A Golden Gardens Direct ride from the beach to central Ballard, partly with a view of the bike trail and its linear woods. (Scooby Doo and the Goblin King) This is the real-time trip block by block, so if you find it too slow you can go into Settings -> Playback Speed and speed it up. There’s two points of dialog at the middle and end, so you can return to normal speed for that and hear the shoutouts to STB.

While I was watching this I discovered there are at least three channels with videos of individual Pugetopolis bus/train routes, in case you want to see what a certain route or its neighborhood is like. This one caught my eye…

Route 224: Duvall to Redmond Transit Center (Seattle Transit)

This reminded me of my Snoqualmie Valley bus trip, which included this route. I did the trip in 2014 and again in 2022: 554 to Issaquah City Hall, 208 to Snoqualmie, Valley Shuttle to Duvall, 224 to Redmond TC, 545 to Seattle. Now I could take Link from Redmond Station, and in the fall the 215 will improve access to Snoqualmie.

The 224 is interesting because it has several contrasting parts: (1) growing small town (Duvall), (2) deep in the woods, (3) Redmond Ridge new urbanist development, (4) fields with occasional houses that haven’t changed since my 1970s childhood, (5) downtown Redmond. Redmond Ridge has little bus service so everyone has to have a car, but on my second trip I noticed it has good internal walking paths, and I saw a surprising number of people out walking. A long-ago STB author I hadn’t seen in years got on the bus in Redmond Ridge and got off somewhere in east Redmond. There’s more to Redmond Ridge than this camera view can show, so I’d recommend taking the 224 yourself through it and looking all around.

The 224 is hourly weekdays until 8 pm, and no service weekends. This is one of the routes I think should be more frequent and should run all day and evening every day, so that people in a new urbanist cluster would have ready access to transit and a viable alternative to driving. Every neighborhood should have that, especially one with integrated businesses. This is why we need more transit funding to make it happen. Of course, I also wish Redmond Ridge were adjacent to central Redmond so it weren’t so isolated.

The movie Trains will be shown On July 9 at 7:30pm at SIFF Film Center. (The webpage takes a minute to fully come up.) It’s a 2024 Polish film that’s a wordless montage of 20th-century vintage train footage, a kind of Koyaanisqatsi of rail. The director is Maciej J Drygas. I saw Koyaanisqatsi in the 80s and am looking forward to this. Thanks to Martin Pagel for finding this.

This is an open thread.

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Holiday service announcements: Metro holiday service with Sound Transit, streetcars, and the King County water taxis. Sound Transit, Community Transit, Pierce Transit, Everett Transit, Kitsap Transit, Monorail, Washington State Ferries announcements. Trailhead Direct (choose route from Routes menu; holiday section is in top right).

Below is a breakdown by day. If something is critical to you, double-check the agency’s announcement to make sure I haven’t made any mistakes.

Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: July 4 Weekend Service” | 56 comments

Reminder: most transit agencies will be running Sunday/holiday service this Friday, July 3, in observation of Independence Day. Check your local agency’s service alerts.

Reminder: To ensure there is enough space on trains, bikes and scooters are not allowed on trains on World Cup match days. There are matches today (July 1) and next Monday (July 6).

Transit & Streets:

• Sound Transit Board Advances West Seattle Link Into Final Design (The Urbanist)
• As Everett weighs transit merger, paratransit riders want same service (Everett Herald)
• Op-Ed: How the Seattle Transit Measure Can Benefit All (The Urbanist)
• Op-Ed: Seattle Needs Car-Free Streets (The Urbanist)
• New Report Outlines Clear Case for Removing SR 99 Through South Park (The Urbanist)
• How Do We Get Transit Champions on Transit Boards? (PubliCola)
• Sound Transit refunds debt for ~$23 million in savings (The Platform)
• Temporary Street Closures Along Aurora Ave N to improve public safety (SDOT Blog)

Land Use & Housing:

• Court of Appeals Ruling Pushes Out Next Phase of Seattle’s Growth Plan ‘Significantly’ (The Urbanist)
• The Good, the Bad, and the UGA-ly as WA Growth Management Act Turns 35 (The Urbanist)
• KCRHA Spins the News that Homelessness Is Growing (PubliCola). Also in The Stranger.

