Metro will expand its on-demand taxi service ($). (Official announcement.) These are app-hailed vans like Uber, charging regular Metro fares within a few last-mile service areas. Starting Monday, It will unify existing services (Via, Pingo, Community Ride) under a new brand “Metro Flex” wth a new app. Service areas are “northern Kent, Tukwila, Renton Highlands, Rainier Beach/Skyway, Othello, Sammamish/Issaquah Highlands and Juanita.” You can pay by ORCA, credit card, or the Transit Go Ticket app. Reduced fares like ORCA LIFT are accepted.

King County repealed its bicycle-helmet law a year ago, but helmet usage remains high. ($) I didn’t know it was repealed.

Amtrak Cascades restores full Vancouver BC service. ($)

Why new developments are ugly. (Adam Something video)

This is an open thread.

Metro Flex potential trips: – SeaTac Botanical Gardens. Ride from Tukwila Intl Blvd Link station to 24th Ave S & 137th. – Soos Creek Trail. Northern entrance is at SE 192nd Street & 124th in the Kent service area. Ride from Kent Station, or from the 160 bus stop at 192nd & 108th Ave SE (which is 1 mile from the entrance). – North Kent industrial jobs on 68th and 84th. – Seward Park. From Othello station if route 50 isn’t coming soon.

Soaring Eagle Park in Sammammish is one that’s been on our list for a weekday when the 269 is running, but Flex in that area runs on Saturdays too which improves accessibility.

It’s unfortunate that Juanita/Kingsgate is weekday-only for now, because the 522→225 transfer is poorly timed to get to St. Edward Park.

Is this meant to be an “open thread”?

Yes. I’ll clarify it.

https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/metro/accountability/reports/2021/system-evaluation See performance of flexible services on pages 16 and 17.

I appreciate Mike and Ross putting on author’s caps these last few weeks. Thank you!!

You are welcome. Martin Pagel has also stepped up. It has been a group thing, with lots of communication behind the scenes. I’ve been writing about things I would probably write about anyway (bus restructures, especially in the north end). It seems that local transit issues come in waves — at times there isn’t much to write about, then other times there is a flurry. Mike has done the most work, in my opinion; he has written most of these open threads, which keeps things moving between the more specific posts. Mike has also done a lot of great editing behind the scenes (which I really appreciate).

There’s been a lot of talk about rail decades later, recently decided to spot check into near term improvements of our bus system.

Does anyone know if they decided to implement bus lanes on Westlake or not? Doesn’t seem to quite say:

https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/transit-program/transit-plus-multimodal-corridor-program/route-40—transit-plus

RapidRide H is pretty exciting launching in just two weeks, March 18

Kinda wish there’d be path to expedite the rest of the Rapidrides: K, R, 40 etc..

Does anyone know if they decided to implement bus lanes on Westlake or not?

They haven’t officially decided anything yet, but I think in general, no news is good news. The longer a project like this sits without any discussion of a change, the more likely they will happen.

I think the only controversy is over the bus stop in Fremont. It is a longer walk for riders making a transfer, but better flow for the buses and bikes. If you look at the comment summary (https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/TransitProgram/Route%2040%20TPMC/Rt40_TPMC_Spring_2022_outreach_summary_FINAL.pdf) it was one of the more controversial areas. Much of the document deals with this issue, implying the other changes (like bus lanes on Westlake) are a given.

I think the changes to the 40 are exciting, and I agree, I wish we could make them happen faster.

iirc Spotts tweeted that SDOT is looking into whether they can turn the bus lanes on Westlake into Bus + Truck lanes. I remember mention that since the project received federal funding, it might preclude the project from including direct improvements to freight movement in addition to transit movement. Seems silly but rules are rules, sometimes.

My read of the tea leaves is that we’ll get bus lanes on Westlake. A rosy perspective on the hold up is that it’s possible that Spotts’ stated focus on safety is engendering delays to ensure the redesigns of various intersections are in line with Vision Zero.

@Ross > (fremont bus move) it was one of the more controversial areas. Much of the document deals with this issue, implying the other changes (like bus lanes on Westlake) are a given.

Thanks for the update that’s nice to hear that the bus lanes have a high chance of passing.

> I remember mention that since the project received federal funding, it might preclude the project from including direct improvements to freight movement in addition to transit movement.

I checked and the transit-plus 40 isn’t part of the small starts program https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grants/grant-programs/capital-investments/capital-investment-grant-cig-dashboard (where there is a legal requirement for a minimum dedicated right of way), though perhaps there other rules as the project accepted federal grants.

“I remember mention that since the project received federal funding, it might preclude the project from including direct improvements to freight movement in addition to transit movement.”

At a time the government wants to improve freight mobility and American commercial competitiveness. I’m not surprised that two policies/regulations are clashing in contradiction. Hopefully sensible minds will reconcile them. The common thread is prioritizing transit and freight over cars and parking spaces. The US federal and local governments have difficulty getting to that point, but hopefully they will.

I do have a back-of-my-mind concern that people might overuse freight permits to get questionable trucks and SUVs into the freight lanes and clog them up, since personal trucks and SUVs are in the category of trucks even when they’re used as consumer cars.

SDOT may be imprecise with terminology. On Leary Way NW, North 36th Street, and Westlake Avenue North, I suspect they mean BAT lane (business access and transit) signed as bus and right turn only. They do not mean bus lanes. On all three arterials, parallel parking and garages are present, so right turns will be needed. SDOT tends to paint bus lanes as solid red and no other traffic is allowed (e.g., Olive Way nearside 6th Avenue, Battery Street). A political risk is that businesses will oppose the project unnecessarily if they think access is so restricted.

A significant transit concern should be the PBL installation for the block of northbound Fremont Avenue North between North 34th and 35th streets. This has worked well for transit for several years since the parallel parking was stripped away from both sides of Fremont. It is a great transfer point. The two radial routes, 40 and 62, connect with crosstown routes 31 and 32; it is a common stop transfer with little walking required. It is ironic to use a transit project to degrade transit connectivity. (But SDOT is doing that with its J Line alignment in the U District as well).

Headline: “Security Levels Are Going to Increase” on Sound Transit Trains, as Agency Struggles to Win Back Riders

The vast majority of former Link riders were lost to WFH. So, to win back riders, ST is going to hire more security? I’m not following the logic.

It only takes a small handful of bad experiences on transit to turn “choice” riders away. In my office, we have 4 parking spots for ~20 staff, so transit was the travel method of choice for most before 2020. Now, folks are faced with a choice: 1) take transit again, 2) pay $40/day to park in our building’s secure garage, or 3) give up their office and WFH.

