union, which really should be the long range plan, with or without the South Lake Union Streetcar. But perhaps the biggest issue is just that Metro is short of money, especially outside Seattle. It is hard to see how they come up with money for any extension of the H Line.

      It is reminiscent of the Stride 3 change (although not as bad). With Stride 3 (and the 522) going to 148th station that leaves a section of Lake City Way without service. Not only were people used to that service but Metro has already rerouted buses because of it (this is one reason there is no longer a 73). Basically ST is rerouting the bus and telling Metro “deal with it”. In the case of Lake City Way it led to the hastily assembled and poorly designed route 77. In this case it isn’t clear what Metro will do, if anything. At least riders have the 161. The point being, it really shouldn’t be Metro trying to backfill service from Burien to SeaTac (which accounts for about a quarter of the ridership*). ST should run an express bus and there are a lot of options. One would be an express version of the 161 which would not cost that much. It could run every half hour, opposite the normal 161. That way riders have 15 minute service from Burien to SeaTac to Kent and if they time it right the bus is an express.

      *I assume that Metro operate the 560 (since it is entirely within King County). But for whatever reason, Metro doesn’t include that route when we ask for stop data. It does for other ST routes that Metro operates (like the 550) but not that one. I’m basing the numbers here on the last Service Implementation Report that Sound Transit published in 2020.

      1. Nothing wrong with redundancy. It helps expand travel options. If we decided to remove redundancy, then people would have to transfer too much

         Would anyone replace all the SR 520 buses with a single bus? Force everyone to transfer at Bellevue TC or S Kirkland P&R? Clearly no. It’s weird redundancy is perfectly fine and promoted in East King, but everyone wants to fragment S King routes as much as possible.

         1. One-seat rides to everywhere means lower frequency and lower reliability, meaning the bus is less useful for most riders. I don’t understand why you constantly push for long, low frequency routes. Those routes always perform very poorly in terms of number of riders served, because people hate waiting a long time for unreliable buses.

            Honestly your victim mentality is exhausting. Requiring a transfer to reach a certain destination is not targeted oppression, as you seem to think. Riders from Kirkland are already forced to transfer when they head to Seattle. Riders from most of East King need to transfer twice to get to SeaTac, and soon they’ll have to transfer thrice.

         2. If we can afford to make all the routes frequent, great! But if not, then in a world with limited resources, it’s less bad to have one frequent route than redundant infrequent routes.

            The big problem is that the 560 is currently super-infrequent. Solving that is more important than keeping redundant service.

         3. Nothing wrong with redundancy.

            Yes there is. As others have noted it means the buses are less frequent. Frequency is one of the most important aspects to a transit system. In this case it is crucial. Going from 30 minutes to 20 minutes is huge.

      2. Pierce Transit drivers drive the 560. Odd, I know.

         1. OK, that explains it. We haven’t gathered stop data for Pierce Transit (yet).

      3. Pierce Transit operates some of the King County routes because its cost is lower. I’d expect those to be primarily South King County routes since that’s the closest to Pierce County.

      4. RossB,
         The LLC project also includes Route 72 replacing Route 372; it will also serve South Shoreline via NE 145th Street. Route 77 is meant to serve the Pinehurst Station AND fill in for Route 522 south of NE 125th Street; Route 72 is meant to provide connections with Link and Route 522. The network is weak but fills both gaps on SR-522 when Route 522 is shifted to South Shoreline. Route 331 will be extended east.

         1. Yeah. My point is that by sending Stride 3 (and the 522) to 148th Station you forced Metro to fill the gap. There would be no gap if ST had used the current routing (with or without an extension to the U-District). But instead they created a gap and Metro filled it — poorly.

            The (3)72 routing is worse as well. With the current routing of the 522 the 372 could just be truncated at the old Fred Meyer. They should have done that years ago (with Lynnwood if not Northgate Link). This complements the existing 522 really well. The vast majority of 372 riders never leave Seattle. Relatively few cross the city line. If you are in Kenmore and want to go to the UW you can transfer at the Roosevelt station to a bus or Link. Or you can transfer to the 72 at several Lake City bus stops. This is an ideal transfer (since you are using the exact same bus stop). But instead these riders (e. g. Kenmore to U-Village) are forced into an awkward transfer on 145th (west of the main corridor). Worse yet, Metro is adding yet another bus to 145th on this section. I’m not saying Metro had a better option (in this case). ST forced them into a difficult situation because of their terrible routing.

