Munich is building a second downtown tunnel for its S-Bahn (regional rail) network, to open in 2035. Here’s a map and summary. Deutche Bahn chose to build it when ridership in the first tunnel reached 800,000 and trains were running every 2 minutes. The second tunnel has 5 stations instead of 10, at the same locations as the original stations, with the same station names except one name that’s slightly different. This will allow it to be more expressful than the first tunnel.
A slide from the March 6 meeting of the Sound Transit Board’s Rider Experience Committee looked ahead at construction impacts planned into 2026.
As Sound Transit continues to grow the Link light rail system and works to establish a “state of better repair” for its existing infrastructure, more impacts to its critical trunks of transit service are expected. Ongoing and upcoming work expected to impact service includes replacement of rail clips at Wilburton Station, construction at the upcoming Pinehurst Station, and replacement of 600 feet of rail near International District/Chinatown Station.
King County Metro’s RapidRide B Line travels inbound from Redmond to Bellevue via Overlake and Crossroads. Outbound trips travel in the reverse direction. In January 2025, the B Line had 4,531 average weekday boardings.
The data shown in the plots below were collected between March and September 2024. Sound Transit’s Link 2 Line started operating on April 27, 2024 and runs between South Bellevue and Redmond Technology. The B Line and Link 2 Line intersect at Downtown Bellevue and Redmond Technology stations. This likely resulted in some ridership pattern changes; however, overall B Line ridership remained fairly consistent month to month around the time of 2 Line opening. Sherwin Lee discussed the initial 2 Line ridership data in August 2024.
The plots below show the average weekday ridership by stop in each direction, color-coded by time of day. For a more detailed breakdown of how the plots are set up, please refer to the How to Read the Plots section of the article discussing Route 70.
Average Weekday Ridership per B Line Trip: March 2024 to September 2024. “Inbound” is toward Bellevue Transit Center; “Outbound” is toward Redmond Transit Center. Click the plot to view at full-resolution in a new tab.
On March 4, 2025, the King County Council voted to pass King County Metro’s East Link Connections bus restructure. This restructure is based around the upcoming openings of Sound Transit’s Downtown Redmond Link Extension and East Link Extension. Overall, Metro is introducing 8 new routes, revising 16 routes, and deleting 20 routes. Many of the routes getting deleted are currently suspended.
Most of the changes outlined below will be implemented in Fall 2025 alongside the full East Link Extension opening. To better support the Redmond Link Extension opening on May 10, Metro will implement the B Line changes and partially implement the changes of routes 224, 250, 269 and 930 the same day.
B Line Bus at Bellevue Transit Center
Since this restructure was last covered on the Blog in February 2024, a few routes have been changed:
Route 240: Now serves 112th Ave SE and East Main instead of running on 108th Ave SE.
Route 249: This route has been converted to DART (Dial-a-ride-transit) with a new DART deviation area in Beaux Arts.
Route 203: Weekday peak frequency changed from 20 minutes to 30 minutes.
Route 215: Weekday peak frequency changed from 15/45 to 30/90 (frequency between Mercer Island and Issaquah/North Bend).
Route 218: Weekday peak frequency changed from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.
Route 223: Mid-day frequency improved from 30 minutes to 20 minutes.
Route 251: Weekday daytime frequency changed from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. The start of weekend service was pushed back from 6am to 7am.
Route 256: Weekday peak frequency changed from “12-30 minutes” to 30 minutes.
The Seattle Times ($) discusses ST’s confidential pick for its next CEO, and provides examples of other recent agency leadership hires conducted in secret. STB coverage here. Word on the street is “Candidate C” actually is Dow Constantine (Seattle Nice).
Spring is in the air, and with it, changes in transit service across the Puget Sound region.
King County Metro (March 29)
The most substantive changes in Metro’s service change are reshuffling of Seattle Transit Measure funded service hours. There are also bus routes in Federal Way and Redmond moving into nearby light rail stations, and the usual miscellaneous changes.
Seattle Transit Measure service additions:
Route 8 will see a handful of added trips on Saturdays, and Sunday frequency jumping from every 20 minutes to every 15.