Based on the few days a month that our office is actually well-populated, I get the impression that most (not all, definitely) folks legitimately enjoy working in our office, because we’re social creatures and working in-person is more fulfilling than meeting with talking heads and only realizing your work day should be over when your roommate or partner or kids or whatever start thinking about dinner.

Despite this, many folks in my office are choosing #3 because they don’t want to pay for parking and they don’t feel safe or comfortable taking transit today. I’m sure ST gets lots of feedback that maybe more people would be interested in taking the train to work if there were fewer passed-out folks in the back of the train, or fewer folks yelling at an imaginary enemy. I think ST is betting that a visible security presence, even if it’s just to kick rowdy passengers off, will improve the transit experience. I’m inclined to agree.

PubliCola is a site that can get mired in the politics of having free fares. The headline would read differently if it was entitled “‘Security Levels Are Going to Increase’ on Sound Transit Trains, as Agency Struggles to Win Back Fare-Paying Riders”.

Just adding “fare-paying” could have set a different tone.

As written, a thorough journalist should have provided data on other “security” items like crime or accidents or passenger surveys about security concerns. Otherwise, the word chosen should have “fare enforcement” specifically rather than a generic “security”. Of course, ambiguity in headlines is a common click-bait technique that pervades online articles.

I also find the last paragraph about flat fares amateurish and inappropriate. The problem that they are complaining about isn’t fare underpaying; it’s total fare avoidance. Flat fares for long distance transit systems (like Link) have a systemic bias against riders making short trips (which lower income people without a private vehicle make more of). Why should a rider going one station to the grocery in the Rainier Valley pay the same fare as someone going all the way to Lynnwood?

Why should I get to pay the same for riding the A Line all the way from TIBS to Federal Way City Center Station as someone who boards in north Federal Way and alights at Highline College?

If you think the purpose of distance-based fares is to give riders from Capitol Hill to Pioneer Square a discount, then you’re missing the point of fare collection. It’s about revenue.

Regardless of the flat vs. distance-based debate, if the cost of riding downtown from Lynnwood to Westlake goes up the day Lynnwood Link opens, that’s some toxic politics. Keep in mind that those who fail to tap off get charged as if they are riding all the way to Angle Lake, or downtown Redmond (since the ORCA reader does not know whether you are boarding the 1 or 2 Line), or Federal Way, whichever is priciest.

The system punishes people not for riding long distances, but for not living near the middle of the lines.

Would you prefer riders going from Bellevue to Lynnwood ride the 2 Line, or an ST Express bus that has a higher marginal cost per rider (I’m assuming it does but I haven’t look up the latest data)? Does the fare system match your personal values in that situation?

Your homework assignment, Sam, is to watch season 2 of Picard. There is a lot of shade there for the current state of the US&A. The bus scene is worth sitting through all 10 hours.

The logic Sam is the loss of riders due to WFH changes the perception of safety on Link and in the underground stations.

As I have posted before, when our office was in Seattle staff would take Link (including when the buses accessed the tunnel for trips east) between peak hours. If staff were asked to work past 6 pm you had to get them an Uber because the number of “normal” peak “eyes of the street” riders went way down. Women staff were especially sensitive to this, and at least in my industry women make up a lot of staff and were indispensable (and buy most of the stuff in the U.S.). When the buses were kicked out of the tunnel and staff heading home east in the evening had to wait on 2nd Ave. when the tents and homeless situation got really bad we couldn’t get any staff from the eastside despite free ORCA cards. In the end we had to leave downtown Seattle to get and retain staff and now have free parking.

IMO I have noted many times before I think safety is a deal breaker, and by safety I mean perceptions of safety. Sticking a six shot revolver with one bullet in your mouth has a fairly low chance of death but still I don’t play Russian Roulette. I have a wife and daughter and you learn to understand many women have a much higher sensitivity to safety than men, especially young men. Just walking alone at night on someplace like MI worries them (and me). Seeing someone doing drugs at a station or on a bus tells them there is danger. If I feel uncomfortable walking around Pioneer Square IN THE DAY they feel ten times more uncomforatble, and why should anyone who wants to shop or dine or work feel uncomfortravble for their safety? Who knows what someone getting high on a bus will do. Just loud young males are frightening. Who needs to be frightened all the time if you have a car.

Unfortunately, after years of articles in The Seattle Times and posts on Nextdoor many eastsiders think that if you enter Seattle you have a 50/50 chance of returning alive. This perception is magnified because so few have to go into Seattle today. The perception isn’t accurate (especially in the neighborhoods), but since there are perfectly adequate alternatives on the eastside they avoid Seattle, and avoid transit. It is like flying on a plane: passengers are led to believe there is ZERO chance the plane will crash, which of course isn’t true, but if they were told there was some chance, however tiny, it would affect their decision to fly, especially if there is a better alternative like a car in the garage.

Nathan raises another point I think is important in the days of WFH. I agree with him there is a benefit to in office work, especially if you live alone. Employers would certainly like more workers to come into the office. However WFH is a lot easier and removes the commute, which is uncompensated time. So it depends on the office, the city the office is in, and transit.

Restricted and unaffordable parking (except for executives and partners) in downtown Seattle is a two-edged sword. Pre-pandemic the thought was cars don’t scale, and folks should ride packed transit because they would fund transit, and this would create “urbanism”. Plus a lot of urbanists think cars are the devil Today if you want to charge $40/day for staff to park either the company picks up the tab if they want staff to come in, or they WFH, especially if as Nathan notes there is any perception of risk or unpleasantness on transit, and just being in public carries some risk, depending on how many eyes on the street there are. The Pike Place Market is a different place on bus weekend day and a weekday night.

It isn’t the employer that suffers so much as the city. An urban city like Seattle NEEDS people on the streets, and work commuters have money because they have jobs, very low social costs, and create retail vibrancy which supports street businesses which brings in more eyes on the street during non-peak times. A city is a living thing and people, people with money, are its lifeblood for everyone else.

What this ultimately comes down to is money, because money determines what you can afford. The Seattle Times predicts Seattle will have a $250 million budget deficit coming soon due to WFH. Declining property values for office buildings will move that property tax burden to residential properties and raise property taxes and rents. Loss of transit ridership and non-fare paying riders will reduce farebox recovery which goes toward O&M and levels of service including frequency, It doesn’t matter if like Mike you think frequency is a prerequisite if the money isn’t there for it. Transit d drivers and mechanics don’t work for free.

This is why I agree with TT ST will have to secure its stations, many of which are underground, both for fares and perceptions of safety. Only an idiot at ST (or male living alone) would propose an underground tunnel from 5th and James to 3rd and James when no one will walk that route ABOVE ground today.