   2. Replacing STX with a RapidRide service represents a significant increase in service frequency even as it may sever the SeaTac connection. I don’t see Metro wanting to take this frequency on.

      Now that 2 Line is open and has such high frequency, it’s so much better to take RapidRide C or H to the 2 Line to get to Bellevue. But connecting to SeaTac is also important.

      To me, the idea of extending STX 574 to West Seattle had lots of merit. The frequency is lower than STX 560 so that saves service hours — but it still maintains the connection opportunity. ST did not suggest using a STX 574 extension as a replacement.

      1. ST in the 2010s was considering extending the 574 to Westwood Village to backfill the segment lost when Stride 1 replaces the 560. In the end it did the opposite and truncated the 574 at Federal Way station.

   3. It’s the same as the former route 340 ran in Burien to Aurora Village TC

      1. The overly long and infrequent Route 340 is an example of poor transit planning and execution.

2. Truncating Link service at Northgate most nights is easily justifiable by the ridership,

   I don’t know how much of an operations nightmare it is to extend Link service on game nights, including scheduling operators. Just with the Mariners, that is roughly 70 nights a year. I assume Metro is operating all night owl service in Snohomish County, since it has a base open, and CT does not, and the night owl 512 goes all the way downtown.

   Ending Link service to/from the airport earlier is a hardship for a lot more riders.

   1. Yeah, I’m sure there are segments which they can reduce service late at night without too much inconvenience. But I think this only gets you so much. I would imagine most of the work is on the core instead of the sections they recently added. But that approach (whenever possible) appears to be the least painful option with second just a general shrinking of the hours. Start Link earlier or end it later. The key is to have a good bus alternative at that hour along with good signage (especially at the airport).

   2. Truncating Link at Northgate would mean Link serves the busier Seattle stops every 15 minutes that the ST night owl will bypass, while the night owl would serve the suburban stops it was going to do anyway, every 30 minutes.

3. Can anyone give a non-political reason why ST will continue to run ST Express 510 all the way downtown? (in the peak direction only)

   1. I think plenty of people such ad me prefer it over link and it still gets 1000+ riders a day.

      1. Yeah. I think it is quite popular and saves those riders some time. Whether it is a good value or not is a different matter. But the same thing can be said about the buses HZ mentioned. You really aren’t saving the riders that much time and you have plenty of excess capacity. But my guess is North Sounder is still a worse value than both of those bus routes just because it is so expensive and doesn’t have that many riders. Of course there is also a flaw with the 512 — it serves Ash Way. This makes the 510 that much more attractive while hurting riders who take the 512 (from say, Everett to the UW).

   2. Is subarea equity a political reason, or a framework for allocating Snohomish’s budget? If it’s a framework, then that’s what Snohomish thinks is its best benefit, and the most fair to Everett/north residents. If it’s political, then it’s political.

   3. If ST would continue running 590/594/577/578 from South King/Pierce County and 545 from Redmond to Downtown Seattle, yeah I think continue running 510 is like nothing

4. So are any if the routes being removed? These changes all seem quite nice but I remember being angry about what st was originally going to change.

   1. It looks like they went back on any of the more aggressive changes? Or perhaps those are part of the 2026 service changes? I’m a bit confused about that, especially no removal of 550.

   2. The anger was over the 2026 service change in the first link. It was approved in March and will be implemented this fall. It includes the ST Express restructures for East Link and Federal Way Link.

      The proposal today is for the following year. The timeline to finalize it is October 2026, and it would be implemented fall 2027. This proposal has no route deletions.

