Several comments have raised concerns that the August 29th service change shortened Link’s service day, so that it now ends earlier and starts later. This interacts with the launch of ST Express “Night Ride” routes between midnight and 4am. These theoretically can replace Link trips. But the ST Express routes bypass several high-ridership Seattle Link stations. This can force trips that were on Link in the midnight hour or 11 pm hour or 4 am hour to an ST Express or Metro route, turn a 1-seat ride into a 2-seat ride, and the bus routes are less frequent than Link was.

I wanted to know, did the spans really change on August 29? What is the current situation on weekdays, Saturdays, and Sundays? What kinds of trips at what hours are newly 2-seat rides? Where is the best place to live to have the earliest or latest Link service? Which can you go to on those lucky runs?

I looked at the new 1 Line and 2 Line schedules to quantify the current situation and changes. To reach these pages from Sound Transit’s website, use the schedule form on the home page to get to the interactive charts. To get a PDF of the schedule, go to the bottom of the page and press the “Full Schedule PDF” button.

I tried to make a consolidated list that would organize the first/last runs in different areas and days. But it was an insanely difficult job, and after a few hours I gave up.

So instead we’re going to crowdsource the issue.

How has Link’s span changed since August 29th? Has this affected your trips? Or do you see other people’s trips that are affected? Can you glean more from the schedules than I can? Can you figure out the right questions to ask AI to figure it out? (If you do, please disclose AI’s role in the result.)

Some of these impacts have already come up in recent articles’ comments, but this article is a place to consolidate them all together so we can see the total impact. And it will be a reference in the future when people have a question, so that they can find it all in one easy-to-find place.

The problem I had with the interactive schedule pages was I had to keep scrolling four directions to get at the first or last full run and short run, and when that would get you to Westlake or SeaTac or the final terminus. I had to keep going up to the date switcher. I kept finding mistake after mistake in my results, so I had to go back and reconfirm them, or compare weekday to Saturday again, and make sure I hadn’t jumped back to a date before the service change. Reading the PDFs online was a lot of up-and-down scrolling with similar printing. Printing the PDFs to get a wider-area view at once would take 34 pages per line. Maybe ST has a printed schedule book with them but I’d have to go search for a copy. I didn’t want to publish a list with mistakes that would waste everybody’s time.

Maybe if different people address small parts of the issue individually, we can get those facts more accurately and a better idea of the whole.

ST in the future wants to shorten Link’s span further, or have more single-track reductions, or more weekend closures of segments, to increase the time available for maintenance. We desperately want ST to increase maintenance because Link’s reliability is far below peer cities’ networks. This causes passengers to get stuck en route, be late for appointments, or drive to critical appointments to avoid the risk that Link will hiccup that day. It also snares visitors and gives them a negative impression of Seattle and Seattle’s transit. So we really want maintenance to be increased to make Link more reliable.

At the same time we need Link’s late-night and early-morning service. If ST Express night owls bypass several Seattle stations in the shoulder hours Link used to provide, then it’s not an adequate substitute. ST says Metro has night owl buses in all those areas (7, 36, 49, 67, 70). But those night runs are funded by Seattle’s transit levy, and will go away if voters don’t renew the levy this November. Metro stopped funding Seattle night owls in the 2014 recession. Also, the bus routes are half-hourly or hourly, as opposed to Link’s 15 minutes. If you switch to say the 49+597 or 36+597 to workaround the loss of Link, you may be waiting 30+30 minutes or a full hour.

This affects people coming home from bars, staff working at bars, people who start or end a night shift, people going to the airport for an early-morning flight, and people coming from an evening flight that was delayed and didn’t land until midnight or later, and airport workers with early-morning shifts.

So what are the actual problems now? Did Link’s span decrease August 29th? What kinds of trips, where, and when are affected? If in the future ST ends Link even earlier at 10pm or 9 pm every day or on monthly maintenance days or two-week maintenance periods, how big a deal would that be? How would we cope with it? What should we tell Sound Transit and our politicians about all this?

70 Replies to “Link Ends Earlier, Starts Later”

  1. I am not sure where you are seeing reduced operating days. First train still starts service at 4a and last train ends between 1245-130a. There is some planned work on the 2 Line next week late at night that will make things a bit wonky.

    1. That could explain another thing I saw but forgot to mention. I kept getting different times for weekdays in September. I’d get first run 4:15am, then I’d see 5am and think I’d made a mistake, then I’d get Saturday starting earlier than weekday, then I’d wonder if I’d drifted to before August 29th without realizing it, then I’d get 4:15 again, then I wouldn’t. I began to wonder if it didn’t change just once on August 29 but was going up and down in September before settling down.

      Still, there are comments saying people can’t get to early-morning flights any more, e.g., from Beacon Hill, or can’t cope with delayed evening flights as well as previously. So what is happening?

      1. I saw no comments saying Link’s regular span of service decreased with this service change.

        I saw comments by riders who had been impacted by previous decreases in Link’s span of service, and for whom this service change did not provide any help.

        That is not to say there aren’t plenty out there who will benefit from this service change overall.