In the future I believe there will be Link for longer trips and micro transit for the short and feeder trips, which is what Metro flex and Uber are. Look at the number of trips Uber has taken from buses and from cars. The brilliance of Uber is the market reacting to artificially high parking costs, in many cases for ideological reasons, never anticipated by the ideologues who came up with the artificially limited and expensive parking to get rid of cars. It is ironic that the lack of parking (and safety) which created Uber may be the thing that kills urban transit, especially now with Metro trying to get on the bandwagon in Sammamish and Issaquah of all places (which I think is misguided because those folks own cars and drive because parking is free — Metro flex should be in poorer urban areas).

I think it is too late to save ordinary Metro bus service over the next decade. The decline in funding and farebox recovery, and increase in Uber miles and WFH will force painful cuts which will reduce ridership because Ross is correct that terrible frequency hurts ridership, but if that is all metro can afford….

But Link can be saved and provides a low-cost alternative to Uber or ride shares where they are vulnerable: long trips. Plus Uber/ride share/Metro flex are the perfect door to door feeder system (along with park and rides in less dense areas). But if the Link stations are not safe and secure and the normal riders don’t return then the market will find an alternative to Link as well, like driving your own car for long trips and ride share for short trips, like today.

Metro flex in the suburbs is Metro belatedly seeing the writing on the wall. It is just that a cumbersome public agency like Metro can never compete with something as nimble and fluid and accepted as Uber, and so the if Metro could put aside union concerns and territoriality it should just contract with Uber for Metro flex which would allow it to provide five times the service for the same amount. At some point those at King Co. will figure that out.

Sam is right. It is all smoke and mirrors, and yes, it is in response to the recent news. Basically, Daniel has been writing the same comment about how bad downtown is since we were setting transit records. Yes, some parts of downtown are bad. That has always been the case. But there is no evidence to suggest it is playing a significant part in the transit downturn. Working from home, and the huge downtown caused by the pandemic (and now tech layoffs) are playing a much bigger part. Ridership to downtown is way down. Ridership to Capitol Hill is up. Security has nothing to do with it.

But there are a lot of stories, especially from right-wing publications. The article below comes from KOMO, which is now owned by Sinclair. That doesn’t mean there aren’t occasional problems — again, that is always the case. But the folks running daily ST operations aren’t stupid. If they can both increase fare revenue enforcement, and deal with the overreaction to the smoker on the train, all the better. They will promote this as a way to deal with the tiny portion of people who believe every scary story out there, and want to be assured that the folks in charge are thinking of them.

Oh, and it isn’t really that different when it comes to other forms of transportation. Someone gets killed crossing the street. The city talks about Vision Zero. More should be done. Is a lot more done? No, not really. Maybe someday we will be safe from dangerous motorists, but not today.

Ridership on the 550 declined 1/3 pre-pandemic and ridership declined 17%. As a business owner and employer in downtown Seattle I witnessed it get so bad King Co. had to close the courthouse and buy the park next to the courthouse and fence it off. I once posted from my office I could hear gunshots in Pioneer Sq around lunch time. The victim died.

In 2020 Capitol Hill was occupied and downtown trashed during riots.

The DSA and SDOT announced a major proposal to “revitalize” 3rd Ave. Harrell’s entire campaign was based on addressing crime. I believe 2022 was the worst year for violent crime in Seattle’s history. It doesn’t help when Seattle has lost 300 police officers and will lose another 200. To his credit Harrell wants to hire 500 new police officers but I don’t know if the city has the money or can recruit police officers

If you think Talton and Westneat who live downtown are exaggerating things that is your prerogative.

I did what I could. I moved my business to the Eastside. I don’t go downtown anymore today because it is dead. Even if safe I don’t want to go to a retail desert with expensive parking.

Most Eastside town centers are quite vibrant, and they had to deal with WFH. Try getting a reservation in Old Bellevue. So I go there. I just got back from Honolulu and the retail there was bustling. Hard to get a reservation. Many cities around the country have recovered. Seattle and Portland are the two that have fared worse. Each of us can figure out why.

We used to travel to Mexico but don’t anymore because of reports of crime. I am sure Ross thinks those are exaggerated. But there are many warm areas in the world during our winter so why go to Mexico?

Denial can be dangerous, and I think that is the mistake Seattle progressives made. Crime and homelessness started the exodus, and when Covid came downtown was to weak to recover. I am not sure it can recover today.

Really who cares. The only critical issue is the tax revenue Seattle will lose and loss of farebox recovery. You deal with those through spending cuts and move on. As Freeman noted Seattle handed Bellevue the biggest gift in the world.

People who want to go downtown can, and those who don’t want to have many options these days, in part due to the decline of Seattle.

The market will always figure out a remedy, and shoppers and diners will go where they feel safe and there is retail vibrancy. It is not a complicated marketing principle.

If people have money they want to spend merchants and cities will find a way to attract those customers, which attracts more customers because people like to socialize, and creates tax revenue.

Women have the highest perceptions of risk but also buy over 90% of all things in the U.S. when you are with a wife or girlfriend you feel more vulnerable. TV ratings don’t have a favored demographic for old male transit riders.

As long as there are options I don’t really care (once our lease expired because there is no way our Seattle landlord would let us out early because they knew they could not release the space). I think there are many more vibrant areas — that are safer — in the region so I go there. Right now the region agrees with me. I never thought I would say this but Factoria is more vibrant than downtown Seattle. Whose fault is that?

I meant to write ridership on the 554 declined 17% pre-pandemic, which is why the 554 will go to Bellevue Way and not Seattle in the restructure.

“I meant to write ridership on the 554 declined 17% pre-pandemic, which is why the 554 will go to Bellevue Way and not Seattle in the restructure.”

Except that this is false. The 554 was always going to be truncated with East Link. It was in all the planning scenarios in January 2016 when ST was contemplating a post-ST2 world without ST3. All the Downtown Seattle expresses were truncated at South Bellevue/Mercer Island, U-District, Lynnwood, 145th, or KDM.

What’s new is rerouting the 554 on Bellevue Way to Bellevue TC instead of just terminating at South Bellevue/Mercer Island. But that has other obvious reasons. One, it’s a longstanding goal to connect Eastside cities to each other better. Two, it backfills 550 service on Bellevue Way. Three, it replaces the 556 Issaquah-Bellevue express. The last one is probably the most important.

“Ridership on the 550 declined 1/3 pre-pandemic and ridership declined 17% [on the 554].”