      The controversies were over routes in the 2026 plan:

      • The Federal Way-Seattle and Tacoma-Seattle routes will remain medium-term to mitigate Link’s travel time challenge to Federal Way.
      • The 574 will be truncated at Federal Way and increased to 15 minutes.
      • ST refused to add a Federal Way station stop to the 590/594, so there’s no one-seat ride between downtown Tacoma and Federal Way station. You must transfer at Tacoma Dome. Few PT routes go to Tacoma Dome. The only one-seat ride is PT 500/501, which take an hour. Adding the stop could allow the 577/578 to be consolidated into Pierce routes, freeing up money to increase frequency. (Consolidating the 578 would mean truncating it at Federal Way, which would be another controversy.)
      • ST refused to delete the 545, reduce it to peak only, or reduce and reroute it to SLU. This would free up hours to increase the 542, which would complement Link rather than competing with it.
      • The 550, 554, and 556 will be consolidated into a new 556 from Issaquah Highlands P&R to City Hall, the Gilman Blvd stops the 208 will abandon, the south Bellevue stops the 550 will abandon, to Bellevue TC. There will be no Bellevue-UDistrict ST Express. This coordinates with Metro’s plan to replace for Mercer Island-Issaquah Highlands P&R expresses, some of which will extend to North Bend or Sammamish, and to replace the 271 with the 270 (speeding up Bellevue-UDistrict trips (although some say it will slow them down), and deleting Bellevue-Issaquah (replaced by the 203 via different routing, already implemented)).
      • Ending Link earlier in favor of a new night owl ST Express network. There will be three night owls going north, south, and east of downtown. They will serve most suburban Link stations but will NOT serve most Seattle stations. ST says Metro’s night owls are sufficient for that. This leaves the issue of uncoordinated Metro+ST transfers between infrequent routes, and ST not serving Capitol Hill where much of the nightlife is (this requiring a Metro+ST transfer downtown, and oh, downtown is unsafe). In Pierce County there will be no stops where people live (downtown Tacoma, Lakewood Transit Center), but at P&Rs where nobody lives (Tacoma Dome, Lakewood Sounder station).
      • The 515 will be deleted. It was a temporary Lynnwood-Seattle peak express to bridge the gap between Lynnwood Link opening and the 2 Line capacity boost. Those who prefer buses, or want a bus backup when Link breaks down like yesterday, are sad.
      • The 522 will move from Roosevelt station to Shoreline South station, where Stride 3 will be. This will lose half the 522 riders, who go to Lake City, but the powers that be in Woodinville to Lake Forest Park who are paying for the route don’t care about that. Metro will replace it with a route 77 that will only get to the south and west margins of Lake City.

      1. So, we will have to suggest sensible changes again. We need to apply the golden rule of Link integration: ST bus routes should integrate as we expect the local agencies to integrate.

         1. Note the ST change to Route 545, to serve the downtown Redmond Link station, should have been done when the station opened in 2025. Of course, it would be best to delete the route and improve Route 542.

      2. “ST refused to add a Federal Way station stop to the 590/594,”

         This isn’t really a controversy other than for a few voices here who disagree on the way ST plans their express routes.

         I ride the 594 as a frequent rider and a detour to Dtwn Federal Way Station doesn’t make any sense tbh other than you’re wanting to add another 15-20 minutes to an already long route that from end to end is nearly 2 hours from Lakewood to Seattle. Plus, Federal Way is already plenty covered by 500/501/574/577/578 to Pierce County. Its fine for Pierce County to have an express bus that skip federal way. I also just expect that the 577s hours will end up eventually being consolidated into 578s bus hours due to its redundancy at this point.

         1. You are correct! Keep the 590/594 routes out of Federal Way downtown station. A delay on an already long route with all those other bus options. 500/501/574/578 to Pierce county is plenty already.

      3. The proposal today is for the following year. The timeline to finalize it is October 2026, and it would be implemented fall 2027. This proposal has no route deletions.

         Huh? From what I read on the ST website (trust that at your peril) is that the 550 and 554 are being deleted. The 550 I get. It parallels Link except for the portion on Bellevue Way and that will still be covered by the 556. But losing the 554 deletes the connection from Redmond to Issaquah which Link does not an will not ever cover. The 556 will end at BTC in stead of providing the Link to the UW via 520 (faster and as seen lately an important alternate when Link fails). But Redmond maintains direct express route to UW and DT Seattle which is duplicate service and the route from Montlake to the Zombie towers has to be a huge time sink vs just transfering to Link at Husky Station.

         The big gap that remains is getting from Bellevue to Kirkland. Granted the S. Kirkland P&R is a terrible location. But the alternate is the 520 freeway stations (why did they keep both). That adds two transfers which really sucks. Why kill the UW tail of the 556 when your keeping redundent ST Express service from Redmond which also has the Link 2 Line? Redmond must have someone on the ST board that is influencing decision making the why Dow is pushing W. Seattle über alles.

