Metro – Seattle Transit Blog

Friday Roundtable: Boren Ave Route Idea

August 1, 2025July 31, 2025 by Michael Smith

One of the most significant transit gaps in Seattle is on Boren Ave between Jackson Street and Denny Way. Boren Ave is aligned with the downtown grid and runs through the heart of First Hill. The avenue is unique as it is the only road connects South Lake Union (SLU), First Hill, and Little Saigon. The current transit network in the area is still focused on getting people to and from downtown Seattle. Over ten Metro and Sound Transit routes intersect Boren Ave, heading to and from downtown. A route along Boren would connect these many routes and provide a direct route between the International District, First Hill, and South Lake Union.

Downtown Seattle Transit Map with Boren Ave Circled (Screenshot from Seattle Transit Map)

Running a bus on Boren is not a new idea. Today, peak hour express routes 193, 303, 322, and 630 have stops on Boren. This proposal is focused on adding an all-day, frequent bus route. Over the past 15 years, several STB posts have proposed rerouting a bus to Boren Ave, including Route 7 and Route 106. These proposals are still valid ideas; however, today’s route proposal focuses on a different route: Route 40.

Race the L8

July 12, 2025July 11, 2025 by Michael Smith

On Thursday, Fix the L8 hosted a race between people walking, rolling, and dancing vs a Route 8 bus. The race was on Denny Way from Dexter Ave to Stewart St. On paper, this should be an easy win for Route 8 as its schedule indicates a 7 minute trip along this segment. Walking is estimated to take 13 minutes. Regular readers of the Blog will be familiar with the severe reliability issues that Route 8 endures. Jason Li recently wrote a 3-part series on the route: Route 8 Bus Lanes, Redesigning Denny Way, and Long W8s.

While the race was scheduled to start at 5pm, we waited for some racers that were on a Route 8 bus from Capitol Hill that was running 30 minutes behind schedule. While we waited, I spoke with a few people to learn about their experience with the route. One person mentioned they recently bought a scooter as Route 8 was too unreliable for their commute. Another mentioned they moved from Capitol Hill to South Lake Union to avoid taking Route 8. After a few introductory words from organizers Nick Sattele and Jason Li, the race kicked off as Metro bus 8047 crossed Dexter Ave at 5:29pm.

Friday Roundtable: Metro Trolley Wire Map

July 4, 2025July 10, 2025 by Michael Smith

While most people looking at the sky today are hoping to see fireworks, I prefer to look at overhead trolleybus wires. The map below outlines the location of all trolleybus wires in Seattle. This dataset was created by King County and last updated in 2018. While the map has not been updated in 7 years, it is still mostly up to date. The biggest change not reflected in the map is the removal of trolley wire from Madison St from the RapidRide G Line construction. The official map and dataset is available here.

Many of the trolley bus routes that run today are immediately identifiable. Looking past the wires that are used by today’s routes, the map shows two other types of overhead wire: deprecated route wire and what I’m calling “utility wire”.

4th of July Transit Service

July 3, 2025July 2, 2025 by Michael Smith

Tomorrow is a Independence Day, so Puget Sound transit agencies are running reduced schedules. To help everyone travel to and from the celebrations throughout the region, some agencies are running extra service. The schedule changes are outlined below. Click on an agency’s name to view the official announcement.

Sound Transit

1 Line: Sunday schedule (every 10-15 min) with extra trips running until 2am. Between 2am and 3am, trips will only run on part of the route. View the official schedule for more details.
2 Line: Sunday schedule (every 10 min) with extra trips running until midnight.
ST Express: Sunday schedule
Sounder: No service
T Line: Sunday Schedule

King County Metro

Bus Routes: Sunday service with some reroutes planned in Bellevue, Bothell, Burien, Issaquah, Kent, Kirkland, West Seattle, and downtown Seattle. Check Metro’s service advisories to see impacted routes/trips.
Trailhead Direct: Trailhead Direct routes will run on Friday. Details of these routes are discussed in a previous post.
First Hill Streetcar: Regular service
South Lake Union Streetcar: Regular service with extended hours. The last streetcar to Lake Union Park will depart at 9:45 p.m. No streetcars will operate during the Lake Union fireworks display, 10:15pm to 10:45pm. After the fireworks display the last trip to downtown Seattle will leave Lake Union Park at about 11:15pm.
Water Taxi: Regular weekday service

Ridership Patterns for East Link Connections

April 10, 2025April 9, 2025 by Michael Smith

In preparation for the upcoming openings of Sound Transit’s Downtown Redmond Link Extension and full East Link Extension, King County Metro has outlined the planned changes to its Eastside network. Full details of the changes were previously covered on the Blog. Most of the changes in this restructure will take effect when the full 2 Line opens, likely in the fall or winter this year. This post will look at the ridership patterns for the existing routes impacted by the proposed restructure. Metro collects ridership data for most routes; however, data is not collected for routes 204, 224, 232, 630, 930, and 931.

Final East Link Connections Map from King County Metro

Ridership Patterns for RapidRide B Line

March 21, 2025March 20, 2025 by Michael Smith

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.

Average Ridership Per Trip

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.

Bellevue College Transit Hub with Gondola

March 10, 2025March 9, 2025 by Martin Pagel

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.

Ridership Patterns for RapidRide F Line

February 24, 2025February 21, 2025 by Michael Smith

King County Metro’s RapidRide F Line travels inbound (westbound) from Renton to Burien, via the Westfield Southcenter mall and Tukwila International Boulevard Station. Outbound (eastbound) trips travel in the reverse direction. In October 2024, the F Line had 5,107 average weekday boardings.

Average Ridership Per Trip

Average Weekday Ridership per F Line Trip: March 2024 to September 2024. “Inbound” is toward Burien Transit Center; “Outbound” is toward Renton. Click the plot to view at full-resolution in a new tab.

Ridership Patterns for King County Metro Route 44

February 13, 2025February 12, 2025 by Michael Smith

King County Metro’s Route 44 travels inbound from Ballard to UW Station via Wallingford and the University District. Outbound trips travel in the reverse direction. In October 2024, Route 44 had 6,663 average weekday boardings.

Average Ridership Per Trip

Average Weekday Ridership per Route 44 Trip: March 2024 to September 2024. “Inbound” is toward UW Station; “Outbound” is toward Ballard. Click the plot to view at full-resolution in a new tab.

Ridership Patterns for RapidRide A Line

January 20, 2025January 19, 2025 by Michael Smith

King County Metro’s RapidRide A Line travels inbound from the Federal Way Transit Center to Tukwila International Boulevard Station, primarily along State Route 99. Outbound trips travel in the reverse direction. In November 2024, the A Line was the third busiest bus route in King County with 9,407 average weekday boardings.

As noted in a 2023 STB article by Andrew Bowen, the A Line is one of the most efficient Metro routes in terms of Rides per Platform Hour. This metric tracks how many people use the route for every hour a bus is operating it. Given the ridership data below, this is not too surprising. The A Line is heavily used for shorter trips and almost every stop has a few passengers boarding or alighting per trip.

Average Ridership Per Trip

For the first time in this series, the data shown in the graphs were collected during the Spring 2024 service change, from March 30, 2024 to September 14, 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.