A lot of that is because Eastside jobs and workers are tech-heavy, and tech was one of the biggest industries where work-from-home prevailed/s. The Eastside lost more ridership than either Seattle, South King County, or Snohomish County. The 550 also lost the DSTT, the Rainier freeway station, and the South Bellevue P&R. all within two years of each other.

“Most Eastside town centers are quite vibrant” Ah yes the vibrant car dependency places that are devoid of charm and character. The post modern taco time strip malls of Kirkland. The seventh circle of hell that is parking in Bellevue. So vibrant and colorful.

Maybe explore Seattle beyond downtown to see that it’s an actual city and not just a collection of strip malls and car dependency like the Eastside is and has been for like forever. Yes, Bellevue has a downtown but even that is still very car dependent and devoid of charm. You want to gush so much about how better the Eastside is and yet look at it with blinders on. When Seattle is perfectly fine and not this mad max hellhole you have been drumming on about for the last 2+ years.

So, we’re going to have more security personnel, probably more than half of them not wearing masks. Uh, gee, thanks. I feel so much safer.

“It only takes a small handful of bad experiences on transit to turn “choice” riders away.”

Especially when the media overblows them and makes people think the situation is much worse or more widespread than it is. Or people who think that problems that happened twenty or thirty years ago are still happening.

Edit: I just read this sentence: “after years of articles in The Seattle Times and posts on Nextdoor many eastsiders think that if you enter Seattle you have a 50/50 chance of returning alive.” Daniel just made my point for me.

Nope, you don’t get the “blame the media” pass here. Sound Transit, Metro and Pierce Transit has issues with cleanliness, run down facilities and public safety. The worse things get, the less people ride transit. These are real issues.

https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-king-county-metro-bus-drivers-fentanyl-smoke-exposure-drugs-mental-public-health-department-transportation-substance-abuse-treatment-crime-homeless-crisis

Workers just don’t need shit like this… no one does.

You’re missing the point. People think that twenty passed-out people happen on every Link run all day, that two-thirds of bus riders are aimless homeless, that there’s violence on every bus run on every route. That’s not at all the case. It depends a lot on which route, homeless riders are 2% or less on most routes most of the time, and violence or harrassment or drug use is occasional.

As a number of us have pointed out before, though, 2% is actually a pretty high chance of running into “trouble”. And the thing is, discretionary riders have a choice – so they will choose not to ride, which means that there will be fewer people riding, which will increase the percentage of problems.

This is why it’s a problem, and why ST is not wrong to want to address it.

However, if you’re okay with the reduced ridership, then by all means continue to blame people for having lower risk tolerance than you do. They will take that opinion with all due consideration.

I didn’t bring up media narrative because I didn’t think it was relevant – it really only takes a few bad experiences with no indication the situation will get better before a discretionary rider uses their discretion.

Analogy: if I had the finances to choose between a cheap restaurant that gave me mild food poisoning every 10th meal or so, or a nice restaurant that had faster service but much higher prices and virtually guaranteed to be safe to eat, I think I know which I would choose.

I think that Nathan’s analogy is spot-on for “choice riders” (using the term loosely). It’s not even a theoretical choice. I have literally done this with at least two restaurants over the years. One bad experience and I have never gone there again. Similarly, for transit, one bad experience at a bus stop and I will go wait at another, even if it makes my commute more annoying – or find a different way. I am likely much more safety-conscious than many here, probably more in line with DT and their family – but there really are many people like us.

It’s fine to not consider us be transit’s “target audience” – just make that be a conscious decision. Because our decision will also be conscious.

Except the original story was about ST increasing security to win back riders. The only problem is Link ridership isn’t down because of safety fears, it’s down because of WFH. Also, show me a person who genuinely concerned about safety on Link, and I’ll show you a person who is also concerned about safety in Downtown Seattle. If they are staying away from Link because they are fearful, they’ll stay away from downtown because they are fearful. Add more security to Link all you want, but you’re still left with a person who is afraid of downtown.

I’m not sure that’s quite true, Sam. Maybe not for regular riders, but there are plenty of reasons to go downtown for a one-off (jury duty, legal appointments, interviews, etc.) and those trips could be done either via transit or other means. So I wouldn’t be quite so cavalier to discard the problem altogether.

BTW, Anon, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for more security and fare enforcement on Link. I’m only saying I doubt more security will bring many riders back. Companies mandating return to office would bring the most riders back, and that’s probably not going to happen, at least for a long time.

The Adam Something video is quite good. The car culture part is right on (and well done!), but what Seattle needs to hear is the “housing as commodity” part. As Seattle has gained more and more renters….. you think the investors who put up those apartment buildings really have a long term plan? Or is it just a 20-30 year “hit it and quit it” when the buildings start to need repair? Would any form of rent control cause Seattle’s “apartment investor class” to change behavior? You think Seattle City Council has much (if any?) control over Asian millionaires?

My unprofessional guess is any time a a U.S. city dips below 50% home ownership, it’s only a matter of time before the crap hits the fan.

Christopher Leinbeger in “The Option of Urbanism” discusses this. Since the 1980s when Wall Street investors got into real estate, there are around 19 standard building types that large investment banks will readily finance, including apartments, houses, retail, and industrial. That way investors know what they’re getting without knowing about the specific building or city. Investors expect to recoup their investment in 20 years. (That’s why managers of those buildings are so aggressive about high rents.) After that the investors move on to something else and don’t care about what happens to the building. So buildings are built to last 20 years, and then are expected to be torn down for the next fad. Or if they’re not torn down, the original investors don’t care, and they can just deteriorate. Walmart builds a store in an edge city, then twenty years later builds a fancier store further out on the new edge, and abandons the original store. This has happened to big-box stores and shopping malls across the country. It’s our throw-away society.

This is in contrast to the early 20th century, when owners built buildings to last a hundred years and pass on to their children and grandchildren. Or in the 1970s when developers would build and sell off tract houses, but they were still local developers with a stake in the community.

Unfortunately, “don’t build anything” is not an option. Shoddy construction is a problem, but it isn’t new.

“My unprofessional guess is any time a a U.S. city dips below 50% home ownership, it’s only a matter of time before the crap hits the fan.”

And New York City is like Detroit, I forgot.