         1. The changes you mentioned (550, etc) are already finalized and will go into effect next month.

            The proposed changes disused in the article will go into effect in 2027.

         2. Yes

         3. We debated the 550/554/556 changes extensively when they were being decided. ST appears to believe it made the strategic decisions on them and the 545 in the 2026 service change (which hasn’t gone into effect yet), and it won’t revisit them in the 2027 service change. Instead it focuses on other things that weren’t considered in the 20126 round: the 560, and moving one 545 stop, etc.

            You can read the many articles we’ve had on the 2026 service change, and the East Link and Federal Way Link restructures that fed into it. There’s no point in asking why ST is doing this or saying that would be better without looking at how these questions were already asked and STB authors/commentators made the same recommendations you are doing, or in some cases said ST is doing the right thing because X.

         4. But losing the 554 deletes the connection from Redmond to Issaquah

            I assume that will just be tacked onto the 556. They could have named the route the 554 (for that reason) but picked 556. Originally it was going to be the 554.

            The 556 will end at BTC instead of providing the Link to the UW via 520.

            This will be provided by the 270. Riders will have to transfer though if they are coming from Issaquah. Given that there will be lots of buses going from Issaquah to Mercer Island I think the assumption is that lots of riders will prefer to go that way.

            The big gap that remains is getting from Bellevue to Kirkland.

            I agree. The 250 works but it isn’t an express. ST runs express buses from all over the place to Downtown Bellevue it seems like they should run one from Downtown Kirkland. The closest they will come is 85th and the freeway but for most riders that will require a transfer.

5. I’ve taken the 560 home from the airport a few times, but at the time most of my return flights arrive, the frequency is hourly, so it takes a lot of luck for the schedule to work out. At half-hourly frequency, the route should become a lot more useful.

   Of course, there is the separate issue that, upon arriving in Bellevue, there is still a wait for the 250 to get home. Sometimes, on airport trips, I’ve taken Uber for that portion to avoid waiting for it. Which is still expensive, but not nearly as expensive as riding Uber all the way from the airport, and because I can order the ride while still on the 560 bus, the pickup is nearly instant.

   1. Yeah, I too basically never take the 560 to or from the airport, because it’s hourly. I love that restructure idea.

   2. Where are you taking the 560 from? Wouldn’t the 2 line to the 1 line work much better?

      I see this as a zero-sum, where Bellevue/Renton win, West Seattle loses. Yet Bellevue already has Link to get them to the airport. So this is just added redundancy for them. For West Seattle, it makes transit basically unusable going to airport on points further south.

      1. Link from Bellevue to the airport is borderline unusable because of how slow it is. Checking Google maps with low traffic (Saturday 10:30am), the 560 takes 44 minutes and link takes 1 hour 15 minutes, approachjng twice as long.

         This is the same reason the 545 still exists and is seeing continued ridership. Redmond Technology to Westlake is 26 minutes on the 545 but 40 minutes on link.

         It’s a genuine shame and incredibly frustrating that link is so slow when ST chose to use it as the mode for long-distance travel.

         1. It’s important to mention that Stride 1 will not stop at SeaTac like the 560 does. That time advantage will shrink if not totally disappear.

         2. Only about 15 percent of 2 Line boardings east of Downtown Seattle are at Bellevue Downtown Station. 85 percent board Link at other stations. Since 560 only serves that one Link station, the time advantage is geographically limited to the area within walking distance of the station — and not the entire Eastside.

         3. Correct

         4. “It’s important to mention that Stride 1 will not stop at SeaTac like the 560 does. That time advantage will shrink if not totally disappear.”

            You mean it will be even faster? Stride S1 won’t slog through Renton. That’s at least 10-15 mins back. A Link transfer at TIBS probably not that much extra time. .. and you save time if there is congestion at the airport.

         5. It’s important to mention that Stride 1 will not stop at SeaTac like the 560 does.

            It is also important to note that SeaTac accounts for a relatively small portion of the ridership. To be fair, there are a lot of combinations and SeaTac is part of this. They all add up. But it is mostly about trips to Bellevue. Just look at the eastbound ridership. You’ve got about 200 riders from north of Burien Transit Center. Then about 50 get off the bus there while 100 board. This sort of thing continues through SeaTac and Renton with a significant number of riders getting off while more get on. Then well over 600 riders get off in Bellevue. Thus trips to Bellevue account for about 2/3 of the overall ridership. SeaTac to Bellevue accounts for a relatively small portion of that. This is basically an express bus to Bellevue, not to the airport. Skipping the airport won’t hurt ridership that much.

