Local News:

• A new greenway along the Seattle waterfront will open in two phases on Friday (SDOT Blog).
• Mayor Wilson announced an expansion of the popular Bicycle Weekends on Lake Washington Boulevard, which will now be every non-Seafair weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day (Seattle Bike Blog). Also on The Urbanist and The Stranger.
• Amtrak’s expanded trainyard in SODO is halfway done and on track to open next year (The Urbanist). New Airo trains are coming to Amtrak Cascades later this year (KUOW).
• Diesel prices hit a record $7.10 in Seattle (The Seattle Times, $).
• The draft EIS for the Everett Link Extension is expected to be released this fall (Sound Transit).
• “Send light rail’s 1 Line to Tacoma and unify the region” is certainly one opinion (The Seattle Times, $).
• The FYI Guy found the Seattle census tracts with the highest percentage of residents in each age decade (The Seattle Times, $). Unsurprising: the U-District and UW Dorms are mostly college-age (18-20s); nearly half of residents in tracts of LQA/Westlake and Capitol Hill are in their 30s.
• Seattle CM Alexis Mercedes Rinck promotes recent bus improvements with Sal, SDOT’s “SpokeSalmon” (SDOT Blog). When did Sal become so car-brained?
• Retro Metro: The U-Pass was born 35 years ago, offering unlimited transit rides to students at low cost (Metro Matters).

More headlines below.

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Retro Metro” | 43 comments

King County Metro’s fixed route bus network provides extensive coverage in King County. To complement fixed route service in some neighborhoods, Metro operates Metro Flex, an on-demand transit service. Metro began operating on-demand service 2019 and has used the Metro Flex branding since 2023. The neighborhoods currently served by Metro Flex include: Delridge/South Park, Issaquah/Sammamish, Juanita/Totem Lake, Kent, Northshore, Othello, Overlake, Renton Highlands, and Tukwila. Passengers can use Metro Flex within the same neighborhood, not to travel between Metro Flex neighborhoods.

On April 20, Metro will be updating the Metro Flex service boundaries for two neighborhoods: Northshore and Juanita/Totem Lake.

Continue reading “Metro Flex Service Boundary Updates” | 34 comments

Mexico City elevated trolleybus BRT line. Elevated light rail would have cost 2 1/2 times more. (TransitWorld)

Scooby Doo and the Goblin King has a YouTube channel with raw footage of several Metro, Community Transit, and Sound Transit bus models in action on various routes.

This is an open thread.

104 comments

Now that the full 2 Line has been running for two weeks, what has been your experience on the 1 and 2 Lines since the first regular weekday (March 30)?

Here’s what we’ve heard so far:

• April 1 (Bernie), Eastside and Judkins Park
• April 2 (Nathan Dickey), Judkins Park
• April 2 (Sam), operator switch points
• April 2 (Ian), 205K boardings on opening day
• April 2 (HZ), Crosslake
• April 2 (Andy L), Eastside, BellHop
• April 2 (Mike Orr), central/north Seattle
• April 4 (Mike Orr), my first Crosslake trip
• April 6 (HZ), South Bellevue
• April 8 (Brent White), crowding question
• April 8 (Dijibell), it’s working smooth
• April 9 (HZ), Symphony to Bellevue, side-shaking

Most people seem to say there’s lots of 2 Line trains, ridership is higher than they expected, trains are slow in several places, some of the slowness was resolved after the first few days, there’s side-shaking (“hunting”) in some places.

I’ve seen 2 Line midday and afternoon trains almost full or standing room only at Westlake, Capitol Hill, and north Seattle. Others have reported the same in the Eastside. Before simulated service, the 1 Line was like that in central and north Seattle. We assumed a lot of people would disappear from the 1 Line when the 2 Line and simulated service started. Instead the 1 Line is as busy as ever, and there are a lot of people on the 2 Line. However, 2 Line trains are 2 or 3 cars now, so people aren’t spread out across 4 cars. Still, off-peak ridership in the Eastside seems higher to me than in Shoreline, Lynnwood, and Federal Way.

I haven’t heard any complaints about long waits. In Seattle “5-minute combined service” sometimes stretches to 9 minutes.In the Eastside I’m guessing 10-minute service might stretch to 15 minutes sometimes, but I haven’t heard any reports of it.