This is an Open Thread.

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Since the Lynnwood Link Extension opened in August 2024, Community Transit has overhauled its network. The two Link stations in Snohomish County have allowed the agency to invest more service hours in local routes than ever before. This investment comes at the cost the Commuter routes, which the agency has truncated and rebranded as Express. Community Transit has also grown its bus rapid transit network with the opening of the Orange Line in March 2024.

Overall Ridership Trends

Ridership on the agency’s services has shifted in response to the changes in the network. In October 2023, Community Transit had 23,701 average weekday trips. About 47% of these trips were on one of the 26 local routes and 18% were on a Commuter route to or from Seattle. The two Swift lines, Blue and Green, had 24% and 10% of all boardings, respectively.

Jumping ahead two years to October 2025, Community Transit’s ridership looks a bit different. Overall boardings have increased to 24% to 29,277 each weekday. This increase is primarily due to higher ridership on local routes and the Swift Orange Line. Ridership on Commuter/Express routes has shrunk by nearly 75% to just 1,085 average weekday passengers. The Swift Blue and Green lines each see about 1,000 more passengers per day than they did in 2023.

Continue reading “Community Transit Ridership Jumped 24% After Lynnwood Link Restructure” | 28 comments

Vancouver BC chose a Skytrain extension in the eastern Surrey-Langley suburbs over a competing surface light rail (LRT) proposal with a different L-shaped route. The video discusses the tradeoffs between the two, how to build an elevated rail extension, and the socioeconomic factors for the station cachement areas in both alternatives. (The B1M)

This is an open thread.

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Reminders: To ensure there is enough space on trains, bikes and scooters are not allowed on trains on World Cup match days.

Local:

• What to expect during RapidRide I construction (Metro Matters)
• Everett Transit Annexation Would Level Up City’s Transit System, Mayor Says (The Urbanist)
• A Seattle Times reader wishes buses were quieter (The Seattle Times, $; free via SPL)
• 50 years later, one of Community Transit’s original buses hits the road again (CT News)
• Olympic College in Bremerton is piloting free transit passes for students (KT Headways)
• Data Backs Up Supportive ‘Housing First’ Model in Spite of Federal Attacks (The Urbanist).
• DESC’s Susan Byrnes opines Homelessness is a complex problem. Stop looking for a simple solution (The Seattle Times, $; free via SPL)
• Tacoma Sees 62% More Homes Enter Pipeline Following 2025 Zoning Overhaul (The Urbanist)
• Op-Ed: ‘Seattle Atlas’ Can Demystify Zoning, Build Case for More Housing (The Urbanist)
• A review of the impacts of the World Cup on Seattle and the region (CascadePBS)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Level Up” | 126 comments

What are Barcelona superblocks (superilles) really like? What do they look like, how many people use them, and what do they do in them? Here’s an overview:

By CityFixer. Seattle is briefly mentioned at 9:30-9:41.

Some shorts on the superblocks: (1) Streetfilms overview, (2) a zen garden like effect with flat rock seats, (3) the Sant Antoni superblock.

Are there other general topics you’d like to see movies on? What has the Sunday Movie column not covered yet?

This is an open thread.

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Borrowing a phrase from Kirk Hovenkotter (Executive Director of Transportation Choices Coalition), today’s Roundtable is about tourist use of Seattle’s mass transit system.

On Monday, Seattle held its first FIFA Men’s World Cup match at “Seattle Stadium” (Lumen Field). Sound Transit, King County Metro, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit each boosted transit service to get tourists and match attendees in, out, and around Seattle as smoothly as possible with the massive influx of international football fans. Sound Transit was the first to announce almost record-setting ridership, estimating that June 15, 2026, was the third-highest ridership day in Link light rail history with 210,000 combined boardings on the Link 1 and 2 Lines, representing an over 37% boost from Link’s quickly-growing rider count.

Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: the world is riding Seattle transit” | 92 comments