            I’m more concerned about skipping so much of Renton. Renton Transit Center and the stops north of there account for about a quarter of the ridership. They will be asked to transfer and quite often by going the wrong direction. It may all work out — Stride will be faster and more frequent — but it may also become even more of a peak-oriented route (with good ridership during rush hour and largely empty the rest of the day).

         6. Route 545 should have been killed by a much more frequent Route 542 and Link lines 1 and 2 at the UW Link station.

      2. I see this as a zero-sum, where Bellevue/Renton win, West Seattle loses. Yet Bellevue already has Link to get them to the airport.

         And West Seattle will have the H Line and the new 560 to get to the airport. But as everyone who comments about the 560 knows, the airport is only a tiny part of the ridership. The 560 gets most of its ridership from folks heading to Bellevue. Some of those riders are coming from the airport but most are spread out, coming from the various stops in West Seattle, Burien and Renton. If you are starting from Westwood Village it is basically a wash now — you might as well take the H Line downtown and Link. So if your point is that “Bellevue already has Link” then that applies to the most popular stop in West Seattle as well. It is really north Burien (the stops between Westwood Village and the Burien Transit Center) that loses out. To get to Bellevue requires a transfer or a longer ride to downtown. Not the end of the world but a definite degradation. Meanwhile, the West Seattle/North Burien riders also lose out if they are headed to lesser destinations like the airport or Renton. They have to transfer. Even then it isn’t that bad since the H Line is frequent and the 560 is nor more frequent. If West Seattle/North Burien ridership was much higher it would be a big deal but it only accounts for about 20% of the ridership (and a quarter of those riders will just take the H Line since they are headed to Burien). There just aren’t that many riders that are significantly worse off.

         As for being “zero-sum” that is true of all transit routes, everywhere. Every dime spent on a route somewhere is one less dime spent somewhere else. It is all about trade-offs. But quite often you can make things just a little bit worse for a handful of people while making it much better for a large group. It is quite likely that is the case with this change. Going from a half hour to twenty minutes is a huge improvement and the vast majority of riders come out way ahead.

         1. “the airport is only a tiny part of the ridership.”

            Maybe during rush hour, but at 10 PM on a Sunday evening, the airport is almost the entire ridership. I know because I have ridden it.

         2. I’m looking at the available data (which I referenced earlier). It lists stop data and overall ridership by time but it doesn’t list stop data by time. So it is quite possible that both things could be true. At 10pm on a Sunday evening it gets most of its ridership from trips to the airport. So what? That is still a small portion of the ridership compared to what it gets overall.

6. Some productivity metrics (riders per service hour):
   – 510 (27.5)
   – 512 (10.2)
   – 532 (30.8)
   – 535 (14.8)
   – 545 (23.3)
   – 560 (12.8)

   Methodology: Get riders per week from Sound Transit’s ridership dashboard, and divide by weekly revenue hours in the 2026 Bus Service Plan (link below; table 32, Sept 2026). Those numbers seem to roughly match 2024 route performance (same link; Table 8), though to me service hours for the 560 looks incorrect?

   https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2026-bus-service-plan.pdf

   1. Revenue hour is not the same as platform hour. Revenue hour is the time a bus is in revenue service (i. e. picking up, dropping off and/or carrying riders). Platform hours is the total time a transit vehicle is operating, which includes in-service hours, deadhead hours and layover hours. (I’m copying the term definitions from this old document: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/SIP2016_FinalDraft.pdf.

      This difference could have a huge impact on a route like the (peak-oriented) 510. Even without that, it is worth noting that the 510 only runs during peak. It is quite possible the 512 has more riders per service hour when they are both running. It is just the low midday ridership of the 512 that drags it down. The same thing may be true of the 532 and 535 as well. That is why Metro (which publishes ridership per platform hour for each route) has a separate column for peak.

      Given all that, it it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the 545 performs the best during peak and maybe even overall. It is bidirectional (which means very little deadheading) and likely gets decent ridership midday. As for the 560, it seems about right. You can see the boardings per platform hour were never especially good in 2014 (when they would publish those things) and probably hasn’t changed that much.