  2. I see nothing problematic in ST’s web page, relative to last week. This might be a good opportunity for others who find something problematic with the webpage to say something.

    Metro’s front page still lists last week’s routes, not today’s. I may be in error about the 773 and 775 being discontinued, but I get the same flashing-loading loop going to them from the front page as I do for the well-publicized discontinued routes. I am using an iPhone.

  3. The lack of good night service – and specifically the choice to no longer keep late night trains in service between Federal Way and Beacon Hill when they deadhead back to the OMF – really impacts me psychologically. I’ve got friends in Columbia City and I live in Beacon Hill. I can still get home on night owl buses, but doing the 7/36 trip is like 30 minutes slower and generally less pleasant. I can walk up the hill to avoid the transfer too, but that’s not a great option. Instead, I typically plan my nights around the last reasonable transit trip, which means things have recently got worse, for essentially no reason (as the now out of service trains are still running). This also impacts how late I’m willing to land at the airport, which impacts travel plans a little.

    The 597 is a terrible excuse for a night bus. It skips far too many stops. ST should just run the 594 more often and route a Link shadow to more than just downtown Seattle. It probably can’t serve every stop still, but surely we shouldn’t be forcing trips that are 10 minutes on Link to be 90 minute ordeals after 11:30 PM.

    1. ST has trains stay overnight in various pocket tracks. This allows ST to turn off the track electricity a little sooner, and start inbound service a lot sooner in the morning, basically simultaneously throughout the system.

      1. Looking at the current schedule, I see that three trains leave Federal Way before the first southbound train arrives at 5:02 AM and I see a train that originates at SeaTac at 4:51 that must be parked there overnight. That’s four trains that aren’t heading back to OMF over night, but there are eight trains that arrive to Federal Way at or after the final train departs for the night at 11:48 AM. So there should be at least four trains heading back to OMF via Beacon Hill that could (and previously did) stay in service. That’s the difference between service ending in South Seattle just after midnight to sometime around 1 AM (assuming the final trains of the night to Federal Way typically do not head back to base).

        Those trains should stay in revenue service to Beacon Hill, especially since the 597 does not provide adequate service between Federal Way and South Seattle.

        1. Again, it comes down to maintenance. Every minute Link is undergoing essential maintenance at night is a minute we arent suffering a catastrophic meltdown at 4 PM as people are trying to get home. By sending trains back to the OMF, if i understand you correctly, this is removing an hour of maintenance time. This is going to reduce maintenance, not expand it. One cannot complain about the unplanned disruptions and complain about them wanting more time for maintenance.

          Metro seems interested in as resources become available at expanding night service on its own routes. The only thing missing is night owl on the 106, operating every 30 minutes between Henderson and IDS. This wouldnt provide a direct link to the airport, but it would put them firmly on the night owl grid.

        2. Those trains still are running though, so the difference is just between the length of time it takes the final train traveling to do so in service vs. out of service. I don’t know what that difference is, I’d guess that between Beacon Hill and Federal Way it adds up to 5 to 10 minutes. Cutting an hour plus in span of service to add 5 to 10 minutes of maintenance time doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe this is all just the idle complaint of someone who lives on Beacon Hill and has friends and connections in Columbia City – a trip very well served by Link and not very well served by any combination of buses.

          I’ll also say that other agencies manage to have fewer disruptions with shorter overnight maintenance periods. Portland’s MAX is much more reliable and a similar length and managed this for decades with a span of service of ~4AM to ~1AM (on the Blue Line anyways). There is no reason why we shouldn’t expect the same out of Sound Transit.

        3. “Metro seems interested in as resources become available at expanding night service on its own routes.”

          Metro’s own annual performance reports say many corridors are underserved. It has wanted to expand frequency and coverage for two decades, but it’s out of Metro’s hands. The ones who can do it are the county with a countwide levy, Seattle by increasing its levy, and other cities by having their own levies.

          King County has talked since 2016 about a Metro Connects levy but has never offered one. It was going to in 2020 but covid sucked the oxygen from the room. It thought about it again in 2026 but decided not to. So Metro is just hanging on stagnant, except when a booming economy increases sales-tax receipts.

        4. “There is no reason why we shouldn’t expect the same out of Sound Transit.”

          We should expect it, but first ST has to dig itself out of the hole it’s in.

        5. Yeah blumdrew. It doesn’t make sense to me either.

          It appears that there are 7-8 trains that don’t return in-service from Federal Way each night. Some may be parked there overnight but surely not all 7-8.

          The only other logic has to deal with closing stations — but the last trains southbound arrive at Beacon Hill at 12:46, TIBS at 1:07 and SeaTac at 1:11 per the posted schedule. Link should be able to run at least 30 minutes later for Beacon Hill and 60 minutes later for the stations south of there with no problem.

          It may have to do with not leaving riders stranded at Mt Baker or Beacon Hill because the new overnight route does not stop at either station. And of course, Route 7 runs all night so riders would not be technically stranded.

          So outside of a very minor time savings by not stopping at a few stations it doesn’t make sense to me why at least a few of those trains aren’t returning in-service on the way back to the OMF.

    1. Last SeaTac NB trip departing at 12:53 am was on March 27th 2026.

      After that, new schedule that is pretty much the same as now kicked in.

  5. Even in NYC, after several really long early morning trips from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the F or D (and one rude awakening in Coney Island with my pocket very artfully and gently slashed to remove my wallet), I decided there were actually times when I cab ride was the better part of valor.

    Perhaps something like Beacon Hill to Columbia City would be one of those trips. It looks like less than 20 bucks. That compares to the $120 or more that it would cost, if you made the 597 slower and less usable to Tacoma or Lakewood.

  6. What should a proper ST Express Night Ride network look like? One alternative would be to use the established Link Shuttle pattern in Seattle, serving all stations. It may be necessary to have two routes instead of one in the south corridor, and in the north corridor. There’s a tradeoff between serving Seattle stations off the freeway, vs getting to Everett and Lakewood in a reasonable amount of time. Doing both simultaneously is something Link can do but buses can’t.

    If there’s a separate Seattle south route, the Seattle route should be extended to SeaTac since that is by far the biggest trip generator in the south end at night. If there’s not a feasible place to transfer at SeaTac between the Seattle route and the Pierce County route, then transfers can occur at Tukwila International Boulevard. But having the two routes overlap between TIB and SeaTac would not be very much and would save Seattle riders aggrevation.

    In the north end the Seattle route would likewise have to rejoin the Snohomish County route. That could be at Northgate. There’s nothing north of Northgate comparable to SeaTac.

    For the east route, there’s only one Seattle station, Judkins Park. That’s hard to serve with a freeway bus, and not enough for a second route. So I’m not sure what to do about Judkins Park.

    Sound Transit has always considered ST Express to be a suburban service. The suburban subareas pay for it even when one end is downtown Seattle. North King did not pay for the 522 in Lake City, which is one reason it’s losing it. North King may pay a small amount for the 560 at Westwood Village, but that’s small, and will go away in a few years when Stride 1 starts.

    This may be why ST’s Night Ride bypasses much of Seattle: it’s a suburban service, and may be paid by the suburban subareas. Or because Seattle gets so much Link in the daytime. Or because ST can’t reconcile 30-mile suburban service with non-freeway Seattle segments, and it doesn’t want the cost of separate Seattle routes.

    The same issue came up with Link itself in the 1990s. The best way to improve passenger mobility would be fast S-Bahns to Everett, Tacoma, and Redmond with only a few Seattle stops, and a separate U-Bahn network in the city with more stops and lines, joining up both downtown and at the edge of Seattle for transfers. But ST thought two networks would cost twice as much, so it decided to use an in-between hybrid system the way BART did. That’s mediocre at both tasks, since it can’t bring Everett and Tacoma’s travel time down to 30 minutes or serve the missing Seattle stations (Bellevue Ave, 15th, 23rd, Montlake, etc).

    ST’s Night Ride is going even more the suburban way, and serving only Seattle stations that are regional centers (U-District with a mediocre freeway station, and Northgate). ST’s mandate is to connect regional centers, so U-District and Northgate are kind of must-serve.

    1. The issue with us in the north end is community transit doesn’t have the staff presently to operate the 517 (new night bus) along with all their existing st commitments and their own local commitments. This was a late project with an inadequate lead time and it’s a miracle metro and pierce transit pulled it off.

      1. Yeah, as a resident of the north end I wish we could have Metro operate the 517 and then transfer the operations to Community Transit when they’re ready. It’s very disrespectful to have night bus service to Pierce and the Eastside except Snohomish and I’m offended.

        The 517 was the overnight route with the most support in the survey! And not to mention that it covers the Link system’s trunk (Lynnwood to IDC).

        But can Metro technically operate the 517, a Snohomish County route? The short answer is yes. One of the most famous demonstrations is when Metro couldn’t operate the 560 they transferred it to Pierce Transit despite being entirely in King. The 540 was transferred from Metro to Community to Pierce and ran entirely within King County. The 577’s route is in King County and Pierce Transit operates it. There are too many examples.

        Let’s not forget that the 517 is NOT entirely within Snohomish County but a good portion of it is within King County, therefore further justifying the idea of Metro operating the 517.

        I wish Sound Transit could get this over with and make this idea a reality! I’ll keep dreaming, especially for the sake of hearing a Metro voice saying “Lynnwood City Center Station” or “Everett Station”.

        1. You could choose to not be offended regarding the 517. How about being grateful that such a service is coming. We are going from nothing to something–owl shadow service on Link. It is not likely something is being taken away.

        2. I’m sure ST intended to launch the 517 now with the others, but something happened late in the negotiations or CT couldn’t be ready quickly enough, and it was too late for ST to ask Metro to do it, because Metro needs 6-12 weeks lead time for logistics and driver recruitment/training. Or maybe ST was too stupid to ask Metro, but I don’t like accusing somebody of something without being sure.

        3. “Or maybe ST was too stupid to ask Metro”

          I wouldn’t call them “stupid”. I would simply say Sound intends to have Community operate the 517 and doesn’t want to make “last minute” changes like how people didn’t want the 372 to be deleted and Metro was about to keep it but didn’t… Speaking of that, maybe funding is also the problem. It’s funded through next year’s development plan not this year.

        4. “You could choose to not be offended regarding the 517. How about being grateful that such a service is coming.”

          Are you saying that no other subareas in the ST district have overnight bus service? I still take it as an offense as it’s clear exclusion.

          It’s not me, others are being ungrateful that every other county seat has it now and Everett doesn’t.

        5. Mike Orr what happened is more or less Community transit doesn’t have enough operators run service that they have now and cannot take on any new service. It’s like what happened to metro in 2023 when we lost 20 routes (19 for good) and saw reductions on some routes.

          And like I said earlier when it was clear it wasn’t going to happen with CT metro was already printing pick sheets. It was too late. Maybe this spring as agencies scale up.hiring this happens.

    2. The same issue came up with Link itself in the 1990s. The best way to improve passenger mobility would be fast S-Bahns to Everett, Tacoma, and Redmond with only a few Seattle stops, and a separate U-Bahn network in the city with more stops and lines, joining up both downtown and at the edge of Seattle for transfers. But ST thought two networks would cost twice as much, so it decided to use an in-between hybrid system the way BART did.

      I have never heard this bit of local transit history before and would love a full post on the s-bahn/u-bahn networks ST considered.

      1. ST didn’t consider it. We wanted it to but it refused. “We wanted it to” is a bit complicated because Link’s initial UDistrict-SeaTac phase was designed in the 1990s, and STB didn’t exist until 2007. Before STB there was no consistent transit news, and transit fans didn’t know each other, and many like me didn’t know agency hearings and meetings and information existed or were accessible to the public, so we knew a lot less about what was happening and what we could do to influence it.

        I don’t remember exactly when Link’s initial stations and non-stations in east Seattle and southeast Seattle were decided, and how much of it STB was there for. 2007 was just two years before the initial segment opened. Most of the issue was the realignment that occurred after ST’s budget meltdown in 2000 and truncating the initial segment, then restarting it in the 2000s when STB was around and ST could have revisited the station decisions in east Seattle but didn’t. Link in Snohomish and Pierce Counties didn’t exist yet, so they could have been changed to some faster non-Link system, and Link could have evolved into the city network with more stations.

        The biggest issue was that ST chose light rail mode in the 1990s. That’s slower than BART or MARTA, and more expensive when you build a long network to the suburbs. Light rail is more suited to a city network and high-quality trams (like MLK). Forward Thrust would have been a heavy rail network, and more suitable to extend further out.

        The reason ST chose light rail was it’s street-compatible. As ST said, “Light rail can do everything: surface, elevated, tunneled.” It seemed the most versatile. But ST was pursuing two contradictory goals: surface in Rainier Valley, and 30 miles out to Tacoma and Everett that needs freeway-level travel times. Existing US light rails were 95+% surface (MAX, San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento if it existed then) to keep capital costs low. ST envisioned Link would be mostly surface too. It would have been surface from Intl Dist all the way to Tacoma, until the city of Tukwila balked after the vote and it became elevated there, and then later segments became grade-separated as they went through design one by one. Apparently nobody at ST calculated the travel time of a 35 mph surface line to Tacoma.

        ST did make a couple station changes in east Seattle. There were two alternatives for the Ship Canal: Portage Bay or Montlake. The Portage Bay alternative would have gone right on Broadway with stations at Madison Street, John Street, and Roy Street. The Montlake alternative turned east before Roy, and there was no comparable station at 15th on the way. ST preferred the Portage Bay alternative. But that’s the one where ST panicked about the Ship Canal construction risk and UW objected to running so close to its seismic earthquake monitors and the ST1 budget melted down. When ST recovered and U-Link planning restarted in the mid 2000s, ST felt more confident about the Montlake alternative, so that’s what we got. It didn’t reopen the issue of stations, it just stuck with what it had before. And the suburbs pushed back on adding more stations in Seattle, fearing it would increase travel time to Shoreline and Lynnwood, the primary reason for Link. But then ST found risky soil conditions in First Hill too, and deleted First Hill station. So east Seattle went down from two or three stations to one station.

        1. Part of the problem is that we don’t own the existing tracks (BNSF does). So an S-Bahn system was bound to be too expensive. So instead they tried to mimic an S-Bahn system but with brand new trains. This is extremely expensive and means that it has fewer urban stations than a typical S-Bahn. Meanwhile, there is no U-Bahn. Only in America. Seriously, only the USA builds this kind of crap. The rest of the world would have just built a regular metro (call it a U-Bahn if you want) and run express buses and commuter rail.

        2. “Part of the problem is that we don’t own the existing tracks (BNSF does). So an S-Bahn system was bound to be too expensive.”

          I was thinking of something outside BNSF’s right of way. That’s what Link was going to do anyway, and is doing now. If Link can run along the freeway, this non-Link thing could run along the freeway instead.

        3. I was thinking of something outside BNSF’s right of way.

          Yeah, I’m just saying that isn’t really S-Bahn. The reason S-Bahn became popular is because it leveraged so much of the old rail line. But to your point, they did try and mimic S-Bahn. They just did it with brand new (very expensive) track. Then they also failed to have the stop spacing (inside the city) of a typical S-Bahn, let alone a U-Bahn. They followed a model that is in some ways unique but is closest to what other American cities have (it is basically BART but with light rail). It is not a very successful model from a cost-benefit standpoint.

        4. “I’m just saying that isn’t really S-Bahn. The reason S-Bahn became popular is because it leveraged so much of the old rail line.”

          That depends on how you look at S-Bahn. I look at it as frequent regional rail, running every 10-30 minutes all day and evening every day. That’s what matters to passengers and their trips. You’re looking at it as leveraging existing railroad tracks.

          Europe has the luxury of using existing tracks because it had it built mainline tracks in every potential regional passenger corridor and kept them. The US ripped out a lot of its tracks, or it put them along coastlines that contradict passenger travel patterns and walksheds, or it never built them at all to newer cities (Federal Way, Bellevue east-west). That means the US made a bit mistake, and it now has to pay more to build the tracks it should have built/kept in the first place. Saying the US can’t have regional rail because we didn’t build/keep legacy tracks to leverage is counterproductive. It just means Europe and Asia have it but the US doesn’t. That means Europe and Asia have comprehensive transit mobility and less of a need for cars, while the US is stuck in an inefficient system forever, and American politicians are burying their heads in the sand and in denial about it.

          When Europe doesn’t have existing tracks for a needed passenger rail corridor, it builds them. It doesn’t bury its head in the sand or fall back to car dependency. All of Europe’s high-speed rail is on purpose-built tracks or new rights-of-way because the existing tracks didn’t have the required safety characteristics. They didn’t say, “We can’t have high-speed rail because we didn’t build suitable tracks and rights-of-way in the 19th or early 20th century.” They were more concerned with increasing ground-transit connectivity and making cars/airplanes and foreign oil less necessary than in avoiding capital costs, because it’s a long-term investment that will pay off the capital costs several times over in benefits to society, and increase society’s resilience and sustainability.

    3. What should a proper ST Express Night Ride network look like?

      I think you have to complement what already exists. The ST night bus is a good starting point. It just lacks service in Rainier Valley. This also makes things worse for Beacon Hill, since the 36 connects to Othello Stations. I think there are two options:

      There are two choices:

      1) Have the night bus go down MLK to CID (https://seattletransitblog.com/2026/08/31/link-ends-earlier-starts-later/#comment-999012).

      2) Extend the 7 to SeaTac (making no stops along the way). ST would fund it but otherwise it is just a Metro bus.

      Either option would serve just about everyone. Either way you should try and time the northbound 36 to leave Othello soon after the other northbound bus passes by. The same is true going the other direction (although that is trickier).

  7. Schedule now:
    Last NB train serves SeaTac at 12:05 (midnight) and Beacon Hill at 12:30AM
    Last SB train serves Beacon Hill at 12:46AM and SeaTac Airport at 1:11AM

    Previous schedule:
    Last NB train served SeaTac at 12:53AM and arrived Beacon Hill at 1:18AM
    Last SB train served Beacon Hill at 12:49AM and SeaTac at 1:14AM

    Loss of 50 minutes or so of service NB in late night trips. Used wayback machine to confirm. Very misaligned with ST’s equity and access goals considering they’re only cutting service to Rainier Valley – night bus continues to serve downtown stations, airport.

    1. Maintenance has been a huge struggle for sound transit. The amount of time currently allocated for maintenance leaves a lot to be desired and they had to push hard for what they were able to do and a lot is still lacking like a night bus to lynnwood. Living in the u district, be glad you got something in the south end.

      What’s likely to happen next is put night owl service on the 106 that would provide thirty minute headways on that stretch.

      The A line just got upgraded to thirty minutes which covers all the stations from tibs to fed way minus star lake (which the nightbus gets)

      1. Metro making airport workers backtrack to downtown to get to airport jobs is a ridiculous expectation. The vast majority will drive, given that option.

        ST has no additional trains to put in service southbound at end of service day. But it could, as a number of us have suggested for decades, run a Rainer Valley Link shadow bus that serves the station areas between downtown and the airport (including downtown and the airport).

        As for the north end, night owl 49 buses could extend to meet up with the 517’s path. There is a good 6 months to lobby the county and city to make that happen in time for the roll-out of the 517.

        2. The 570 is gone. The 597 goes all the way to Lakewood, as the 574 did overnight for decades.

          I would actually prefer the 574 (continuing to the airport, and extending the 517 to the airport, plus having the Rainier Valley Link night owl shadow route.

        3. The 570 is gone.

          OK, 597. I can’t keep track of the ST routes. The ST map still shows 590 as the night bus. Anyway, I will update the comment to just say “night bus”.

  8. I am only making a guess here. Could it be much less expensive to run the “Night Ride” than to run the 1 and 2 lines? I am thinking this might be a cost saving measure to try and get more funding into expanding the light rail. Again, just making a guess based on past experience with Sound Transit specifically and government agencies in general.

    1. Launching a new all-night bus network adds significant costs. The overlap between Link’s shrinking span and ST Express replacing it is just one hour. The hours between 1am and 4am is something Link never served, and is three times longer than that. Pierce County, Snohomish County, Redmond, and eastern Bellevue have never had night owl service. Long ago Bellevue had a night owl but it was limited to Bellevue Way, and disappeared in the 2014 cuts.

      I don’t know how Link’s operating costs compare to buses, but it can’t be much, considering that what one Link line does what would require multiple bus roues or bypassing stations or longer travel time, and certainly not enough to make a dent in the multibillion-dollar ST3 gap. And much of what ST would be saving is offset by the new all-night bus service. And ST has said it keenly wants to increase the maintenance span and needs to shut down Link for it.

      1. Link’s costs are significant, but the part that isn’t easy to figure out is how much the incremental cost of one or two more trains would be.

        Link costs $664.89 per vehicle revenue hour.
        https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2024/00040.1.pdf

        MAX costs $464.84 per vehicle revenue hour, even though the operating costs per operator are spread between twice as many cars on Link, and TriMet has a much older car fleet..
        https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2024/00008.1.pdf

        I can only conclude that tunnel, elevator, escalator, and station maintenance is huge, and thus adding a couple more trips to all those fixed costs shouldn’t add that much. The key to making good use of fixed costs is use the infrastructure as much as possible.

      2. Running the trains isn’t the issue. It is the maintenance window. The shorter the window, the more expensive it is to fix things. You need more people working for shorter periods (which costs more). That is why 24-hour metro service is quite rare.

        2. That’s one of ST’s proposed the alternatives. It asked the public which strategies it would prefer to increase the maintenance window. The alternatives were ending Link’s day earlier, starting it later, truncating Link in the late evening, having more weekend closures, or having more single-tracking periods.

          The concepts were vague. Ending early didn’t specify whether it would be every day, or for a couple days a month. Weekend closures have mainly occurred with the DSTT, but the rest of the network also needs maintenance, so how would a non-DSTT closure segment work, and how long would be the segments? Where would Link be truncated? If it runs only in Seattle, that would meet the biggest ridership needs. But that may not be what ST has in mind. We’d need more information before agreeing to these.

          And really, it’s hard to rank them with so little information. I’d be more amenable to early evenings if it were a couple days a month rather than a permanent service change. Truncation sounds better, but it all depends on what would and wouldn’t be served.

          Single-trackings reduce frequency to 20 minutes, so they can be a significant hardship to passengers. There have been a lot of single-trackings in the past several months at Pinehurst station for construction, at Shoreline South for side effects of construction, and at Shoreline South for all Link’s other problems (power outage, signal issue). These have caused north Link to be reduced to 15 minutes after 5:30pm some weekdays north of Westlake, or 20 or 30 minutes north of Northgate some evenings. I’ve experienced some of them at Roosevelt in the 6 o’clock hour. I haven’t paid much attention to the late evening ones because I don’t go to Shoreline or Snohomish County much, but if I lived there I’d be more bothered by them.

  9. Without explicit on/ off data from Link for trains at each station after 9 or 10 pm, the problem becomes observational. Ideally, ST should be disclosing these. It would help the discussion.

    My own observation is that the stations with the most activity after 9 or 10 pm are SeaTac and Capitol Hill by far. And the late night bus should be going between both stations. It’s also the riders boarding at SeaTac that seems to be where the concern is the greatest because the tripmaking alternatives can be a hassle — even this new late night bus service.

    Similar data would help in early morning start time discussions. I’m never on Link that early so I can’t observe the situation.

    Finally, I do have to wonder if part of the issue is related to how ST achieves overall maintenance, operations and dispatching. How much is ST doing internally and how much is Metro doing for ST? Having to constantly coordinate between the two agencies may be a structural issue that needs to be addressed to resolve these competing objectives of late night service and late night maintenance.

    1. Capitol Hill already has 30-minute headway night owl service on Metro route 49. Just extend it to NE 45th St and I-5.

      Route 44 has worse night-owl headway, but if made more frequent, could be a good connection between UW and STX 517.

      Ultimately, I hope the night-owl network can be improved to 15-minute headway.

      But Rainier Valley to the airport remains the most urgent missing link.

  10. I will note that ST has a bus bridge arrangement with Metro when they need it — and that usually stops at every station. Bus bridges after 9 pm are basically free of traffic delays too. Rather than permanently stop trains earlier every night, they could just set up a bus bridge the nights they need the extended maintenance time.

    1. Or, make the “Night Link” buses follow the route up Martin Luther King Way. They could stop at Columbia City then go up Columbian Way loop past Beacon Hill and back to Columbian Way then go to SoDo and on into town.

      Yes, that would skip Mount Baker, which is less than perfect, but it would get almost all of the Rainier Valley service stops. Columbia City isn’t that far from Rainier so a rider headed to Mt Baker could walk over and take the Rainier Night Owl. Or, of course, such a rider could transfer directly around Fourth and Jackson.

      Yes, this would obviously make the bus slower, but not THAT much slower (15 minutes?) between TIBS and SoDo. But it would cover that VERY important Airport-Rainier Valley link.

      1. It’s not talked about much, but SDOT signals after 11 or 12 do not trigger crosswalk countdowns. The signals instead let a waiting car go through and switch back to MLK very quickly. Thus, MLK signal phases are mostly green overnight. ST late night buses could make it down MLK at a speed similar to the light rail and its signal priority.

        So the whining that using MLK overnight is unreasonably slow seems rather misguided to me. It’s nothing like being on MLK during the day.

      2. I would probably just skip Beacon Hill, SoDo and Stadium. Riders would connect to Beacon Hill via the 36. Riders would connect to Stadium via the 124. SoDo would be served by a long walk from the 124 (https://maps.app.goo.gl/7A9ubbuWrrxW61Eu8). This would be only a tiny bit slower than what they run now.

        1. That sounds like an excellent compromise. A worker in reasonable health could also walk to Beacon Hill around the station from Mt. Baker. Yes, it’s a trudge, but not a very long one.

          Linking the RV to the airport 24 hours a day is essential. A significant portion of the airport workforce lives there.

    2. Yes, ST should at least consider just activiating the Link Shuttle and extending it to Everett and Lakewood. It could split the route downtown as it intends to. The shuttle stops are well known, and some of the bus stop signs indicate them. They aren’t “well” known in the sense that transit fans have them memorized, but it would be easier to publicize them more, and that would do double duty for raising awareness for night service and backup service.

      Before dismissing this out of hand, ST should at least calculate what the travel time would be. It already knows that based on the existing shuttle segments that have been activated, and at night it would be faster than the daytime.

      I’ve been on a daytime 7 that took 45 minutes from Othello to downtown, and I’ve been on others that have taken 30 minutes from the Columbia City or Mt Baker areas to downtown. So I was totally surprised when one day I took an early morning walk and ended up at the St Mark’s stop on 10th Ave E at 5:30am just before the first 49 southbound run. So I took it, and stayed on as it turned to a 7 and went to Rainier Beach, to see what ridership was like then. It got from downtown to Rainier Beach in 20 minutes! I didn’t think that was possible.

    3. I think the bus bridge is made worse by the road network between Mount Baker, Beacon Hill, and Sodo. It’s just slow to go up McClellan, down Beacon, and then back south to Sodo. Skipping either Beacon Hill and Sodo/Stadium (by going via Dearborn) or just skipping Sodo saves a lot of time for everyone. If you skip Beacon Hill, you can also serve Judkins Park.

      I do sort of agree though. It may be better to sacrifice longer night service on Sunday, run a full bus bridge starting at 10pm or something, and keep longer service every other day. I am not sure that’s practical from a staffing standpoint though.

    4. If a bus can traverse the narrow S Holman Street viadict and tight turn to Beacon Avenue, then it could serve Stadium and bypass only SODO. Stadium has late-evening ballgame endings and shows. SODO has few night-shift workers and practically nobody else.

      But the street is likely too narrow and steep, the turn too sharp, or SDOT wouldn’t approve buses on it. Still, it should be looked at as a possible solution.

      Likewise, it could bypass UW station, because few people are there between midnight and 5am. The closest housing is the UW dorms (who can use U-District station), the Montlake mansions (low ridership). The closest jobs are the hospital (only night-shift workers, because visitors are probably discouraged at night).

      1. Night-shift workers in a hospital should get VERY high priorty, even if other riders are somewhat delayed.

  11. I think I read that “Night Link” will extend to Tacoma Dome and Lakewood, places that Link doesn’t even serve today. If so, I have a slightly pricey alternative proposal for increased coverage and convenience:
    Split the Southern Night Link into 2 lines. One goes straight from Downtown to Seatac via I-5, then hits the stations to the South as well as Tacoma Dome and Lakewood. The other covers the stations in between Seatac and Downtown, as well as extending North to Capitol Hill and U District. Call this one Central Night Link. By giving this intermediate coverage for harder-to-reach stations, the North and South Night Link buses can be more like express buses. The Night Link system becomes 4 buses instead of 3, but by adding this coverage will basically double its value.

    1. Your proposal can get a little cheaper by leveraging the existing 44 and 49 night owls, slightly extending the 49 night owl to I-5 & 45th.

    2. “Night Ride”. That’s ST’s brand for the night-owl service. It’s both a Link replacement and an ST Express replacement (since Link will never go to Lakewood under current plans). Before Link, ST Express went to downtown during the daytime. The 512 stopped only at 45th and 145th, so there’s no ST Express precedent for serving east Seattle or most of north Seattle. The 577/578/594 made no non-dowtown stops except along the SODO busway if they used it, and that can be argued as “not promised long-term”. The 550 stopped only at Rainier (Judkins Park station), the 545 only at Montlake: those can also be seen as “not promised long-term”.

