It basically feels like having Redmond pay for mitigation to Kirkland for losing their one seat ride to the downtown area. I’m not thrilled with the choice, and I especially dislike taking away capacity on Redmond->U-district with Montlake Freeway Station closed, forcing more people to fight traffic into downtown on the 545. In practice, the riders will be almost all the former, none the latter, but the number of people that can drive to the 544 at South Kirkland will be fundamentally limited by the number of parking spaces of a parking garage that is already filled to capacity. Ultimately, I see the primary value of the 544 being people that either drive to South Kirkland P&R to catch it, or ride to South Kirkland P&R on a bus that *doesn’t* go to Yarrow Point, such as the 249, or new route 250. In other words, all those service hours the 544 spends in Redmond aren’t really helping people in Redmond get where they’re going any sooner. Which means everybody getting on the 544 in Redmond could have just gotten on the 545 instead, switched over to the 544 at Yarrow Point, and arrived in South Lake Union at the same time. The length of the deviation is about the same amount of time as the 545’s peak-hour headway (~7 minutes), which means it is near certain that, at least during the hours that the 544 is running, that when the 544 is busy mucking around South Kirkland P&R, a 545 bus is going to pass it. That said, I am still very skeptical of the merits of a South Kirkland Park and Ride deviation on the way to Redmond. In the Eastbound direction, I would go Valley->Westlake->Denny->Bellevue Ave.->Olive Way.ġ) Of all the north/south streets in SLU, Westlake traverses the center and has the largest walkshedĢ) It leverages bus lanes already installed for the 8 and C-line to minimize exposure to trafficģ) Avoids Denny->Boren->Olive to access I-5, which is likely to be a complete parking lotĤ) Allows the 544 to continue to serve Capital Hill->Microsoft commuters, albeit with a stop one block north of where the 545 stops. If I were designing it, I would follow Sewart->Denny->Westlake->Valley in the westbound direction, ending the route where the C-line ends, over by Fred Hutch. I haven’t seen the particular routing in SLU the new 544 is going to take. BC inches closer to allowing ride hailing.Jarrett Walker on tunneling MAX under downtown.Local startup with yet another e-vehicle for sharing.Minor improvements for RapidRide H (Delridge).Things to do at each Seattle Link stop.The 255 is leaving Downtown Seattle next year. King County approves North Eastside restructure with small changes from the original concept.Kent playing hardball, blocks Metro facility with a zoning change.By the time we get our e-scooters, there may not be any companies left.A low-income fare is a contentious issue in Spokane.Kirkland may add “ missing middle” housing.First Hill Streetcar improvements watered down due to local opposition.Minor changes to Madison BRT, open house coming soon.Mike Lindblom has a great article on why Link takes so long ($).
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