Jim Moore of Sound Transit tells me there’s a typo in the ST schedule book from which I lifted the summary of route changes. The 578 is not losing trips; the 590 is. See the revised information here.

22 Replies to “Correction on ST Bus Schedules”

  1. A big graphical/printing error I found when picking up the schedule book was that Downtown Seattle streets have no names! Also the line for the 554 on 5th Ave S is not on the street. It looks like it runs through an alley or something.

  2. I wish the 578 would stop at Kent Station.

    It goes from Auburn to Federal Way and then Seattle.

    Kent Station does not have Express service except for rush hours via the Sounder.

    Sounder is great, but having to use the 150 after 8:30am for inbound (except for the two reverse Sounders in the afternoon) or after 6:15pm outbound is really tiresome.

    1. The 578 is providing the service of the 577 during off-peak times, so Federal Way must be its first stop after Downtown Seattle. The only way to serve Kent after Federal Way would be to backtrack further north before heading south again to Auburn Station, significantly increasing travel times.
      If you put Kent before Federal Way, you’d lose a chunk of riders since driving would become faster than the 578, and a chunk of the 578 ridership is choice riders.

      1. I guess, once again, I’m flabbergasted.

        In that, here is a well used, obvious route, that would not cost an arm and leg to fund, and yet all the talk is about pie in the sky trains and services that often are untried, or have little ridership.

        Everytime I bring it up there is some “reason” for why this simple and obvious route cannot be allowed to happen — and that includes direct contact with SoundTransit and Metro.

        So I put it to — here I am…saying, go ahead, let me ride Transit!

        Hello?

        I’m knocking at your door.

        Can you hear me now?

        Then Man up, Transit Advocates.

    2. The real problem is that Kent-downtown express service has been neglected for years, while the cities around it around it gets Link or RapidRide or ST Express. The 150 takes a whole hour to get to Kent.

      The bright side is that this should give Kent the highest priority for BRT to Link. A short express from Kent downtown to SeaTac station should be quite doable. (Express because it has only a 23-minute window to be faster than the 150.)

      1. Yes, foolishly neglected!

        As someone who has often taken the 150 at night from Seattle as late as 11pm, I will tell you that it is a very frequently used route, and that much of traffic is simply going from Seattle to Kent and back again.

    3. John: “Kent Station does not have Express service except for rush hours via the Sounder.”
      You should know better than that. What about the 158,159,162(14 trips in the AM), in addition to Sounder?
      The bus takes 43 minutes to Univ/4th, while Sounder gets you to KSS in 25. Add another 10 minutes to catch something to Univ.St. and the hassle of a transfer, plus a higher fare, and it’s about a wash for a lot of riders.

      1. What about the 158,159,162(14 trips in the AM), in addition to Sounder

        Those run during the same period the Sound runs. That still leaves open the problem of an express route for other hours, which I think, should be a dedicated BRT that goes direct from Kent Station to Seattle.

    4. You have the Sounder for peak services and the 150, which is relatively quick when there isn’t traffic during the middle of the day, for non-peak service which is very frequent.

      1. Did you forget all those turns and local traffic at Southcenter?

        Weekday southbound, Univ St at 1:10pm. Tukwila P&R at 1:32pm (22 minutes, quite reasonable). Southcenter at 1:44pm (34 minutes, mostly due to the last few blocks). Kent Station at 2:07pm (58 minutes, slow as molasses).

        Weekday northbound, Kent Station at 9:15pm. Southcenter at 9:33pm (20 minutes). Tukwila P&R at 9:41pm (26 minutes). Univ St at 10:00pm (45 minutes).

        It looks much better if you’re coming from Southcenter. Depart 9:33pm, Tukwila P&R at 9:41pm (8 minutes), Univ St at 10:00pm (27 minutes).

      2. I truly think that Sound Transit should consider some kind of off-peak express bus service between Downtown Seattle and Kent Station, possibly continuing to Auburn Station. Half-hourly (or even hourly), 7 days a week, morning through evening. Sounder trains and Metro express buses are nice, but what about the off-peak hours and reverse directions? There is a missing link. The 150 takes 45-60 minutes, and it feels interminable: It’s local bus service. For comparison’s sake, FWTC gets much better connections to Seattle via the 577/578.

  5. Wow, sounds like Sound Transit should get a corrected book out and maybe even pulp the erroneous copies that are still sitting in kiosks (or haven’t left the shop).

    Somewhat related: I’m surprised to see Metro timetables coming out in red only two cycles after using red again, less than a year, separated only by one green cycle. Is this a sign of Metro’s future cost-cutting plans regarding timetable printing?

  6. Its a lot of work to compare the headway sheets vs. the printed public schedule to make sure its accurate. It takes several sets of eyes looking in all directions and you still can overlook things (or find errors in all sort of places) Its probally even harder for ST since i dont think they do the actual scheduling in house either.

  7. When 200th St Station opens, I would love to see the 578 altered to serve Kent Station, and then diagonal up Kent-Des-Moines Rd toward 200 St Station. It would certainly be a faster approach for riders from Kent and all points south than the reverse lateral from Auburn Station to south Federal Way.

    If travel time to and from downtown Seattle is the most important benchmark, then certainly this will happen.

    1. How would that be faster? Temporarily ignoring the fact that you’d double the time to get to Seattle from Federal Way:

      Kent Station to S 200th: 13 minutes
      200th to SeaTac: ?
      SeaTac to University Street Station: 34 minutes

      That’s a minimum of 47 minutes, assuming the SeaTac to 200th leg takes only 2 minutes and you lose no time transferring.

      Now let’s look at how much you inconvenience all the other riders on the 578:
      FW to direct to Seattle, without detouring to Kent: 37 minutes

      So everyone on the bus would have a longer trip time of 15 minutes plus however long they have to wait on the Link platform.

      If travel time to and from downtown Seattle is the most important benchmark, then certainly this will NOT happen.

      1. Then, consider the travel time of running the 578 to Kent Station, and then on up the valley freeway to I-405, and then on it to downtown Seattle.

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