Observations from visiting Malmö, Sweden a couple weeks back – Color coded transit vehicles to distinguish between service types Green for city buses, Yellow for express buses to the suburbs, and Purple for their suburban train service – Malmö C (Malmö’s Central Station) is what I’d say we should be striving for with a central station in Seattle with pedestrian walkway of food and convenience shops. With escalators down to the long distance and regional rail platforms. – Transit stops have Vignelli style maps to help passangers figure out where they need to go and major connection point. – Skånetrafiken (local operator for Skåne County where Malmö is) has a well thought out app that was helpful in navigating by bus/train around Malmö and easy to purchase tickets including buying tickets for the Øresund Bridge to Copenhagen. Something Seattle area honestly lacks. – Double articulated buses for their BRT service, which means it has 5 doors for said buses. Seats are comfortable with USB ports. LCD screens showing next stops and how long to the next stop. And open door request buttons. All together make for an overall very comfortable rider experience. – Central Malmö has a nice mix of historic buildings, 60s/70s apartment buildings/malls, and modern style towers. The Malmö Congress (their equivalent of Convention Center) was also a short distance to a local food hall, which was packed with locals getting lunch at one of the various food vendors inside. It was nice to be able to get food at a place that didn’t feel overly touristy and could get something at a reasonable price (for Sweden). I think that Seattle could learn a thing or two from Malmö on how to run a city that is fairly bus heavy in terms of service.

Metro-flex sounds like the seeds of what I have predicted in the future: micro transit. Uber for everyone.

The problems I see with Metro-flex are:

1. Using Metro drivers, vehicles, and mechanics is probably five times the cost per mile compared to contracting with Uber. Until we have driverless technology, use cheaper technology per mile like Uber with a known app.

2. The criteria are either remote areas (Issaquah Highlands/Sammamish) or “ethnic” communities in areas regular Metro buses don’t serve well. IIRC Sammamish has the highest AMI in WA. They prefer a rural setting and can afford it. This is a strange neighborhood to me to provide highly subsidized Uber service. This program needs to be more needs based. Unless areas like Sammamish are demanding transit service based on mandates to densify which will come at the expense of regular bus service in other areas.

3. These programs have failed in the past because it takes forever for the micro transit to show up, and the drivers are amateurs. MI tried a subsidized program with Uber in which the city paid 1/2 the fare to the north end bus stop. No one used it because Uber took forever to get to the remote areas on MI, especially the south end. Imagine wait times for Metro-flex.

4. For this program to be financially sustainable — especially with the high driver/vehicle costs for Metro — they have to migrate to a shared ride program, but I doubt Metro has the software to coordinate rides. You can’t provide Uber service with Metro’s cost structure for $1 fares that are not needs based. Uber like service is ABOUT THE APP.

I think this rebadged service will fail for the same reasons its Metro predecessors failed: poor app., slow service, unsustainable cost structure with Metro costs and $1 fares.

But it is the future. Metro will just do it poorly and too expensively. When driverless technology arrives for cars and huge rental car companies merge with Uber’s technology and data it will be the end of Metro. Instead King Co. will just contract with the major ride share companies.

Until then Uber will take more and more miles from regular Metro. IMO Metro-flex realizes this but the Metro-flex app. won’t be on every phone in KC tied to a payment method and less than five minute arrival times. But it is a peak at the future.

I agree, I’m pretty excited for driverless tech to make it’s way to driverless transit vans/busses. And of course it’ll probably go beyond just being a circulator to train stations. Also it’ll mean much better all-day/off-peak frequency. Even more importantly it’ll end a lot of the debate about parking/parking minimum requirements.

In the near/mid-term (before full automation) I’d expect it’ll probably be used more for either 1) low-speed circulators like on college campuses or other low-speed routes like the first hill streetcar. 2) for routes with more separation aka sodo busway, maybe hov lanes or potentially even the erc trail if it was automated busses.

Of course there’s the debate about whether the driverless tech will mainly be used for single occupancy personal cars leading people just using it for super-super commutes and lead to even more congestion.

Computers having to make split-second decisions whether to hit the breaks, or which way to detour? What could possibly go wrong with that? I mean, computers have certainly proved smart enough not to make planes nosedive into the ground.

Nobody would ever figure out how to hack them and turn them into killer drones.

Brent, I generally appreciate your positions, but if this isn’t satire, this is a weak one. I mean:

“Humans having to make split-second decisions whether to hit the breaks, or which way to detour? What could possibly go wrong with that? I mean, humans have certainly proved smart enough not to make planes nosedive into the ground.

Nobody would ever figure out how to hijack the driver’s seat or cockpit and turn them into suicidal weapons.”

Only those who never worked in IT believe Driverless Cars are just around the corner. (and if they are, Don’t Step Off the Sidewalk!)

I view the flex concept as a trial balloon still in progress. I tend to take the long view, which in this case means several more years of trials to see the ways in which it works well and ways it doesn’t.

Central to the concept is a common central point (or maybe two at opposite ends of the covered area). Link stations serve this function well. If a service going to serve a dozen non-residential hubs, it’s however not going to work well.

Then the catchment area can only be a certain maximum distance from the hub. I would say 15 minutes. Any further than people will be frustrated waiting.

Another dimension is the time of day. I could see it very useful between 10 pm and 5 am. Fixed route buses have very low ridership in this time period so a late night operation could end up cheaper.

The service area geography also matters. It seems silly in a flat gridded neighborhood. It seems useful in an area of steep hillsides where it’s hard to even walk to a bus stop.

Unlike others, I have no issue with a flex service being managed locally — and not mired within an agency of several hundred or even a few thousand buses. I also think that one area to explore is partnering with a local supermarket, pharmacy or coffeehouse as the vehicles could deliver both people and time-sensitive goods.

The application has been flawed as well. Via and Pingo have been applied atop fixed route service, so have competed with Metro’s existing service, probably leading to declines in productivity. It is a question of opportunity cost; should scarce service subsidy be used to improved fixed route service or to offer competing flexible service? The drivers are in the gig economy.

Actually I’ve always wondered why don’t they combine the ride-hail feature with a low frequency fixed route.

Part of the problem with freeway bus is that it has a hard time leaving the freeway to get to destinations, and going to every single one even when no one is there wastes a lot of time at detours. If you could hail it on your phone, then the bus could skip it when no one is there. And then the bus the rest of the time could just be on the freeway with much higher frequency.

Aka routes like https://svtbus.org/ or even for say stride 1 it skips the new port hills park and ride to save time.

Metro Flex was a hit and miss prior to COVID. It was a tremendous hit in the Othello neighborhood but failed miserably in Shoreline. Community Transit’s new Zip service is, so far, a huge success (I work at CT). The biggest complaints have been the app is terrible for Android users and wait times on weekends have been up to 30 min (usually 10 during weekdays).

