All posts by David Lawson

Metro service in South King County has been the unsung hero of Seattle-area transit for many years, serving lots of lower-income people in mostly unwalkable communities but never quite getting the service improvements even Metro admits it deserves. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted further the importance of the South End network, with virtually every South End trunk route on Metro’s list of routes most important to essential workers. It’s always welcome when Metro takes a fresh look at this critical service.

Recently, Metro has been engaged in a Renton-Kent-Auburn Mobility Project, thinking about how to improve the all-day network, centered around Kent Station, that serves the Green River Valley and Kent East Hill. Metro produced a proposed restructure last fall, and then made minor refinements after receiving public comment. The King County Council is now considering the result, which is likely to be adopted and take effect in September 2020.

The proposal is centered around a new route 160, which is intended to use the same routing as the future RapidRide I Line. The route would be effectively an extension of current route 169, absorbing the portion of current route 180 between Kent Station and Auburn Station. For now, route 160 would be scheduled at similar frequencies to route 169, with further improvements coming with the RapidRide I Line conversion in 2023. Other changes are complementary, and described later in this post.

Of course, Metro is in an environment of major operational and financial uncertainty as a result of COVID-19. The planned frequencies in this proposal do not reflect Metro’s temporary Reduced Schedule or any permanent cuts that may be necessary as a result of COVID-19 financial impact. If COVID-19’s economic effects continue, what riders finally see on the street in September 2020 may look significantly different from what follows after the jump.

On Wednesday, Councilmember Rod Dembowski was the first to share the news of upcoming Metro service cuts, made in recognition of sharp drops in both ridership and sales tax revenue during the COVID-19 crisis. Late yesterday, Metro told us that those cuts would start Monday, and that the agency would cut about 25 percent of its service, affecting nearly every route in the network. The cuts are intended to be temporary. Service will ramp back up whenever the COVID-19 situation allows King County residents to resume normal activities. Metro indicates that they will not be laying off operators for now.

We are still waiting for details on which trips will be cut, and how the cuts will affect frequency and span of service. As soon as Metro provides us with more detail, we’ll tell you about it. But you don’t get to 25 percent without major pain, and it’s reasonable to expect substantial frequency reductions and likely some span-of-service reductions as well. For now, we only know the following:

Routes entirely canceled. The following routes will not operate at all, starting Monday (UPDATE: Metro’s latest information moved route 309 off this list):

• 9. Use route 7, with a transfer to route 60 or the First Hill Streetcar.
• 29. Use route 2.
• 47. Walk to route 10.
• 78. Walk to routes 65 and 75.
• 125. Walk to route 120 or 131, whichever is more accessible.
• 200. Most destinations on this route will not be open. For service to Swedish Issaquah, walk from Issaquah Highlands P&R.
• 208. No replacement service.
• 237. Use Sound Transit routes 532 and 535; park at Kingsgate P&R.
• 308. Use route 312 or 77. No replacement service to Horizon View.
• 309. Use route 312 and transfer to local service to First Hill.
• 330. Use local services serving Northgate, and transfer there.
• ST 541. Use ST 542.

Routes with no cuts. There are a few routes with no cuts at all: 22, 105, 118, 119, 154.

Every route not on one of the above two lists will have some sort of service cut, probably substantial. Again, we don’t know yet what those cuts entail. Given the sudden onset of these cuts, we’ve asked Metro to share that information as soon as possible. Once we have it, we’ll pass it along.

In 2021, Sound Transit’s Northgate Link Extension will add three new stations to the light rail line formerly known as Central Link: University District, Roosevelt, and Northgate. As with previous Link extensions, Metro plans to restructure bus service to improve connections to the new stations and reduce duplication with new light rail service. Given the large, heavily populated swath of North Seattle that the Northgate Link stations will serve, we expected this restructure to be particularly far-reaching. And Metro’s first proposal does not disappoint.

In the broadest terms, Metro wants to leverage Link for almost every trip where it could make sense, and to shift bus hours from redundant trips downtown into local routes and commuter service to destinations Link doesn’t reach. Riders traveling between the north end and downtown can expect to use light rail for at least part of their trips, while many riders within North Seattle will have new nonstop connections and buses that run more often.

Before we dive into what it means for specific areas (below the jump), we should note that this proposal is about high-level network concepts more than granular details. Metro is offering only general information about the level of service riders can expect on each proposed route, and says that it intends to gather feedback about specific tradeoffs during community outreach that will happen over the next few months. Based on experience of past Link proposals, it’s possible that this one could barely change, that it could be redrawn wholesale, or anything in between—depending on feedback Metro receives. Tell Metro what you think, whether or not you like what you see. Their survey is open until April 7.

On Tuesday, SDOT announced an ugly split-the-baby solution to community deadlock over the planned redesign of 35th Ave NE, the central neighborhood arterial of Wedgwood and Bryant. The solution seems custom-designed to upset everyone in the debate, sacrificing both the bike lanes recommended in the city’s own Bike Master Plan and the street parking that was the central focus of opponents’ demands. Instead, drivers get a two-way turn lane for most of the corridor and freeway-style 12-foot general purpose lanes.

The new design for 35th, with its wider lanes, additional passing opportunities, and inevitably higher speeds, is a serious threat to the safety of people outside cars. But the point of this post is not to re-litigate 35th, but to suggest a way for the city to avoid this sort of worst-case outcome in future projects. In short, to have any chance of meeting its own Vision Zero goals, the city must establish legally binding guidelines for the redesign of all arterial corridors, and then direct professional staff to follow them when it is time to design individual projects. And there is a very good local example of how to do exactly that: King County Metro. The details, along with some history, are below the jump.

Orange and white Rider Alert signs are sprouting around the city like early March crocuses, which must mean it’s time for another Metro service change. Not so long ago, we dreaded these. Now we look forward to them. We’ve now had four years of improvements without any significant pain, as a combination of continued sales tax revenue growth and Seattle Proposition 1 investments have allowed the agency to address urgent needs and boost service levels throughout its network.

This service change, which starts Saturday, March 23, is a little different. The local economic music has not yet stopped, so Metro is still adding hours. But, this time, riders won’t be seeing commensurate network improvements.

The culprit is the closure of the downtown transit tunnel to buses, driven by the construction of the Washington State Convention Center Addition and the resulting loss of the northern tunnel entrance at the former Convention Place Station. A majority of the additional hours in this service change are dedicated to adding running time to tunnel routes, which is needed because their trips on downtown surface streets will be slower than trips through the tunnel. (Trips through the tunnel on Link trains, however, should be faster and more reliable with the buses gone.)

Another significant change triggered by the tunnel closure is the opening of a new northbound bus pathway through downtown. While the existing three southbound pathways (Third, Second, and Fifth Avenues) had sufficient capacity to absorb the buses displaced by the tunnel, there were only two existing northbound pathways (Third and Fourth Avenues), and they lack capacity to absorb more buses. In response, SDOT and Metro have created a third northbound pathway, using a bus-only contraflow lane on Fifth Avenue south of Marion and middle bus lanes on Sixth Avenue north of Marion. Those who have suffered through the Howell Street bus lane may be skeptical of the Sixth Avenue lanes; it remains to be seen how they will perform. The new pathway will host one all-day route, the 255 to Kirkland, and a number of peak-hour routes to North King County and the northern Eastside.

Also in an effort to improve bus capacity further, all-door boarding with off-bus ORCA card readers will be available at all stops on Third Avenue downtown.

In addition to these major changes, there are a few network improvements. See the details below the jump.