RapidRide Corridor 3101 + 1028 (RapidRide B + 271)

A RapidRide B and Route 271 take off from Bellevue Transit Center. Photo by Bruce qu via the STB Flickr Pool.

With the full Link 2 Line across Lake Washington expected to open in the next year or two, King County Metro is considering how to best reroute the the roughly-parallel RapidRide B Line. A potential merger of Metro Route 271 and a portion of the B Line, also known as RapidRide Candidate Corridor 3101 + 1028" was recently set as a Tier 2 priority RapidRide line connecting the U District, Downtown Bellevue, and Bellevue's Crossroads neighborhood. The RapidRide Bs current route (forming a backwards L between Redmond and Downtown Bellevue) would be split at the turn at Crossroads, with the other half eventually being connected to Metro Route 226.

East Link Connections Route 270 and RapidRide B

Route 271 currently runs between the U District through Downtown Bellevue to Issaquah, but after East Link opens, Metro's East Link Connections bus restructures will replace route with a shorter Route 270 which will only run between U District and Downtown Bellevue. It appears that this RapidRide Candidate Corridor would be merger of the new 270 route and the east-west portion of RapidRide B (the lower leg of the backwards L), making use of the current RapidRide infrastructure in Bellevue to provide frequent service across the SR-520 floating bridge.

Alignment

The main alignment decision for reaching SR-520 was between using 1) 84th Avenue NE and NE 8th Street, the existing alignment of Route 271 or using 2) Bellevue Way NE the new alignment used by Route 270. The latter was chosen to maintain consistency with East Link Connections.

After the main alignment decision, one minor change added had buses traveling westbound onto SR-520 to use the 108th Ave HOV on-ramp avoid weaving from the outer to inner HOV lane, while eastbound buses would continue to use the Bellevue Way off-ramp.

The new east-west route will benefit those passing through Bellevue Downtown the most such as those heading to University of Washington from apartments along NE 8th St or those heading to Crossroads from U District. For destinations nearby Bellevue Downtown Station it'll be faster to use East Link directly, or if coming from Lynnwood in most cases one would stay on Link rather than transferring in U District.

1. U District to Crossroads via RapidRide B + 226: 8 minute wait + 40 minutes travel
2. U District to Crossroads via East Link to Bellevue and transfer to RapidRide B + 226: 4 minute wait + 32 minutes train + 8 minute wait + 10 minutes bus
3. U District to Crossroads via East Link to Redmond Technology Center to RapidRide B: 4 minute wait + 42 minutes train + 8 minute wait + 8 minutes bus

On the other hand, those heading to Overlake or Redmond from NE 8th St (east of I-405) would incur a transfer penalty at Crossroads from splitting the original RapidRide B's L. Though this is partly mitigated if one is close to Bellevue Downtown and uses East Link instead.

Delays and Improvements

Most of the delays are concentrated in U District or around downtown Bellevue.

There are 3 sets of improvements suggested by King County Metro. 1) BAT lanes near UW station along NE Pacific Street. 2) BAT lanes on Bellevue Way NE from converting general purpose lanes. 3) Lastly, BAT lanes on NE 8th St east of I-405 mostly in the westbound direction.

However, while Seattle has generally been good about implementing BAT lanes, Bellevue is more hesitant with repurposing general car lanes for transit or bikes and generally allocating funding to roadway expansions instead. Evaluating Bellevue's 2025-2030 Transportation Improvement Plan for corridor related projects:

1. 148th Avenue NE/NE 8th Street Left Turns (Tier 1 funded): This project will widen all four approaches to provide a second left turn pocket serving each direction.
2. NE 8th Street/106th Avenue NE Road Widening (Tier 2 unfunded): Realign NE 8th for Street three through lanes westbound from I-405 to Bellevue Way
3. Bellevue Way/NE 8th Street (Tier 2 unfunded): Add a southbound to westbound right-turn lane
4. 148th Avenue NE/ NE 8th Street Queue Jumps (Tier 4 planned but unlikely): Construct queue jump lanes in the eastbound, northbound, and southbound directions.

Time savings and stop spacings

The Metro suggested BAT and bus lanes would allow decrease the overall trip time by 18% from around 45~50 minutes to 38~40 minutes. The BAT lanes would moderately decrease travel times and more importantly provide more consistency.

Currently the average stop spacing is 2,700 feet and 45% of the stop pairs are less than a quarter mile apart. The proposed stations would be approximately 3,460 feet apart. Generally the route already has medium-high stop spacing as half of comes from the existing RapidRide B and would continue to use those stops on NE 8th St.

Costs and Gains

It would cost around $59 million dollars to implement the above changes with 45% for stops and stations, 32% for transit speed and reliability, 19% for charging infrastructure and 3% for layover facilities.

RapidRide B and Route 271 carried approximately 7,000 people per day in Spring 2023, and as much as 11,400 people in Fall 2019. The new RapidRide B + 271 combining half of each route would have around 4,500 daily riders before improvements and with them increase by 3,400 riders to an estimated 7,900 daily riders. (Note: The other RapidRide B + 226 would have the north-south riders on 148th NE Ave while ST 554 would carry the Issaquah to South Bellevue riders)

Conclusion

Splitting and combining the 271 and RapidRide B creates a new east-west corridor across SR-520 reducing travel times from North King to Crossroads. However, further travel time improvements depend on Bellevue's willingness to implement infrastructure upgrades. As a Tier 2 priority RapidRide Candidate Corridor, Metro seems to be hoping to build the route sometime in the 2030's, at which point the new Route 270, and full Link 2 Line will have been running for about a decade. