Reminder: The Link 2 Line crosslake connection will be closed this weekend for scheduled maintenance.
Survey: ST’s 2026 Passenger Experience Survey is open.
News and commentary from the past week or so, after the jump.
News:
- SDOT unveils safety upgrades and protected bike lanes on Fauntleroy and Wildwood corridor (Westside Seattle).
- “It’s Electric!” King County Metro celebrates its 100% battery electric bus base (Metro Matters).
- Taskforce Spells Out Need for Cabinet-Level Housing Agency in Washington (The Urbanist).
- ‘The Forge District’: Kirkland Gives NE 85th Station Area a Rebrand (The Urbanist).
- Lin Proposes ‘Orca Appeal’ Carve-Out in Hopes of Resolving Growth Plan Challenges (The Urbanist).
- King County Regional Homelessness Authority CEO Resigns (The Stranger).
Commentary:
- Shaping Aurora through Equitable Engagement (The Daily Plan It Blog).
- Project Delivery and Overengineering are the Same Problem (Pedestrian Observations).
- Op-Ed: ‘Building Charm’ Book Offers Guide to Developing Outstanding Neighborhoods (The Urbanist).
- Seattle Times Columnist Still Struggling with Middle Housing Concept (The Urbanist).
- A Community Vision for Rainier Ave S (Seattle Streets Alliance).
- Politics and US Transportation Use shown in a series of interactive charts (The Transport Politic).
- What It Will Take To Turn the ‘Blue Wave’ Into a Watershed Moment for Transportation Reform (Streetsblog USA).
Fare enforcement out on Metro Route 7 this morning.
Ironically, the ORCA readers were out of service so there weren’t many fares to check on my bus.
With all the expense for unreliable fare readers and fare checkers, my gut and heart still say it would be cheaper if transit was free.
Video of a car being removed from the elevated tracks south of Rainier Beach station: https://bsky.app/profile/nicksattele.bsky.social/post/3mzwndf6bws2a
A King 5 story said the woman drove about a half mile down the tracks on Monday night before getting stuck on the tracks, I believe south of Rainier Beach Station. She claimed she was following GPS directions.
At least she has the excuse that it was dark and rainy, the other woman did it in broad daylight.
Maybe we really do need to improve signage around the tracks.
I reckon so.
Would it be feasible to also block the tracks themselves with their own crossing gates when trains aren’t passing through?
This is exactly how older style British crossings work. I don’t know that they’ve ever been used on street median track though.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/fpj3co1tN2k
The Atlantic. (Paywall. Free on Apple News+). How Ugly Metro Sweaters Became Chic. Public transit fashion is having a moment.
“The nation’s transit systems have an unlikely side hustle. The Los Angeles Metro is selling T-shirts that label its riders a bus baddie and a metro mamí and encourage locals to ride the d (a suggestive reference to a recent line extension). The NYC Ferry offers hats and shirts that read the people’s yacht. In Washington, D.C., locals have started wearing the Metro system’s merch like it’s their alma mater. A recent pop-up shop drew some 10,000 visitors with so many offerings that a patron could emerge decked out from head to toe in Metro. “It was mobbed,” Emily Wasek, a think-tank staffer and self-described devotee of D.C.’s Yellow Line, told me. “People were running against traffic in the street to cut in front of people.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/11/metro-fashion-is-cool-now/689323/
Sound Transit’s on their second iteration of the holiday sweater, this time it’s not so much “ugly” as modern styled: https://soundtransitshop.com/products/relaxed-fit-knitted-crew-neck-sweater
They used to sell an “ugly” sweater and it’s actually quite warm.
Why NYC Removed Cars From Its Busiest Streets
https://youtu.be/4MBmYeCrk-Q?si=OBLusq9j-Qa0KfWN
The Link station boarding totals for October 2026 are now posted by ST. This is the first full month of Pinehurst data.
The first month average weekday boardings are listed as 1,034. That’s only 2/3rd of the next lowest 1 Line station (Stadium at 1,579). This is a bit higher than I expected even though it’s so much lower than other 1 Line stations.
It is better than seven East Link stations. The East Link boardings are much less (like 30-40 percent less) than over the summer — and this is probably more concerning. Why is East Link losing ridership?
A closer look at total Pinehurst data by day show that the average is not skewed by an unusual few days. Halloween was about 20-30 percent higher than other Saturdays (noting that was a Saturday this year).
https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
ST mistakenly lists Pinehurst data in between the two stations in Shoreline — rather than between Northgate and Shoreline South stations.
Since we’re talking about ridership:
October is 3% up compared to September, cool to see despite worse weather. 41% higher than October 2025.
The ‘All modes’ ridership is finally updated through September but the chart still isn’t. Peak of 6.107 million in July
Looking at boardings by station, it appears that the October increase is driven by higher boardings at UW and U District. UW classes began at the end of September.
If I was to guess about decreased Eastside ridership: many, many layoffs.
The tech sector has been shedding jobs like crazy in recent years. And Microsoft’s 60,000 job cuts are still on the way. Very troubling times for our tech heavy region.
Could part of the drop in East Link ridership have to do with the end of Mariners season and fewer sporting events in Seattle?
Mariner’s fans from the eastside definitely rode Link in droves. Some back of the envelope calcs sugest maybe as much as 10,000 boardings per week over the course of the season. Of course it’s up and down with home vs away series. But there are also a whole lot of other events going on during the summer that increase ridership. The World Cup of course being the largest. Soon there will be an NBA team to take up the slack.
Thanks for the response, Bernie.
You make a very good point about summer having a lot of events that drive ridership, and that was particularly true this summer. My thinking with Mariners games specifically is that there are 81 home games per season, with roughly half of them occuring during the summer. Thats about 40 home games to bring in riders in a three month period, which is a lot.
Yes, I’ve wondered how much the Mariners owe ST in increased ticket sales for a season that was a disappointment in terms of performance. I learned early in the season to switch my work from home days to avoid afternoon games; it was that crowded! OTOH, I was wondering why the train was so empty this morning until I realized it was Veterans Day. There seems to be a lot more holidays in the fall/winter than the spring/summer which also affects ridership. Sure people take time off for “summer vacation” but that’s a net positive in Seattle because of tourism. The cruise ships are back baby!
You’re not wrong about fall and winter having more holidays compared to spring and summer.
Fall and winter have Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving (two days off for most people), Christmas (many people take multiple days off around this time), New Years, Martin Luther King Junior Day, and Presidents Day.
Spring and summer have Easter (most people around here don’t get this one off), Memorial Day, Juneteenth, July 4th, and Labor Day.
So fall and winter have more days where people have time off, and won’t be commuting to and from work. That will undoubtely impact Link ridership.
Why can’t we have 24 hour service if they’re going to shut down and disrupt key parts of the system for an entire weekend just for ‘scheduled maintenance’ anyway?
The main argument against 24 hour service is that transit services need some time to do maintenance overnight, yet ST keeps disrupting regularly for an entire weekend anyway
Other systems like Vancouver Skytrain (almost) never have disruptions just for ‘scheduled maintenance’.
We haven’t had many windows into ST’s maintenance procedures, so it’s hard to say without a lot of speculation. However, it’s well known that ST is a complex and highly risk-averse bureaucracy. It’s widely said that safety rules are written in blood, but it’s less commonly recognized that risk aversion is written in the same ink as lawsuit settlements.
My guess is ST staff would greatly prefer not to have to shut down service for maintenance, but there’s some threshold where is considered more efficient to shut down service for a weekend than to maintain partial service while working. It’s hard to know why things seem to break more often than peer systems.