7. The 512 really needs to skip Ash Way. Ash Way-Lynnwood is already served quite well by the 201/202, and stopping at Ash Way makes 512-Link uncompetitive with just sitting on the 510.

   According to the schedule, at 8 AM the 512 takes 33 minutes to travel from Everett-Lynnwood. The 510 takes 21 minutes to travel from Everett-Mountlake Terrace.

   1. For reference, at 8 AM the 202 takes 35 minutes to travel from Everett to Lynnwood. It makes no sense to duplicate that route.

      As suggested in the previous comment thread, the time savings of skipping Ash Way could be used to extend the 512 to College Station. But even without that, it doesn’t make sense for the 512 to serve Ash Way.

      1. I wonder if many people taking 510-Link to Seattle, transferring at Mountlake Terrace? Google strongly recommends that route most of the day.

         1. I used to commute semi regularly from Bellingham on the InterCounty Connector buses to the U District via Mt Vernon and Everett, and loathed Ash Way and the 512 deviation, like others have mentioned. Northbound from the U District, I would transfer at Mountlake Terrace from Link to make the 510 connection to avoid the 512 and Ash Way deviation. Accessing the Mountlake Terrace Freeway Station from the Link station, however, requires its own time penalty.

            For UW folks living in/near Everett, the 510/Mountlake Terrace transfer has value.

         2. I wonder if many people taking 510-Link to Seattle, transferring at Mountlake Terrace?

            It wouldn’t surprise me if most of the riders going from Everett to Mountlake Terrace are transferring. However, there just aren’t that many people riding the 510 from Everett to Mountlake Terrace (https://seattletransitridership.com/). Just about everyone is going from Everett to downtown.

            There are some other interesting things. South Everett has more riders than the main Everett Station. The most popular downtown stop(s) are the ones at the north end of downtown. This makes sense given Link doesn’t serve the area and it saves riders more time.

         3. @Ross

            I meant riders headed from Everett to Seattle. Google maps strongly recommends transferring from the 510 at Mountlake Terrace rather than riding it all the way to Seattle. That transfer might not have been worth it pre-Line 2 and pre-Revive I-5

         4. I meant riders headed from Everett to Seattle.

            So did I. My point is very few people are doing that. Just to be clear we are on the same page, a southbound rider would:

            Step 1: Take the 510 from Everett to Mountlake Terrace.
            Step 2: Take Link from Mountlake Terrace to Seattle.

            Now look at the numbers. Go to that web site and pull up the information for the 510. Look at the lower section that has Average Daily Stop Ridership for Route 510 in October 2025. The left column has inbound (southbound) trips. At Mountlake Terrace less than 25 people get off the bus. There just aren’t that many people taking step one. Not all of them are doing step two. While this may be the fastest way it is not particularly popular. I’m not sure why, but I can speculate:

            The 510 only runs during commuting hours. It is quite likely that a high percentage of those who are taking transit from Everett to Seattle at that hour are headed to Downtown Seattle. Those riders are often better off just staying on the bus. If they are traveling early in the day it is just faster. If they are headed to the north end of downtown then it is faster. Both of these riders make up a high portion of the 510 ridership.

            Then there is the unpleasantness of a transfer — especially this one. It drops you off close to the freeway and then you are expected to make your way to the train station. I can see why some riders prefer just riding the bus into downtown even if the trip is slower.

            My guess is someone in Everett heading to Downtown Seattle when the 510 is running just takes that bus straight to downtown. If they are headed to another destination (e. g. the UW) they take the first bus that arrives. Sometimes that is the 510 but quite often it is the 201, 202 or 512.

         5. Ah yeah I think we are on the same page. I’m more wondering if the number of transfers at Mountlake Terrace has shifted since Revive I-5 started and Line 2 opened. Since both of those increase the attractiveness of the transfer, I’d speculate that more people are transferring in the late morning, though probably still not a lot for the reasons you mentioned. It’s hard to beat relaxing on a one-seat ride.

   2. The 512 really needs to skip Ash Way.

      Agreed. I said as much up above and others have said this many times. It is not only a waste of service but it is worse for the vast majority of riders.

   3. Doesn’t the Orange Swift line go between Ash Way and Lynnwood Transit Center too? With that in addition to 201, 202, riders have such a high frequency and extended schedule. 512 does NOT need to go through Ash way.

