This article is brought to you by the numbers 269 and 111. Those were the first routes I wanted to try in the August 29th service change last Saturday. I’d never seen Sammamish except once or twice in a car because it had little bus access, and I’d never been to northeast Renton. So on the first day of the new service I did a bus trip to both those areas. This article is a long ramble about that trip, with route times and ridership and neighborhood observations along the way. It begins after the fold.
2 Line Westlake – Mercer Island
3:02 – 3:16 pm. (14 minutes.) 3 minute wait for a route running every 10 minutes. Ridership: Typical.
Since there would be nowhere to get a sandwich at Marymoor Village or South Bellevue stations, I stopped at a hot dog stand at Westlake Park.
215 Mercer Island – Issaquah Highands P&R
3:26 – 3:41. (14 minutes.) Wait is complicated because I didn’t intend to take this route. Ridership: I was the only passenger.
I’d intended to take the 269, but the eastbound bus bay at Mercer Island station had no sign telling which routes stopped there. The next-arrival display just said “269: [in 50 minutes]” but didn’t say which direction. So I didn’t know if this was the right stop, or which other routes stopped here. This 269 is supposed to run every 30 minutes, so if the display was accurate the next run wouldn’t show up. The other bus bay is across the street, and a 215 was laying over at it. So I crossed the street to the other bay. It had a routes sign but it was out of date (before the service change). The 215 started moving, so I crossed the street back to the first stop. I wondered if the 215 would stop there, how it would make a U-turn to get to it (it must have used the new roundabout), whether I could reach it before it passed, and whether I wanted to take it. I was hoping for the full 269 experience from Mercer Island through Sammamish to Marymoor Village. But if I couldn’t take the 269 today, the 215 would at least take me to Issaquah Highlands P&R, which was one of my goals.
At the bus stop a would-be passenger asked, “Do you go to North Bend?” The driver explained it wasn’t one of the North Bend 215 runs.
269 Issaquah Highlands P&R – Marymoor Village
4:00 – 4:42. (42 minutes.) 15 minute wait for a 30 minute route. So it was on time and the display had been wrong.
Ridership: None from Mercer Island. 3 on at Issaquah Highlands P&R. 1 on/1 off at South Sammamish P&R. 2 off at SE 20th. 1 off at SE 16th with e-scooter. 1 on at NE 4th, 1 on at NE 8th. 1 on at Bear Creek P&R. One woman almost got in but she was going the other way. 4 off at Marymoor Village station.
The bus stop signs at Issaquah Highlands P&R are also out of date. I got off the 215 and asked the driver where to get the 269 to Sammamish/Marymoor. He pointed and said “Bay 1”. The stop pole had a current 269 schedule, but the number board was out of date. A 269 westbound stopped there. I asked the driver if both directions stop at the same stop, and he said they do.
Sammamish is very suburban: large houses, woods, open space lawns, reservoir ponds, other ponds that may be for flood control, and three shopping centers. It reminded me of growing up in eastern Bellevue in the 1970s and 80s, but with larger houses. The first shopping center was a QFC supermarket plaza. The second had a multistory building with Metropolitan Market, an impressive new urbanist format. The third was the largest, three shopping centers on adjacent blocks, with Safeway.
The Redmond segment has a surprisingly large number of local stops and streets. I always thought of the 269 as a Sammamish route, but it serves the eastern part of Redmond too. It’s all offices there, so it must be to serve those office parks, or to get Sammamish riders to those office parks.
There were more restaurants near Marymoor Station than I’d noticed before, so maybe I could have gotten a sandwich there after all. I have been to Stone there, my favorite Korean restaurant. (There’s one in SLU too.)
At Marymoor station I saw a routes schedule that had the 547 night ride, half hourly between midnight and 5am.
I went into Marymoor Park to find a restroom before the second phase of my journey. It’s a 10 minute walk from the station entrance around the Velodrome. On the way is a children’s play area with a child-sized locomotive train kids can sit in. One kiddo there said “Hoo hoo” like a train whistle.
I then went up to the top of the P&R to see the 6th floor view I’d heard about. I’d been wanting to do that ever since the Starter Line opened. I imagined an expansive view overlooking downtown Redmond and Marymoor Park. It wasn’t. I could barely glimpse two buildings in downtown Redmond through the trees. I couldn’t see much of Marymoor Park beyond the Velodrome.
2 Line Marymoor Village – South Bellevue
5:21 – 5:42. (21 minutes.) 2 minute wait for a 10 minute route. Ridership: Typical.
111 South Bellevue – Renton Technical College
6:00 – 6:30. (30 minutes.) 16 minute wait for a 30 minute route.
Ridership: 8 on at South Bellevue station. 3 off at Newport Hills P&R. 1 off at 44th (Kennydale), 1 on with bike. 6 on/offs in the Renton Highlands. The last run was at 7:30pm.
The route signs and schedules at South Bellevue station were current. The new schedule signs show all the streets the routes serve, instead of just the upcoming streets for this direction. I like the old way better. It’s disorienting when the first entry is way behind you.
The 111, 547, and 556 all stop at the ex-550 stop. So the express routes are at this stop, and the local routes at the other stop.
The Renton Highlands has a wide variety of 1950s houses, normal-sized houses, and McMansions all next to each other. The front yards are small but not tiny. It feels like a more walkable area than Sammamish. There’s a village with 5 large apartment buildings, a library, and Safeway. And another large building saying “Renton Housing Authority” for low-income housing.
I was debating whether to go to the end of the route and wait for a return bus to the Highlands, or to get off at NE 4th & Union which I guessed might be the center of the Highlands. But there was only two more hours of daylight so I got off as soon as it reached NE 4th, where the 111 and 105 cross. That’s at Renton Technical College. (So that’s where the college is.) Food options were limited to McDonald’s or a gas station mini-mart, so I was glad I’d already had a hot dog.
Walking: Renton Highlands – Renton TC
6:35 – 7:25. (50 minutes.)
I just missed a 105 which passed as I was walking to the transfer stop. The next one wouldn’t be for a half hour. So I started walking. I guessed a 30 minute walk would get me at least halfway to downtown Renton, but I didn’t really know because I’d only been to the Renton Highlands once, and not to this part.
The reason I walked was there were more interesting things to look at along the way than in Sammamish and Issaquah, it was downhill, and it has a full-sized sidewalk. NE 4th Street quickly turned into NE 3rd Street, and that continued down the hill and under 405 to Sunset Blvd and Houser Way.
At the 30 minute mark I reached downtown Renton and the next 105 passed me. It took another 20 minutes to reach Renton Transit Center. But I don’t mind walking in downtown Renton: it’s a walkable downtown, I got to go through Liberty Park and the library bridge over the Cedar River, and I discovered several more blocks of historic retail buildings than I realized were there.
All the 105s I saw had a yellow stripe on top and were electric buses. I also saw a RapidRide F that was half purple and an electric bus.
106 Renton TC – Rainier Beach
7:30 – 8:00. (30 minutes.) 6 minute wait for a 15 minute route. Ridership: 9 at Renton TC.
1 on in downtown Renton. 3 off in western Renton. 2 off in Skyway. 1 on in far south Seattle. 3 on/1 off at the Rainier Beach Safeway. 2 off/1 on at Henderson & Renton Ave. 1 off/1 on at Rainier Beach station. 12 people remained on the bus as it continued.
1 Line Rainier Beach – Capitol Hill
8:11 – 8:41. (30 minutes.) 9 minute wait for a 10 minute route. Ridership: Standing room only. 7 on at Rainier Beach (or more if I missed anybody at the northern doors).