Metro’s presentation of its new RapidRide Prioritization Plan revealed plans to resume work on RapidRide K and R. The Urbanist pointed out that King County Metro Route 7 was originally supposed to be replaced with RapidRide R by 2021 in the Levy to Move Seattle, but the project was delayed to 2024 and eventually put on hold due to budget issues. Now, the line will resume planning work next year, with opening targeted for 2031.

RapidRide R represents a major upgrade to Metro’s Route 7 that can’t come soon enough. With over 10,000 daily boardings (and growing) the 7 is the one of Seattle’s most important lines. During the pandemic its ridership didn’t drop nearly as much as other lines, and it has since almost recovered to the 2019 level.

Following major cuts to RapidRide expansions due to budget constraints posed by the pandemic, the King County Council asked Metro in 2021 to, among other things, produce a “RapidRide prioritization plan” by the middle of this year. Metro published its plan on June 28, in which it chooses the next RapidRide lines to build as part of the “interim network” intended to be operational before the Ballard Link Extension is finished in 2039.

The 61-page document, summarized in a Metro staff report, assesses eight corridors identified in the 2021 Metro Connects Interim Plan using a prioritization framework weighted heavily for equity and environmental sustainability, but also considers travel time, ridership, cost, and feasibility. These new routes would continue expanding RapidRide into a grid-like network building on the seven lines operating today (A, B, C, D, E, F, and H) and the five lines already in on the way (G, I, J, K, and R).

Typical for RapidRide lines, the plan proposes transit speed improvements ranging from BAT (business access and transit) lanes to queue jumps to address existing travel time delays. However, the high cost of additional infrastructure upgrades and lack of funding limits Metro’s ability to implement more than three or four routes by 2039.

King County Metro has announced that it is adding a new zone for Metro Flex, its on-demand microtransit service, in Delridge and South Park. Service in the new zone starts Monday, July 22nd.

Metro Flex is a service offered by King County Metro that lets users book rides on-demand within a certain zone. Riders use the Metro Flex app to request a ride during operating hours. The app will direct users where to wait for the vehicle (usually a short walk, typically much shorter than to a bus route), and the service will automatically route drivers to each waiting passenger.

Originally debuting as Via to Transit in 2019, this service began as a way to connect riders to Link stations. After a hiccup in 2020 that completely suspended this service for a time, Metro has expanded the number of zones and piloted similar services in Kent and Sammamish under different names and partnerships.

Since 2023, these services have all been consolidated into one service called Metro Flex, operating service in seven (soon to be eight) zones. The new zone in Delridge and South Park is bounded roughly by the Duwamish Waterway, SW Roxbury St, and 35th Ave SW, except narrowing to around Delridge Way SW in the north, and with a few other cutouts to follow the street grid around the river. Service is available seven days per week, from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the Federal Transit Administration has awarded a third round of funding for bus transit totaling $1.5B nationwide. A total of approximately $47.2M was awarded to transit operators in Washington state, mostly to fund purchases of electric buses and to complete maintenance facility renovations.

Here’s the list of recipients in our state, per the FTA announcement: Pierce Transit, King County Metro, Link Transit in Chelan County, and WSDOT on behalf of Grays Harbor, Clallam Transit, and Island Transit.

Several Eastside transit projects will open over the next six years and converge in Bellevue for transfers between them:

• The full 2 Line (2025): Lynnwood, downtown Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond
• bus restructure (2025): Metro and ST Express (STB routes list)
• Stride S1 (2027/2028): Lynnwood, Bothell, Kirkland, Bellevue
• Stride S2 (2027/2028): Burien, Renton
• RapidRide K (2030): Totem Lake, Kirkland, Bellevue, Bellevue College, Eastgate

What will each neighborhood have access to with a one- or two-seat ride? How good will their transfers be? This determines how many choices they have for work, errands, shopping, and recreation within a reasonable travel time. That set of choices is the their freedom to get around without a car. This is the core of why I participate in STB: to ensure that the most people have the most choices in their convenient transit circle. Factors include where the routes go, how frequent they are, and how long the transfer walk is between them. It’s worth measuring what the 2030 network’s impact will be to the people living in it: how many areas have good transit freedom, and what lower-income areas will have.

This article focuses on the transfers, because that’s one of those emergent phenomena that can’t be seen in the individual routes so it can easily be missed. I’m defining a “good” transfer walk as less than 2 minutes, a “mediocre” walk as 2-5 minutes, and a “bad” walk as more than 5 minutes. Below are my initial impressions of the total 2030 network. Let’s crowdsource this in the comments to make any corrections or add details I missed. This will also help identify issues for feedback on the RapidRide K open house and its alternatives.

This is an open thread.