Winter 2018 Transit Service Changes Begin To Rollout This Weekend

Local transit agencies will begin implementing their winter service changes this weekend. The changes will primarily affect riders on Community Transit, Pierce Transit, and King County Metro Transit. The common theme of the service changes is added service, which will likely be welcome news to rides. A lot of the added service will go toward weekends and evening regardless of transit agency. These times have traditionally been less of a priority over peak weekday hours, but have been sorely needed to pick up the slack and bolster a culture of transit ridership in all parts of riders’ lives. Notable weekend and evening service additions will touch the far reaches of the suburbs in King County while crowding on core routes is addressed and Route 99 finally meets its death.

So just what is changing?

Community Transit

New trips will be added to several Community Transit routes in order to improve evening service on Sundays beginning March 11th. The new trips will go to routes on the network core, including:

• Swift Blue Line and Routes 105, 130, and 196: Two new roundtrips will be added on late Sundays to each route.
• Routes 109, 113, and 202: One new roundtrip will be added on late Sundays to each route.

Community Transit will improve reliability on University of Washington commuter routes by adding scheduled time to trips and making earlier departures. Minor changes will also be implemented to Routes 113, 120, and 280.

Pierce Transit

A scattershot of modest changes will be implemented across the Pierce Transit network to add service beginning March 11th. Routes seeing new service include:

• Route 1: One new trip will be added during the weekday evening peak, departing from Tacoma Community College Transit.
• Route 4: One new roundtrip will be added on Sunday evenings.
• Route 16: Service on the route will be upgraded from hourly to every 45 minutes on Saturdays.
• Route 55: One early morning trip from Parkland Transit Center will be added on weekdays. One evening trip on Sundays from Tacoma Mall Transit Center will be added as well.
• Route 202: Service on the route will be upgraded from hourly to ever 40 minutes on Sundays.
• Route 206: One new evening trip on weekdays will be added, departing from Lakewood Transit Center. On Sundays, one morning trip departing from Berkeley and Union and one evening trip departing from Lakewood Transit Cetner will be added.
• Route 212: One new mid-morning trip from Pierce College will be added on Saturdays.
• Route 409: One new early morning trip from the 72nd Transit Center will be added on weekdays.
• Route 497: On weekdays, one early morning trip from Sunset Park & Ride and one evening trip from Auburn Station will be added.
• Route 500: One new early morning trip from 10th & Commerce will be added on weekdays.
• Route 501: One new morning trip from 10th & Commerce will be added on Saturdays.

Other minor adjustments will be made to Routes 3, 11, 41, 42, 48, 54, 402, and 425. Later this spring, Pierce Transit will launch a new partnership route to benefit commuters at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Branded as GO Transit, the service will be operated between the base and Lakewood Transit Center and Lakewood Station on weekdays. It will be exclusively offered to those who have military identification cards.

King County Metro Transit

Major service changes will begin to roll out on King County Metro Transit routes on March 10th. A total of 242 more weekday trips will be added in addition to 71 trips each Sunday and 49 trips each Saturday. Weekday improvements are largely designed to address crowding issues on in-demand routes. Added trips during those times will help to improve frequency. There are other themes in the service change, such as improved midday weekday service, new and improved evening service, and special attention given to weekend service.

New service will go to the following routes:

• Route 5: Two new peak-morning trips will be added on weekdays, both departing during the 8am hour. For Route 5, the new trip to Downtown Seattle will depart from Phinney Ave N & N 46th St while the new Route 5E trip to Downtown Seattle will depart from Greenwood Ave N & N 145th St.
• Route 24: One new peak-morning trip will added on weekdays toward Downtown Seattle.
• Route 31: Two new evening eastbound trips will be added on weekdays. Two new evening westbound trips will also be added on weekdays. Also on weekday evenings, one eastbound and one westbound trip will be converted from Route 32 trips to Route 31 trips.
• Route 50: On weekdays, one new morning trip will depart Othello Station and one new mid-afternoon trip will depart from Alki. This will improve overall frequency and extend the period of service every 20 minutes.
• Route 64: A new peak-afternoon trip will be added and trip times on Routes 63 and 64 will be adjusted.
• Route 70: Two new peak-morning trips will be added to Downtown Seattle on weekdays. Existing trips will be adjusted improving frequency to every six minutes between 7.45am and 8.53am.
• Route 74: New midday service will be added between Sand Point and the University District only. The midday service will run every 30 minutes.
• Route 75: Two new evening roundtrips will be added on weekdays.
• Route 102: Five new early and peak-morning trips to Downtown Seattle trips will be added by converting from existing Route 101 trips. A further three peak-afternoon trips to South Renton Park & Ride will be added by converting from existing Route 101 trips. None of the new trips will serve Fairwood.
• Route 150: On Sundays, service will see a significant frequency improvement at the edges going from every 30 minutes to every 15 minutes between 8.21am and 5.51pm in the northbound direction and 9.15am and 7.16pm in the southbound direction.
• Route 153: New midday service will be introduced to the route to fill out the schedule with frequency every 30 minutes.
• Route 156: Peak-morning service on weekdays will improve to every 15 minutes in the northbound direction between 6.06am and 7.36am. Likewise, frequency will improve to every 15 minutes on weekdays in the southbound direction between 6.53am and 8.23am.
• Route 180: Peak-morning service on weekdays will improve to every 20 minutes in the northbound direction between 5.37am and 8am.
• Route 181: Peak-morning service on weekdays will improve to every 20 minutes in the northbound direction between 6.23am and 8.23am. Likewise, frequency will improve to every 20 minutes on weekdays in the southbound direction between 6.25am and 8.28am.
• Route 183: Midday service on weekdays will be upgraded from hourly to every 30 minutes. Service will also be extended to 10pm to provide hourly frequency on weeknights.
• Route 212: Two new peak-morning trips to Downtown Seattle will be added.
• Route 218: Three new peak-morning trips to Downtown Seattle will be added.
• Route 240: Weekday evening service will improve from hourly to every 30 minutes from 7.29pm to 10.29pm in the northbound direction and 8.06pm to 11.05pm in the southbound direction. Saturday evening service will improve from hourly to every 30 minutes from 6.38pm to 10.38pm in the northbound direction and 7.06pm to 10.05pm in the southbound direction. And all Sunday service will improve from hourly to every 30 minutes from 8.08am to 10.38pm in the northbound direction and 7.35am to 10.05pm in the southbound direction.
• Route 245: Peak-morning service on weekdays will improve to every 12 minutes in the northbound direction between 6.52am and 9.29am. Likewise, frequency will improve to every 12 minutes on weekdays in the southbound direction between 6.57am and 8.45am.
• Route 269: Saturday service will be introduced to the route providing service every 40 minutes between 8.30am and 7pm.
• Route 312: One peak-afternoon trip will be added and one existing trip departure time revised.
• Route 930: Four new trips (two during the 9am hour and two during the 2pm hour) will be added from Kingsgate Park & Ride. A further six new trips (one during the 8am hour, two during 9am hour, two during the 2pm hour, and one during the 3pm hour) will be added from Redmond Town Center.
• RapidRide C Line: Two new peak-morning trips to Downtown Seattle will be added on weekdays. Another new peak-afternoon trip to Westwood Village will be added on weekdays.
• RapidRide D Line: One new peak-morning trip to Downtown Seattle will be added on weekdays.
• RapidRide E Line: Two new peak-morning trips to Downtown Seattle will be added on weekdays. Another two new peak-afternoon trip to Aurora Village will be added on weekdays.
• RapidRide F Line: Weekday evening service will improve from half-hourly to every 15 minutes from 7.50pm to 10.05 in the eastbound direction and from 7.43 to 10.29 in the westbound direction.

In addition to the new trips, Metro will adjust certain route alignments and stops temporarily and provide more resources to improve reliability on Routes 3, 8, 11, 12, 19, 26, 28, 40, 131, 143, 178, 179, 181, 200, 234, 257, 268, and 355. One service deletion of Route 99 will also occur, so say goodbye while you still can.