Route 36 will also get some added Saturday trips and a frequency boost on Sunday, going from 12 minutes to 10 minutes.
Route 107 is set to gain the most, with 124 new weekend trips. Service on both Saturdays and Sundays will double during the day, going from 30 minute frequency to 15. About 6 trips are also added on weekdays.
Route 124 will get 1 new trip on Saturdays and 2 new trips on Sundays.
RapidRide G Line gets 2 new late night trips every day.
RapidRide H Line gets 5 new trips on weekdays and 3 new trips on Saturdays and Sundays.
With Link running mostly north to south, what’s the best way to serve neighborhoods to the west and east of the line? The highways (I-5, SR-99…) run north/south, too, and Seattle’s hills get in the way. Gondola technology might be a good way to address this issue. Gondolas’ ultra-high frequency speeds up transfers, and grade separation provides reliability. East-west trips are usually short, so a gondola’s limited speed isn’t an issue. While South Lake Union (SLU) and Capitol Hill have been booming and growing significantly, bus route 8 has been struggling to make its way up the hill, and gets into severe traffic congestion along Denny Way causing long delays. A decade ago, Matt Gangemi and Matt Roewe, an engineer and architect respectively, proposed a gondola line connecting the Sculpture Park, Seattle Center, SLU, and Capitol Hill along John Street. Connecting the recently-renovated waterfront and Seattle Center’s cultural opportunities with the SLU tech centers and housing and Capitol Hill nightlife should be part of the mayor’s and Chamber’s plan to revitalize downtown Seattle and make it more attractive to tourism.
Recently Ross and I discussed various alignments. It would be nice to serve the center of Seattle Center directly akin it did during the Seattle World Fair in 1962. Running along Thomas or Harrison Street might be better than John Street. You could also extend the line beyond Broadway to serve Kaiser Permanente hospital and the business district at 15th Ave E.
Thought it’d be fun to look at some spot improvements King County Metro has done. The 2024 report was just published this month. Below will detail a handful of spot improvements alongside previous ones from the 2022 report and 2023 report.
Light Rail Disruptions: Link 1 Line service in Downtown Seattle will be significantly disrupted from April 14 to April 23 according to a recent Passenger Impact Program presentation. More details to come.
Local Transit News:
Ridership among ORCA agencies (Community Transit, Everett Transit, King County Metro, Kitsap Transit, Pierce Transit and Sound Transit) topped 151 million trips in 2024 (Metro Matters), 17 million more than in 2023 (an increase of 12.6%).
For SDOT’s spring parking rate change, most rates will stay the same or decrease, indicating stable parking demand across much of the paid curb space in the city (SDOT Blog).
During a special meeting of the Sound Transit Board of Directors’ Executive Committee this evening, the committee recommended “Candidate C” for the role of Chief Executive Officer of Sound Transit. The leadership position has been vacant since Julie Timm departed last January, with the role filled by interim CEO Goran Sparrman. Sparrman’s tenure as interim CEO has been extended multiple times but will end on May 15 at his own behest.
Currently most bus lines on the eastside are radiating from the Bellevue Transit Center. With the growth of Bellevue College and with the city’s efforts to make the campus more transit friendly, Metro is planning to add more lines which serve the college. Why not make Bellevue College a secondary southeast hub and connect it to the Bellevue Transit Center via an ultra-high-frequency gondola?
While there are plans to build light rail from Issaquah to Eastgate, downtown Bellevue, and South Kirkland P&R, construction won’t even start for another decade. With the current ST3 project cost increases, there are some doubts whether it will be affordable. So what could be done to improve transit in the meantime?
The Issaquah and Sammamish populations are rapidly growing. With over 10,000 students, Bellevue College is one of the largest schools in the state. Many local bus lines serve the college. That creates high travel demand mostly to downtown Bellevue and Seattle. Once the 2 Line crosses the lake, transit in the area is about to change. Buses from Issaquah will serve either Mercer Island or South Bellevue Station with some continuing to Bellevue Transit Center. They will stop at the Eastgate Freeway stop along the way. Either way they will connect to Link (2 Line) but it means that frequency is split between two directions (Seattle vs Bellevue). Some of the riders may also have a long walk from the freeway median stop to the college. If all Issaquah bus lines would connect to a Bellevue College hub and then continue to Mercer Island, Seattle riders could stay on any of those buses and Bellevue riders could use the gondola line to the Bellevue Transit Center. That may allow for a frequency of 5-10 minutes from Issaquah to Seattle and Bellevue and even higher frequency from Bellevue College to Bellevue Transit Center.