I think microtransit can work in areas where 1) there is a need for transit yet 2) density is low. Community Transit is contemplating expanding Zip to rural communities like Arlington, north of Marysville, where there’s a consistent demand for transit but not enough to operate 30 min service. But in areas like Samammish, I can’t imagine there being a NEED per se because many residents have easy access to cars. Not the same story for Skyway or Kent East Hill

Metro had 2 different Flex-type services in Shoreline before the pandemic. I think they were called Community Ride and Community Van or something like that. I think a big part of why they failed was because Metro put some ridiculous constraints on them. I forget which was which, but some of the constraints were: Only available after 6pm Could only be scheduled by phoning a call center days in advance Could only be booked for 2+ people, not single riders

Any 1 of those would be a dealbreaker for some people. Multiple of them on a single service made it practically unusable.

the first Shoreline and LFP community ride was targeted at the service reductions of fall 2014 that included the deletion of evening span on Route 331, between SCC and Kenmore. The council provided the service subsidy from a separate pot of funds. it is not clear that any of the reductions, or this particular one, should have been implemented. Oddly, the restructure in fall 2021 failed to restore the evening span. ST has also degraded Route 331 by deleting the Route 522 stop pair at Ballinger Way (SR-104) that served as a transfer point.

“The criteria are either remote areas (Issaquah Highlands/Sammamish)”

Read: Ultra low-ridership areas. Metro has long addressed these with “Dial-a-ride” service, which is a scheduled hourly route that if you call will deviate to your house. Metro has had areas of these throughout the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s. What’s new is app-hailing rather than phoning a dispatch center, and non-route-based services (going from anywhere to anywhere within the area).

“They prefer a rural setting and can afford it. This is a strange neighborhood to me to provide highly subsidized Uber service.”

Issaquah has equity-priority areas according to Metro’s maps. The Issaquah Highlands may be part of it. Sammamish is more the other case: lack of all-day fixed-route service. Metro is introducing it as an alternative to fixed-route service, in an ultra-low density area, where a fixed route would miss many houses.

Jarrett Walker has long maintained that demand-response taxis are less cost-efficient than fixed bus routes, because a taxi serves 2-4 riders per hour while even the least-used fixed routes can usually get 10 or more. That implies that these Metro Flex services are not cost-efficient and serve fewer riders than more bus runs would for the same money. However, I’m not sure if he specifically looked at small last-mile areas, which limit the maximum distance a taxi has to deadhead. If the area is only a 10-minute drive from end to end, then maybe they can be more efficient than those that can go from Redmond to Laurelhurst? That may be a way to justify them and add more areas.

Eastern Bellevue had a pilot called “Crossroads Connect”. It apparently went further than I’d expect, to 124th and 180th at least. It was a short-term pilot that didn’t have ongoing funding. Metro’s latest East Link restructure proposal deleted all fixed-route service east of 156th (Crossroads center), and suggested it would be replaced with a Crossroads Connect/Metro Flex service. That would include the house I grew up in (east of Northup Way), and the adult family home my relative is in (at 164th in Lake Hills). I’m glad I grew up when Northup Way had a fixed route and I didn’t have to depend on an app for transit. But if it happens, I might start using it to get to the AFH, to avoid a 30-minute walk from 8th & 156th. (Although a 156th RapidRide from Overlake Village would cut that down to a 15-minute walk., so that may be another alternative.)

during the great recession, several DART routes were deleted; Sammamish had Route 927; Juanita had Route 935; they were deleted in fall 2014; south of Factoria, Route 925 was deleted in 2012. In Sammamish, the plan has been to operate Route 269 two-way and all-day since 2006; it now has weekday daytime service only. DART is operated by Hope Link.

“They prefer a rural setting and can afford it.”

I missed that, Sammamish is not rural. It’s suburban like Bellevue was in the 70s, full of tract houses with lawns, pretending to be out in the country but not really; it’s more like a low-density city. Carnation, Vashon Island, Skagit County, and Omak are rural.

The thing you have to remember with microtransit is that, in the *best* case, the wait time to get picked up will be around 10-15 minutes. And, unlike a fixed-route bus, with a published schedule, you can’t reduce this wait time by looking at the clock to know when to leave. In the worst case, if all vehicles are busy transporting other customers, you might have to wait much longer than that.

At the same time, most of the microtransit pilots I’ve seen in King County have very short service areas, only a couple miles end to end. These small service areas means that if you’re starting from somewhere in the middle of the service area, anywhere you can possible take the microtransit to is within a mile of you, which at 3 mph, equates to a 20-minute walk. The best-case wait time, plus a 5-10 minute ride time, is exactly the same 20 minutes.

I think microtransit makes more sense when the service areas are a bit larger than this, so it can really be used for trips that you can’t “just walk”, but with relatively fast roads so that the van can move around that service area quickly. It also only makes financial sense when passenger demand is very low.

I can see microtransit making sense as an option on places like Mercer Island. If hardly anybody rides it, you can reduce and reduce the number of vehicles, and when that number is down to 1, the cost to have it available on standby isn’t that much. But, Rainier Valley, it’s simply wasting money competing with fixed-route buses and walking. The money spent to operate it would be better spent simply running the #50 bus more often.

The East Link Connections webpage notes “in Spring-Fall 2022 (Current): Metro finalizes recommended service network for presentation to the King County Council”. The 2022 Work Plan of the King County Council’s Regional Transit Committee had an item “Service/system changes: update on pandemic recovery and other service and system changes, such as the East Link Mobility Connections Project” slated for September; however, the September agenda/minutes note only a presentation on RapidRide and a presentation on Metro’s Flexible Services Program.

Skimming over subsequent months, I haven’t found any indication that East Link Connections has been presented to the King County Council, nor that it is scheduled to be presented. (If I’ve missed it, let me know.) Speculating on why this is: relevant entities (Sound Transit, King County, etc.) may be viewing East Link Connections as inextricably associated with the debut of East Link, and may view the implementation of the bus route changes as “on hold.”

It seems to me that certain parts of East Link Connections could be introduced now, even if it is not yet possible to supply the proposed frequencies for the routes in question. I would rather have the proposed 222/223/226/249 now, even if at degraded frequencies, than be stuck with the current 221/226/249 for years. Similarly, the proposed 270 seems doable now, if one truncates the current 271 to operate only east of Bellevue Transit Center. The 270s would be articulated, and the frequencies of 270 and 271 could be calibrated separately.

Metro’s March service change info isn’t out yet, but I’m doubtful it will include substantial changes to Eastside routes. I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but with the trends of (i) preferring infrequent major bus system restructures to more frequent incremental changes and (ii) hitching the “next” such major bus restructure to Link, the Bellevue/Redmond area risks spending even more of the 2020s on a ‘zombie wait’ for bus routes that fit 2020s riders.

John, I think you are correct. East Link won’t open until 2025 at the earliest and things are still working themselves out on the eastside when it comes to transit and peak ridership, so Metro and ST want to wait to finalize any bus restructure.