      In my opinion, 512 should extend to Smokey Point and replace CT 905. 512’s operated by CT, aren’t they?

8. As a SE Seattle resident, I am concerned about the Link service hours combined with stated reliance on overnight bus routes. The overnight network summarily skips all of SE Seattle. (It skips Capitol Hill too.) So the outcome has the possibility to significantly reduce the quality of transit service to SE Seattle.

   ST has not explained when they want to run the last train from SeaTac. So it’s hard to submit any specific comment to ST about this.

   Finally, the Title VI analysis ignores this. While the new overnight service improves connectivity to other places, the reduced hours of service is to the part of the city with more lower income and ethnically diverse people. Along with the loss of Route 560 to West Seatle, White Center and North Burien, the service plan seems to be setting the stage to be quite ethnically discriminatory without actually admitting it.

   The last train from SeaTac to SE Seattle used to be after 1 AM. Now it’s 12:05 AM as of this spring. How much earlier does ST intend to go?

   1. “Now it’s 12:05 AM as of this spring”

      That’s probably because first northbound 570 trip starts at 12:20am

      1. Unfortunately, that leaves Rainier Valley and Capitol Hill forced to transfer to infrequent poorly-timed local routes in downtown. For Rainier Valley, that’s a huge backtrack.

         1. Yeah, that is the big weakness with the 570 (the night bus). Some of the other combinations can be done just fine with Metro. For example Capitol Hill to downtown or Capitol Hill to the U-District. But as ST keeps shrinking the service hours of Link there should be a more straightforward alternative for riders trying to get from Rainier Valley to SeaTac.

   2. Too bad Rainier Valley NIMBY population complained and got the 1 Line at grade. It’s their fault so they don’t deserve any transit, just like Kent and Renton!

9. The 2 Line westbound has been stopped at Bellevue Downtown for ten minutes. The Eastside displays have been saying service is being restored. It was fine when I came eastbound at 2:30pm. It looks like there was another outage in between, and it’s still ongoing.

   An eastbound train just passed.

10. Reducing the service hours to SeaTac Airport would really suck for airport workers as well as travelers. If anything, the span of service should be INCREASED. There are reasons to arrive at the airport as early as 4am for work starts and flights. And there are reasons for service to continue well past midnight.

    The 570 bus is nice to have but it isn’t a substitute for Link. The trek to/from the terminal is not direct or quick or well-signed. It’s not good for luggage. It doesn’t serve much of Link.

    Sorry, but reducing Link span of service is not good. Sound Transit and Metro need to figure out how to do maintenance work in the existing hours. Single tracking or reduced frequency while maintaining span of service are a much better solution. If a shutdown is needed, consolidate all work so you can do it once or twice a year over a weekend.

    1. This is to try to get Link past all it’s many outages so that it’s as reliable as other subways. Two weekends a year is way not enough. Link was failing almost every day for months and months. It has been better the past couple months, but still not as reliable as it should be. It still keeps having a lot of power outages.

    2. The airport deserves better service altogether. Unfortunately there are very few options, forcing most people to take Uber or their car.

11. The 2 Line westbound has been stopped at Bellevue Downtown for ten minutes. The Eastside displays have been saying service is being restored. It was fine when I came eastbound at 2:30pm. It looks like there was another outage in between.

    The train started moving again at 6:45.

    1. More things happening. And Udio announcement said some 2 Line trains are operating a limited segment. My train is crawling; I’m at Mercer Island now, and it stopped again for a few minutes, though it just started moving again (slowly). The station display said 148th station is out due to a mechanical issue. But my roommate is on a 1 Line Lynnwood-Westlake, and he said it’s doing fine.

       Mike, liveblogger of Link contingencies.

    2. ST alerts says all of these are happening, due to mechanical issues. Some Eastside trains are Redmond-Judkins Park only. 148th trains are late after single-tracking.

       What were we saying about truncating ST Express? Maybe not as good an idea while Link is still having these issues.

    3. Stopped again at Judkins Park, la la. Still crawling. Moving again.

12. For a service only months old, full Line 2 is depressingly unreliable. It seems that Unsound Transit endeavors to be the poster child for how not to “run a railroad”. Why would that be? It’s embarrassing — or ought to be — for The Bored [sic], and you would think that a group of elected officials would hate that. But they clearly don’t, because it keeps happening.

    So I have to agree with those who advocate for a directly-elected Board, even with all the opportunities for corruption that a huge capital project offers. I have argued against direct election because of that opportunity, but I was wrong. With the exception of Claudia Balducci no Bored member has done the work to learn good transit practices, seemingly even the Mayor. They approach ridership as just another “welfare program” and riders as its recipients.

    However, there should continue to be ex officio members of The Bored from The State and Counties, but not the County Executives. They have steaming piles of conflicts of interest and are fundamentally in co.petition with one another. It might be best to have the various County Engineers be members, as is the State Secretary of Transportation today.

    1. The 2 Line had some issues early on with the MI segment and a minor one out by Marymoor. The major meltdowns though have been on the section where it interlines with the 1 Line; primarily the bored sections. And of course those sections are going to take longer to fix and are more difficult to work around.

    2. If we put as much thought into Metro as we did cars/roads, we’d be building so many of these lines for cheap and fully automated/seamless. No issues at all. It shouldn’t be that hard.

       Not like our roads are perfect too. So many wrong traffic choices and intersection designs littered around the region.

    3. Sadly the region picked and rubber stamped as ST CEO a man without any transit operating or construction experience. A man who showed disregard for the rider experience and instead advocated for political interest groups, and got rewarded with an excessive compensation package. Decisions are being made for political expediency without placing emphasis on effective transit or fixing operations.

       1. Spot on. Thanks

    4. The Board selection process is not the systemic problem as I see it. The systemic problem as I see it is having amateur transit leadership (local elected officials) making decisions without direct transit experience, facts and rider accountability. That’s especially true as ST ridership — originally mostly on bus and commuter rail services operated on facilities owned by others — is now using ST-owned stations and tracks.

       I don’t think anything will change unless ST starts hiring its own internal staff to operate and manage the Link system.

       As long as ST agendas are mainly just approving contracts, ST remains a paper pusher and not an operator. It’s like having an accountant or attorney maintain your home and family. It’s an approach that is not that effective in the long term.

       1. Yes, ST needs an electrical crew, LRT-maintainers, and a cadre of construction overseers beholden to The Bored [sic], not another contracting company.

13. I can see that some of you have an idea as to what the issues may or may not be with 560, and others just don’t get it. The inconsistency comes from a lot of factors along the route at any point in the day. Until those factors are not an issue, the route will be what it is now. It makes sense cutting the route at Burien. At any point in time there’s three to four points on that route that can make it inconsistent.

14. It feels like the ST Express network would be completely different if Link was, say, 20% faster.

    1. Yeah but I’m not sure how you do that. Increasing the top speed would help but it probably wouldn’t make that much difference. You could double track the line and run express trains but that seems far fetched. Burying the line in Rainier Valley would be great but it would only help that particular section and even then it probably wouldn’t change things. The same thing is true of the mythical bypass. Link is quite fast overall compared to typical metros. It is only when you compare it to commuter rail (or express buses) that it is relatively slow. Speaking of which, it is worth noting that despite the higher speed of South Sounder, ST still runs express buses during peak from Tacoma to Seattle. So even if Link was faster it is still quite likely that buses like the 510 (which is most popular for trips to the north end of downtown) would remain.

       The main reason the network looks the way it does is because ST has a different mandate than Metro. Metro is balancing ridership with coverage. ST doesn’t care about coverage and is focused on ridership and regional connections. The two agencies overlap but they focus on different things and ST is less concerned about performance (like ridership per service hour). For example, the 577 is being retained while the 177 is being eliminated. For Metro it just isn’t worth it. For ST it is.

       1. Eh, I wouldn’t think Metro eliminates the 177 if the 577 was deleted. They have admitted that a bus is needed to Federal Way, but it’s already redundant with the 577.

    2. Is that faster total travel time or faster maximum speed?

       It’s conceivably true in the former situation but not the latter. Each stop adds probably over a minute in travel time between open door time and the extra time to slow down and speed up. Depending on the station pair, intermediate stops can be as much as 40% of travel time for short distance to little as 15% for long ones.

       I do think too that because several express routes aren’t frequent, a rider has to show up earlier at a stop to avoid missing a certain bus run. With Link, missing a train is much less critical.

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