The system evaluation for 2025 is being presented this week. Nothing super surprising, but taking a look:
Top performing routes
– The top 10 most productive (riders/platform hour) routes in order are: G, 8, D, 7, 44, E, A, 45, 48, 5
– The G line is very successful, and has overtaken the 8 as the most productive route, though the 8 continues to perform very well. Perhaps the 8 can catch up with the new bus lanes
Link changes
– The A has lost a decent number of riders (~15%) to Link, though it still performs very well
– The B has lost a few riders (~5%), though again it continues to perform fairly well
Other misc thoughts
– The 3 performs okay but performs much worse than the 4
– The Pike/Pine routes (3, 10, 11, 12, 49) all perform okay but not outstanding. The 12 does the best; the 3 and 49 do the worst.
– I wonder if some of the more successful DART routes (the 901/903 and 906 in particular) should get turned into regular routes. At 10-15 riders per hour I imagine the downsides of DART (reliability, travel time, bus size, etc) might become limiting factors
– Peaky express service is a bit of a mixed bag but overall seems to doing a bit better this year (see: 17, 28, 56-57, 218). It’s still much less productive than frequent/local service but now seems to do “borderline okay” rather than “poor”
https://kingcounty.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=16107235&GUID=C05C5CF6-F391-43E5-A5F1-A008F0A353DB
With the passing of the 2026 STM, is there a preexisting plan of which routes will get boosted (and what time of day) or will we have to wait until the March service change to see what the exact changes are?
There’s that map floating around which highlights routes that will get more STM service, but it’s somewhat vague on which routes and when additional service will be added (evenings vs weekends or both).
The System Evaluation report linked in jd’s post will have a listing of routes needing service hour investments. The Seattle-based routes will likely be the immediate beneficiaries of the STM investments.
I haven’t seen this discussed on the blog: https://kingcountymetro.blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Route_60_Recommended_Concepts.pdf
These are recommended improvements on the Route 60 corridor. The proposals that are most likely to affect STB riders involve improving the stops on Broadway, plus moving and improving the stops on 9th Ave. near Harborview. Metro is looking at closing the southbound stop at Jefferson that is shared with the 3/4 and improving the stop at Alder to be the main stop serving Harborview. The 3/4 stop will move to Jefferson at 9th (instead of on 9th at Jeff.) and the 60 would stop further south on 9th Ave. I don’t know if there are frequent transfers between the 3/4 and the 60; but if there are, they will become slightly more time consuming.
The plan will also re-route northbound buses through the same intersection at Yesler and 8th Ave. that the southbound buses use. Some of the parking on 8th Ave. will be removed to allow buses to pass in opposite directions. Currently the northbound buses turn right onto Broadway and then left on Fir St; this proposal will eliminate that routing for NB buses.
There are also changes proposed for Beacon and McClellan, the stops near Cleveland HS, Georgetown, and at Olson/Myers P&R.
I think the time has come to another post on hiking by public transit, as many of the bus route to trails have changed since the last restructure, and the options have generally gotten better.
Some highlights:
– Route 556 provides double the frequency to Tiger Mountain as route 554 did, while also providing more local service in Issaquah. New stops include the East Sunset Way Trailhead (previously served only by Trailhead Direct), as well as the Issaquah Commons shopping center, where you can hop into REI to buy gear, or visit a restaurant for a post-hike meal. The tradeoff: needing to connect to Link if coming from Seattle.
– Route 203 serves a stop about 1/4 mile away from the Big Tree Ridge Trailhead to Cougar Mountain. (How to lobby KCM to add an additional stop right at the trailhead, since the bus goes right by there?). Other, more rugged hiking opportunities also exist at other route 203 stops, for the more adventurous.
– Route 215 offers service to North Bend, both faster and more frequently than what was possible before, outside the Trailhead Direct season, with a direct Link connection at Mercer Island, rather than needing to transfer buses in Issaquah. Once in North Bend, it is possible to walk the Snoqualmie Valley Trail to the Little Si Trailhead (~2 miles each way) and do a Trailhead Direct hike out of season.
– The Mercer Slough nature trails now have direct Link access, and can be reached right out of South Bellevue P&R, without needing to switch to a bus.