How have you been using the 2 Line, or combined 1/2 Line service north of Chinatown/International District? Have your experiences been similar or different?

82 comments

The Urban Traffic & Economics Lab at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has created GFTS (General Transit Feed Specification) data and a map of routes from 72 intercity bus operators in North America. An interactive version of the map is available here. The United States is often criticized for its lack of a fast, frequent, and direct passenger rail network. This map of intercity bus routes shows a more extensive system, though one’s experience on these routes may vary. The Northeast, Midwest, and central Florida stand out with denser networks than the rest of the country.

The full methodology for this work is outlined in the study, but it is worth highlighting how the authors defined “intercity bus”. Their criteria included:

1. Connects distinct metropolitan areas (excludes suburban/urban commuter services).
2. Tickets can be purchased independently (excludes Amtrak Thruway services that connect between rail trips).
3. Uses over-the-road buses (excludes many rural and tribal services operated with vans or transit buses).
4. Operates regularly most of the year (excludes seasonal/charter services).

Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: Intercity Bus Routes” | 56 comments

ST’s monthly extended overnight maintenance program heads to the Eastside next week: Link 2 Line service between Bel-Red and Downtown Redmond will be replaced by shuttles after 10pm each evening on April 14-17.

Local Transit:

• Riders of the Rapidride G rejoice: SDOT has finished fixing construction errors requiring steel plates at the Terry, Boylston, and 12th Ave stations (the Seattle Times, $).
• New transit challenge: a local couple rode all 10 WA State Ferries routes [*in Puget Sound] in one day (The Seattle Times, $).
• A pilot program will bring Sunday service to the Vashon Water Taxi this summer, expanding sailings to 7 days a week from April 12 through “early fall” (Captain’s Blog).
• Sound Transit is gauging public priorities for its efforts to triage ST3’s costs with a few questions (ST News Release). The short survey is open for an unstated period.
• Help name one of Community Transit’s original buses (CT News). Can you top “Bus McBusBus”?
• WSDOT should include much more higher-speed rail in its upcoming rail plan update (Op-Ed, The Urbanist).

More headlines below.

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Bus McBusBus” | 176 comments

Previously we talked about the pilot route of Sound Transit’s overnight bus service which launched last weekend from SeaTac to downtown Seattle. This article will go over Sound Transit’s full overnight bus service proposal extended south through Tacoma to Lakewood, north to Everett, and east through Bellevue to Redmond.

Overview

Sound Transit plans to run new overnight bus service when Link is not running between about 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., which is slightly shifted from the pilot service which currently runs from midnight to 4 a.m. There will be 3 lines heading north, south, and east of Seattle. All three routes will run about every 30 minutes.

The exact service name, as well as specific routing, stops and schedules are still under consideration, but we’ll go over the existing proposal. For discussion purposes, much of the routing will be assumed based on the high-level map and existing ST Express routes. Sound Transit has been informally calling the routes “Night Bus” which we use. (King County Metro calls their overnight service “Night Owl”).

• South Express Night Bus: Seattle via SeaTac to Tacoma (and Lakewood)
  • Will replace the initial pilot service
• North Express Night Bus: Seattle via Lynnwood to Everett
• East Express Night Bus: Seattle via Bellevue to Redmond

Continue reading “Sound Transit Express Night Bus service” | 114 comments

The best US plazas. (CityNerd)

What is Detroit like? (CityNerd)

This is an open thread.

43 comments

The Link T Line in Tacoma will be closed and replaced by free shuttle buses between 6pm on Monday (April 6) until the start of service on Friday (April 10). The T Line will be closed for rail maintenance. The free shuttle will stop at the following locations.

Tacoma Dome:
-to Tacoma Dome: E 25th St & E D St
-to St Joseph: E 25th St & E D St

S 25th St:
-to Tacoma Dome: S 25th St & A St
-to St Joseph: S 25th St & A St

Continue reading “Alert: T Line Maintenance This Week” | 2 comments

Metro has announced a new stop schedule design that will roll out over the next few weeks. This is the first redesign of Metro’s bus stop signage in over a decade.

The primary difference is the how the departure times are listed. In the previous version, times would be listed in rows, with three values per row. Now, the times are listed in columns, read top to bottom. Additionally, PM departure times are now in bold, matching the online schedules.

Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: New Metro Stop Schedules” | 71 comments