Pierce Transit cuts Sunday frequency to save bus network
While we lament the loss of Seattle's frequent bus network (which has largely been in place since the opening of University Link in 2016), Pierce Transit is in a much more dire situation. Due to a smaller sales tax base, and the fact that Pierce Transit currently only levies a 0.6% sales tax (with measures to increase the levy in 2011 and 2012 both failing), transit was already sparse before the pandemic. 30-minute headways would be considered frequent service" in Pierce County, with only routes 1 and 2 (in addition to better-funded Sound Transit service) ever exceeding that, and frequencies rarely better than hourly on weekends. A recent restructure of service had improved matters, and effectively brought 30-minute headways to as many places as possible given the limited resources, without having to reduce weekend service. Additionally, it extended the span of service on most routes to 10 PM. So while frequency of these routes weren't all that good, it would still probably run late enough to get you home.
Then the pandemic happened, and this threw a wrench in the slowly-improving prospects for a usable transit network in Pierce County. In a series of changes in April and May, Pierce Transit reduced service to match ridership demand. As a result, service would generally run on weekdays would run as often as it would on Saturdays, but would run as late into the evening as it normally does on weekdays (with some exceptions). With Pierce Transit planning for the future, Pierce Transit is faced with pressure to restore service while facing financial troubles in the future. With Pierce Transit's September 2020 service change schedules out, we see their solution: cut frequency on Sundays to bring back mostly normal service on weekdays and Saturdays.
A soon-to-be typical Sunday schedule.This works out to a 10% reduction in service overall, though distributed much more heavily on Sunday service than all other days. Since almost every route that runs on Sundays runs hourly, this means that 2-hour headways on Sundays are going to be the norm for the foreseeable future. Only routes 1, 2, 3, 4, 202, and 500 will run hourly on Sunday. Two hour headways will make service very difficult (if not impossible) to use, depending on your use case. Certainly this is of little use to anyone except those to whom transit is absolutely essential on Sundays. Indeed, it will be important that people who don't need to ride the bus definitely not do so on Sundays, since a full bus which runs every two hours will pass people who will likely have no choice but to head back home and cancel their day. The good news? There aren't really substantial changes to the bus network, meaning Pierce Transit's work restructuring service in 2018 is largely intact, just with less service. Most of Tacoma's bus routes will still have 30 minute headways on weekdays, and most will still have the same (or similar) span of service as pre-COVID. Saturday service is also largely preserved. So I view this as largely similar to Community Transit eliminating service on Sundays to save the broader network (the difference being that there is still lifeline level of service on Sundays).
The chart below shows the evolution of change in service on each route. Shown are September 2020 headways, with the May 24th COVID-19 service reductions in [brackets], and September 2019 levels in (parentheses). Changes since the last revision are in bold. Service levels worse than 2019 are in red, while partially restored service (from May 24th service reductions) are in orange. Finally, d" means peak direction only service (with the number of peak trips in the morning/evening, e.g. 60d 3/4" means hourly peak trips, 3 trips in the morning and 4 in the evening), and -" means no service (sad face).
| Route | Peak | Midday | Evening | Saturday | Sunday |
| 1 | 15 [15] (15) | 15 [15] (15) | 60 [15] (15) | 20 [30] (20) | 60 [30] (30) |
| 2 | 20 [20] (20) | 20 [20] (20) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 60 [30] (30) |
| 3 | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) |
| 4 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) |
| 10 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 11 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 30 (60) [30] | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 13 | 60d 4/4 [-] (60) | - [-] (60) | - | - | - |
| 16 | 30 [45] (30) | 30 [45] (30) | 60 [45] (60) | 45 [60] (45) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 28 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 41 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 42 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 45 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 48 | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 52 | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 30 [60] (30) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 53 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 54 | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 55 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 57 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 63 | 60d 2/2 [60d 2/3] (60d 4/5) | - | - | - | - |
| 100 | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 102 | - [-] (20-50d 6/6) | - | - | - | - |
| 202 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 60 [30] (30) |
| 206 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [45] (30) | 120 [40] (40) |
| 212 | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 60 [30-60] (60) | 60 [60] (30) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 212 Steilacoom | 60 [60-120] (60) | 60 [120] (60) | 90 [60] (90) | 120 [180] (120) | 120 [180] (180) |
| 214 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 400 | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | - | - |
| 402 | 60 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 409 | - [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | - [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 425 | - | 60 [-] (30) | - | 120 [-] (30) | - |
| 497 | 20d 8/8 [60d 5/5] (60d 9/9) | - | - | - | - |
| 500 | 30 [30] (30) | 30 [30] (30) | 60 [30] (30) | 30 [60] (30) | 60 [60] (60) |
| 501 | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 60 [60] (60) | 120 [60] (60) |
| 501 Valley & 70th Ave | 60 [-] (60) | - | - | - | - |
There are a few oddities to this new set of schedules. For one, service to Steilacoom is actually getting more frequent on Sundays. This is because previously route 212 had two different variants on Sunday: one only to Pierce College, and one only to Steilacoom. It runs every hour, with 2 out of 3 trips going to Pierce College, leaving Steilacoom with one bus every 3 hours. Starting in September, all buses will go to Steilacoom on Sunday (and none to Pierce College), so as a result Steilacoom will get 2-hourly Sunday service.
The Sounder schedule is still shown next to route 409's schedule, despite route 409 starting after the last morning trains leaveRoute 409, contrary to most other service, is getting its weekday span of service cut rather dramatically (missing the morning peak entirely). It will not be possible to use route 409 to connect to Sounder trains in the morning, as the first trip starts after the last train arrives in Seattle. Ironically, the schedule for route 409 still shows Sounder departures from Puyallup. Pierce Transit underserving Puyallup is nothing new (in fact, several years ago Puyallup was among the cities considering withdrawing from Pierce Transit over its lack of bus service), but it seems reasonable to suggest that route 409 should get priority for weekday service returning once that is a possibility.
Route 102, which was cancelled entirely, will not be coming back for the foreseeable future. However, Sound Transit is planning to add a stop to route 595 at Tacoma Dome Station in March 2021, which can be used as an alternative to route 102. And route 13, which was also cancelled, is coming back as a peak-only route, running southbound to Tacoma Dome Station in the morning, and northbound to the Proctor District in the afternoon. Pierce Transit is hoping to bring back service in 2021. If you have feedback on how they should do this, be sure to check out their survey on how things should go moving forward.