There is also the possibility Balducci gets her wish to open a limited segment for East Link from S. Bellevue to Overlake, which would possibly require a limited restructure.

ST and the Board are not very good at transparency when it comes to the bridge issues. The Board knew in 2019 the plinth issue would likely delay opening East Link but did not disclose that until 2022 with another two-year delay until 2025 (not unlike the recent delays for TDLE, the reasons (more stations) sound hollow to me. A big unknown is whether the bridge will be able to handle four car trains at 50 mph every 8 minutes. The draft restructure was completed before the plinth issue was disclosed, and the draft assumes four car trains can run at 50 mph every 8 minutes, although I doubt that frequency will be necessary for cross lake travel.

Finally I think 2023 will be an important year for Metro budgets and general tax revenues for transit, and Metro may have to look at cuts, or allocate more service based on racial equity. That pretty much leaves out the eastside (unless you are talking about Metro flex).

I thought the draft restructure, at least for areas near and south of I-90, made sense based on ridership at that time, which hasn’t changed much. For those areas the ridership on the 554 and 550 tell ST and Metro everything they need to know about ridership levels and any future feeder bus routes and frequencies.

The big surprise was rerouting the 554 to Bellevue Way. I doubt Issaquah will agree to any change for that. If I were to predict any changes to the draft transit restructure, I would look at the eastside park and rides to determine ridership patterns. Until the park and rides are full feeder buses are hard to predict. Metro claims it must run even empty peak buses at 15-minute frequencies, but I don’t how long it can afford to do that when East Link opens. You won’t see full — or even partially full — feeder buses until you see full park and rides.

It depends on East Link. For a September restructure, the final legislation usually goes to the council the April before. East Link’s date has been slipping and is uncertain, and now there’s a new issue of an East Link starter line (South Bellevue-Redmond Tech) for the first two years. ST at first said it wouldn’t restructure ST Express for the starter line, then it said it’s studying it, without giving any route specifics. Metro would have to decide whether to have an interim restructure. I doubt it, because Metro wants to keep the number of restructures to a minimum to avoid disruption to passengers. So it will all probably wait until the full East Link date is certain and six months away. Finalizing a restructure too far ahead runs the risk of Metro regretting it later, or changes in the economy by the time it opens that force cuts or expansions or maybe an additional restructure.

The changes to the 270 and other routes fall into the “minimize the number of restructures” category. Moving the routes would create winners and losers. (In this case, the losers would be Medina, the Northup Way area, and probably others.) The losers would complain and badmouth Metro. In the past it would have been enough to get the council to veto the restructure. Metro wants to have the good and bad all at once to demonstrate some benefits and minimize badmouthing.

Are you suggesting that neighborhoods or cities losing service should not advocate for the loss of service to be reversed?

I remember there was an article on STB about the eastside restructure in anticipation of a 2023 opening of East Link. I don’t remember any major complaints on the eastside about the draft restructure although I didn’t follow every route. The one big surprise was rerouting the 554 to Bellevue Way, but when you thought about it it made sense, and I was surprised so many were surprised including me although I never thought MI made much sense as a major bus intercept.

As I have posted before, two unknowns remain: 1. how many folks from the greater Issaquah area (and south of I-90) simply drive to a park and ride that serves East Link rather than drive to a park and ride to catch a bus to East Link. Until the park and rides fill by 7am I think that will be the primary access to East Link, which means S. Bellevue and MI, both of which are empty today. If you look at some of the peak and non-peak bus frequencies from MI back to the greater Issaquah region I doubt riders coming from Seattle would want to risk a transfer there at a lonely bus stop along N. Mercer Way with 15-, 30- and 90-minute frequencies to a park and ride in Issaquah when they could just jump in their car and complete a few errands along the way.

2. The other consideration some on this blog don’t like to think about is how many buses continue to mimic East Link. Right now there is the 554 to Bellevue Way, and the 630 from MI to First Hill. I think there will be more, at least during peak hours, to avoid transfers. The subarea will have $600 million year in revenue after East and Redmond Link are completed so can afford buses. Even if East Link has full speed/capacity across the bridge I think there will still be more buses like these (like the 332) to areas East Link does not serve (Bellevue Way, First Hill) to avoid a transfer, and to avoid a transfer in downtown Seattle. I just don’t think eastsiders will transfer after getting off Link, if they even get on it.

East Link had three major destinations when first designed: Bellevue, Microsoft and downtown Seattle. Ridership and commuting to both is way down today, and East Link does not serve downtown Bellevue. The other stops are mostly “inchoate” meaning they are planned but don’t yet exist, and may never exist. One of my favorite lines is by Ross: build transit (especially Link since you can’t move it) to where the people and riders are, not where you hope they will be, mainly because they live where they do for reasons that won’t change. Will that urban Microsoft worker living on Capitol Hill skip the dedicated shuttle or WFH to take East Link 45 minutes to the campus? Or are they old now and married living in Redmond with kids and will drive to the 3 million sf parking garage.

With in office work way down, Amazon downsizing, and WFH Bellevue is more intent than ever to keep limited eastside workers on the eastside in Bellevue offices, certainly from the greater Issaquah region. Hence the 554. I would be really surprised if the final restructure made it easier to commute to downtown Seattle rather than downtown Bellevue, and what eastside worker would want to commute to Seattle rather than Bellevue if given the choice, especially SLU that East Link does not serve.

I think by now we have a pretty good feel for the new normal on the eastside, and when it comes to the eastside transit restructure for East Link I think the feeder bus will be the most disfavored mode of all. Riders will either drive to a park and ride serving East Link, or demand the “feeder bus” simply continue to their ultimate destination. Eastsiders don’t get excited about mode for mode’s sake. Whatever is faster and more convenient, and to extent affordable, beginning of course with their car.

Eastsiders are not that put out that East Link will open five years late, or it may have very weak ridership which the subarea can afford, but they won’t put up with light rail that is more inconvenient and slower than their one seat bus. These are discretionary riders. Transit will have to compete rather than treat riders like transit slaves, and I don’t know if transit has that mindset. It is like Uber vs. Metro flex: one will be 100% consumer oriented and created itself out of dust, and the other a slow, cumbersome government agency focused more on the benefit of agency staff than the customer. Metro flex will be dead in a year (or rebranded again) while the number of miles Uber will drive in this region will continue to skyrocket no matter how hard progressives and transit advocates try to disadvantage rider share.

It isn’t a big deal. The subarea can afford trains, buses and park and rides, and even flex, although I doubt eastsiders will ever do more than two from the menu in any one trip. The real question for me is how empty the feeder buses will be, and how empty Metro can afford to run them, especially if revenue declines.