Two reports on the causes of Link’s many unplanned outages ($) were released on Thursday, as Mike Lindblom at the Seattle Times writes. One report is by engineering consultant HNTB; the other is a Sound Transit internal review. The reports identify 432 hours (10 workweeks) of unplanned 1 Line disruptions, delays, and shutdowns between January and November 2024. This is separate from the planned maintenance periods where ST announced reductions, single-tracking, or bus shuttles in advance.
This article will provide a brief overview of Redmond’s Link stations walkability and bikeability. It’s a followup to our Redmond Station Areas article a year ago. In the Starter Line segment that opened in 2024, Overlake Village station added protected bike lanes, while Redmond Technology station added pedestrian bridges across SR-520. For the Redmond Downtown extension opening May 10, Sound Transit added bike tunnels under SR-520. The City of Redmond reconnected the Marymoor Village area with a new street grid, and integrated the existing bike trail next to the Downtown Redmond station. All of these improvements help transit riders reach light rail stations easily and conveniently.
King County Metro route 160 travels inbound from Auburn Transit Center to Renton Transit Center, via Kent and Benson Hill. Outbound trips travel in the reverse direction. In January 2025, Route 160 had 5,050 average weekday boardings.
The plots below show the average weekday ridership by stop in each direction, color-coded by time of day. For a more detailed breakdown of how the plots are set up, please refer to the How to Read the Plots section of the article discussing Route 70.
Average Weekday Ridership per Route 160 Trip: March 2024 to September 2024. “Inbound” is toward Renton Transit Center; “Outbound” is toward Auburn Transit Center. Click the plot to view at full-resolution in a new tab.
PSRC Seeking Public Comment on Trolley Infrastructure Project that will remove existing trolley infrastructure on the 10th Ave E bridge over SR-520, replacing it with trolley infrastructure on the new Roanoke Lid over SR-520 as part of WSDOT’s Portage Bay Bridge replacement and Roanoke Lid project.
At last week’s Sound Transit Board meeting, Sound Transit’s West Seattle project manager Brad Owen showed the extend of the guideway from the SODO station along the Spokane viaduct, across Highway 99 to the Duwamish bridge. He explained that rather than pouring its concrete deck in place, they plan to use precast segments. That will speed up the process and reduce cost.
The rendering shows the enormity of the guideway, adding a 4th level to the existing 3 levels (at grade, Spokane viaduct, Highway 99). At least the underside would be a bit nicer than the i-beam girders Sound Transit has been using lately along I-5.
A tale of two cities: Utrecht and Fake London (Ontario, Canada). (Not Just Bikes) Both were walkable streetcar towns before cars, both went in a car-oriented direction in the mid 20th century. But in the 1990s Utrecht changed course and is now a walkers’/bikers’/transit riders’ paradise. London is still a hellhole of car-dependent design and minimal transit like many American cities.
The video has several notable quotes. “I’ve been constantly told that we need to design for cars because of families, the disabled, or the elderly. And yet I see all of those people getting around just fine [in Utrecht]. Because universal access to mobility isn’t a fundamental issue; it’s a problem caused by car dependency.” (6:19)
Cable-stayed vs suspension bridges. (Practical Engineering)
Originally around 2013, the Ballard Link Extension was envisioned as an at-grade alternative. Transit advocates and others pushed for complete grade separation for faster speed and reliability. Sound Transit extended the ST3 a decade and convinced the other sub areas to help fund a second transit tunnel. Unfortunately the preferred Ballard Link Extension has faced large cost overruns from $5.2 billion dollars to now $10.8 billion. In light of the eye-watering cost increases, a second look at the original at-grade options studied in the early 2010s should be considered.
