The previous post concluded the Lynnwood Line 1 ridership should be an alarm for the 2025 Line 2 extension to Redmond. This post details concerns with the Sound Transit Transit Development Plan 2024-2029 and the following changes for 2025:
Link Light Rail 2: Line service expands to Downtown Redmond and Lynnwood City Center Stations
ST Express Bus: Evaluate routing for Routes 510, 522, 542, 544, 545, 550 554, and 556, discontinue temporary Route 515
The TDP raises all sorts of questions. Does expanding Line 2 mean extending the current Starter Line 2-car service every 10 minutes for 16 hours from Redmond to Lynnwood? The Line 1’s current schedule provides trains from Lynnwood to Angle Lake every 10 minutes from 4:56 am until 9:06 pm increasing 12 and 15 minute headways until 12:01 am. Thus, routing both Line 1 and Line 2 to Lynnwood will result in trains every 5 minutes for 16 hours a day.
An earlier post detailed the extension beyond UW Stadium only attracted 16,100 riders, a fraction of the 24,400 to 35,000 from Lynnwood and 41,000 to 49,000 from Northgate Sound Transit had projected. That the limited ridership and high operating cost resulted in a $20 cost per rider. The TDP for routing Line 2, two-car trains beyond CID to Lynnwood every 10 minutes for 16 hours will add over $200,000 in operating cost without adding significant riders.
The TDP for ST Express Bus service discontinuing 515 along I-5 means the 482 October boardings, presumably 241 riders, will no longer have access to bus routes from Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace to multiple stops in Seattle. Service every 10 minutes from 4:30 am to 8:35 am inbound and 3:00 pm to 6:15 pm return.
The 515 schedule travel times from Lynnwood to 5th & Pine was 30 minutes for the 7:25 am, the 5:35 pm return route from 4th and Pike took 41 minutes to reach Lynnwood. Comparable Line 1 travel times from Lynnwood to Westlake were 32 minutes at 7:26 am and 32 minutes at 5:26 pm. However, any travel time savings is at least partially offset by more convenient stops in Seattle for both inboumd and outbound routes.
The TDP for ST Express Bus to “evaluate” 510 will presumably terminate the route from Everett at Lynnwood T/C rather than continue with a stop at Mountlake Terrace before the non-stop route into Seattle. Its schedule and travel times are similar to 515 with 956 boardings and 478 riders with similar access benefits in Seattle.
The TDP to use Line 1 to Lynnwood to replace 510 and 515 routes into Seattle will add 719 boardings to the 21,135 October boardings with the light rail extensions beyond UW Stadium. Those boardings along with the 6289 UW Stadium and 10,003 Capital Hill boardings total 37,400 along Line 1 to Westlake; well within the capacity of 4-car trains every 10 minutes. Especially since many of the UW District and Stadium boardings are presumably during afternoon return. Thus there’s no need to route Line 2 to Lynnwood and incur its additional operating cost.
The TDP’s remaining route changes are the result of a June 21, 2014 Sound Transit proposal to Mercer Island city council to use light rail to replace I-90 bus routes into Seattle. All I-90 corridor buses would terminate at Mercer Island P&R and ST550 will no longer be routed from Bellevue into Seattle.
Despite years of objections from Mercer Island city council and island residents, the council felt compelled in a July 16, 2019 meeting to agree to accept the Sound Transit “Bus Intercept” plan. Thus, both Sound Transit and King County Metro I-90 corridor buses will be terminated at the Mercer Island P&R and the October 4374 ST550 boardings (2187 riders) will lose their current access to transit.
The bottom line is the Lynnwood extension ridership has debunked Sound Transit’s “field of dreams” assumption for extending light rail beyond the UW Stadium station. The Sound Transit TDP for 2025 for routing Line 2 to Lynnwood and “evaluate” ST Express bus routes reflects their failure to acknowledge that result.
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