      So with that, you can see that the new night owls are more or less replicating the historic/legacy ST Express routes to downtown, giving night service for those kinds of trips. And not addressing Link’s stations in southeast Seattle, east Seattle, or most of north Seattle at all, maybe because ST Express never served those areas.

  12. I predict ST’s Night Ride ridership will be particularly low. Because it serves areas that are lowest-ridership at night, where car ownership is highest and a propensity for driving is highest. It doesn’t connect nighttime low-ridership areas to high-ridership areas, but just low-ridership areas to low-ridership areas.

    Looking at some specific trips:

    • Downtown has some ridership and transfer potential. But many people think downtown is unsafe at night.

    • From the airport the 597 is a one-seat ride to FW/Tacoma/Lakewood (low ridership) and downtown (see above). Getting to Bellevue/Redmond requires a potential 30-minute transfer wait. Getting to U-District, Northgate, Shoreline, or Snohomish will require the same when the 517 starts. Getting to southeast Seattle, Capitol Hill, or Roosevelt requires a potential 30-minute transfer to Metro. Maybe an occasional $50-75 taxi trip isn’t so bad after all.

    • For the U-District it’s near-and-yet-so-far from the pedestrian core. People have to walk 9 extra blocks to an unpleasant freeway station. Some people in the U-District going to elsewhere may drive instead. That’s based on the premise that every block further from the center the station is, and every minute it’s less frequent, you lose some riders at the margin. On the other hand, if you’re going home to the U-District, getting close to it may be more tolerable, and it postpones that last-mile part to the end of the trip. For non-drivers like me, that’s more psychologically tolerable, because you’re postponing the pain to the end, and at this case you’re just going to bed. (But night-shift/early-morning workers like the KUOW studio exist.)

    • Northgate is a regional center with a future Night Ride stop. But it’s less walkable or urban or nightlife-rich than its potential. Or than its potential would have been if it had gotten a larger neighborhood upzone and space for an Amazon-sized headquarters.

    Still, time will tell how people vote with their feet.

    1. The 597- there’s going to be full buses between Lakewood and SeaTac. All the airport workers needing to get to work who used to depend.on the 574 night bus are now depending on the 597 to get to work.

      The 570 has seen somewhat strong numbers at 220 per day and that’s from downtown to the airport. This is from king countys rider dashboard. More utility to federal way Lakewood and Tacoma will only increase this number (althoguh I’ll have to go to ST for data as Kcm won’t have it).

      1. “The 597- there’s going to be full buses between Lakewood and SeaTac.”

        No wonder Sound Transit is running the 597 every 15 minutes between Lakewood and SeaTac then.

    2. “People have to walk 9 extra blocks to an unpleasant freeway station.”

      At least a freeway station 9 blocks from the actual destination then not having overnight bus service at all, that means YOU; Rainier Valley.

    3. The ridership will be fine, the 597 is essentially taking over the night owl 574 runs between Lakewood and SeaTac for airport and hotel workers while combining it with the current 570, which seems to be doing decent numbers for a night owl express bus.

      1. “the 597 is essentially taking over the night owl 574 runs between Lakewood and SeaTac for airport and hotel workers while combining it with the current 570”

        Why not just run an express bus from Lakewood to Seattle at night while skipping SeaTac for better ridership results? Imo 15 minute frequencies on the 597 sounds wrong even with that route doing multiple jobs at once.

        1. Um, the folks on the 574/597 AREN’T going to “downtown Seattle”. They’re going to the airport and hotels surrounding it.

    4. For night shift of various small business or service jobs, I understand that they can be better served, but for larger employer like the airport? Why doesn’t SeaTac Airport do better to serve their employees. They have first hand of data of their employees’ commute pattern. They should provide shuttle service to cover as much as 574 night-owl can cover or fund 574’s night trips if they haven’t done that.

      1. HZ, I was just thinking that. Aren’t Delta, American, United, Alaska, Southwest, etc., all multi-billion dollar companies? Surely, if all of them chipped in, they could afford a few night shuttles for airport employees.

        1. Yes, if certain airlines could sue to block SeaTac’s minimum wage law, they could afford to at least join Business Passport and give all their employees the benefit of free monthly transit passes.

          That’s about all we ask of any major employer.

      2. And I mean for them to fill in the gaps in existing service, not for them to provide comprehensive regional service.

  13. For the technical problem of the data analysis, what you’d probably want to do is compare the GTFS feeds before and after the service change. This gives you structured, machine-readable data about every in-service trip (albeit in a kind of annoying format). I don’t believe it includes out-of-service trips though.

  14. Too bad Everett got shortchanged on the night train, but then we’re used to it. While the east and south get multiple 7 day/week bus service, including to Sea-Tac, ours is primarily peak-only, with weekend service to Lynnwood Transit Center/Link. Be thankful that you get what would be considered premium service to us in the north-end.

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