“In the past it would have been enough to get the council to veto the restructure. Metro wants to have the good and bad all at once to demonstrate some benefits and minimize badmouthing.”

I agree with this assessment, yet I suppose I’m fixated on the ramifications of this reality: the longer East Link is delayed, the more absurdly the incentivizations on Council members, and the incentivizations on civil servants (e.g. Metro and ST service planners), will push against, not with, the efficiency and responsiveness of the transit system to riders and taxpayers. If I had to put it concisely, government entities in the Puget Sound area seem strongly disincentivized to “fail fast.” (Granted, this is scarcely confined just to transit, nor to Puget Sound.)

“ST at first said it wouldn’t restructure ST Express for the starter line, then it said it’s studying it, without giving any route specifics.”

Indeed, I saw a note in some presentation slides online that ST was considering this w.r.t. the starter line. I’m not sure ST alone can accomplish much with this, however. I doubt that, say, truncating 550s at South Bellevue would be all that popular with riders. I suppose one could truncate the 566 at Bellevue Transit Center, but (IIRC) 566 wasn’t even brought into scope for East Link Connections.

I live in the Crossroads area, and speaking selfishly, what would benefit me most is a one-seat ride to a Link station — any Link station — that’s reasonably frequent. As long as (full-fledged) East Link is out of the picture, from my vantage point, the convenient way to connect Crossroads to Link (i.e. serving plenty of dense housing) would be to bring some SR 520 buses (of the 541/542/544/545 variety) down to Crossroads.

I haven’t seen indications of such plans in any Metro/ST documentation, however. It looks like there is an initial proposal to produce a one-seat ride between Crossroads and the U District by cutting RapidRide B in two and creating a RapidRide line U District – Downtown Bellevue – Crossroads. However, RapidRide expansion is also progressing so glacially slowly that Crossroads continues to sit for years without getting anything concrete out of these ‘proposals.’ Factoria is in a similar position in this regard.

“Are you suggesting that neighborhoods or cities losing service should not advocate for the loss of service to be reversed?”

I’m saying Metro doesn’t want to create losers without having a major gain. A new Link extension or a RapidRide line is a major gain. There are so many major openings now that Metro is delaying restructures for them. Route 2 and 49 restructures are probably waiting for RapidRide G since they didn’t happen with U-Link. A Route 270 restructure is probably waiting for East Link.

People always badmouth Metro when losing status-quo service. They can always state their case, and sometimes they haave a point. The point is the badmouthing creates a general negative public impression of Metro. Having it happen many times (i.e., many restructures) gives Metro an overall worse reputation than if it makes the same changes in a fewer number of restructures (so that complaints are simultaneous rather than at different times).

However, there have been some changes in attitudes recently. The county council used to veto restructures if even one person complained about losing a one-seat ride or a milk run. It stopped doing that in 2012 when it realized it could no longer afford to keep these zombie routes: it was getting in the way of providing frequent corridors and effective transit. In the 90s or so there was a proposal to remove a route from Medina or Clyde Hill (maybe a 240 extension), and one couple showed up and testified they wouldn’t be able to take it to the freeway station for commuting anymore. They did say that wasn’t really bad on a network-wide level, but it would be harder for them. That kind of thing typically happens all the time in restructures. Starting with the RapidRide C/D restructure in 2012 and the recession-cut restructure in 2014, Metro has gotten more aggressive about restructures, and opposition has sometimes been less than anticipated. Hardly anyone in Medina rides the 271, and it has been like that for forty years. In past restructures they’ve still objected to losing the route, but this time I bet there haven’t been any complaints from Medina, or at least far less than previously. This has happened in a few other cases too. So it may be that Eastsiders as well as others are accepting restructures more now than they used to.

“how many folks from the greater Issaquah area (and south of I-90) simply drive to a park and ride that serves East Link rather than drive to a park and ride to catch a bus to East Link.”

And why do you think the Eastside restructure should revolve around Issaquah and Sammamish when they’re such a small fraction of the ridership, population, and voters? Why should the #1 issue in the restructure be maintaining an Issaquah-Seattle express?

“how many buses continue to mimic East Link. Right now there is the 554 to Bellevue Way,”

… which is in a different corridor than East Link. Bellevue Way has a lot of apartments, ST Express has served it since the 90s, and it won’t be a one-seat ride to Seattle.

“and the 630 from MI to First Hill.”

I assume Mercer Island is funding it, and it will last as long as Mercer Island continues to do so. So you’d have to ask your city officials and residents why it’s running and whether it should continue to do so. No other Eastside city has an express to First Hill, and I don’t think any South King County city does either, or northwest Seattle.

You might want to ask Metro and your fellow residents whether Metro Flex might be a good idea for Mercer Island.

East Link was delayed by the plinth issue and the concrete strike. ST is still considering when to implement it. So, the council will consider the suggested network later.

Dow has some funny ideas for the Midtown station and the County Jail.

A link would have been nice, but I guess it wasn’t hard to search.

($) https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-county-should-redevelop-downtown-campus-constantine-proposes/

The center of King County government consists of seven buildings in downtown Seattle wedged between Pioneer Square, the central business district and Interstate 5. The area has also become a hub of homelessness and drug activity.

Constantine proposed a plan to “reimagine” the area, potentially by partnering with developers to bring new purpose and new activity to the buildings.

The properties include the century-old county courthouse and the county jail, which Constantine has called “obsolete” and pledged to close. They also include the county’s 50-year-old administration building — an architectural eyesore to some, a work of public art to others — which was permanently shuttered last year after the COVID pandemic reduced the need for office space.

Constantine proposed letting to Sound Transit use the property, for redevelopment, if the coming new light rail line brings a station to its doorstep.

Again with giving away valuable properties for free to agencies that are property tax-exempt.

Also, keep in mind, Dow, is the King County Executive, but he is also Sound Transit Board chair.

Maybe King County can finally rebuild the Metro customer service building so that Amtrak thruway buses don’t have to make a time consuming backup move to extract themselves from King Street station.

I guess Dow doesn’t support 4th Ave shallower. He supports the County Jail station.

Aren’t they both part of DSTT2 2.0: 4th Ave shallow tunnel to avoid CID, station at the jail with tunnel to Pioneer Sq station to transfer to DSTT1, skip midtown station, station near Westlake.

The development Dow envisions at the 5th and James location (next to the big hole that has been there for 20 years) would take decades, and I don’t see DSTT2 and Link being a catalyst for that development. At least the rest of downtown and the CID don’t want DSTT2 near them. If there is a fight over who has to use the new tunnel maybe that suggests the routing or something is amiss with DSTT2.

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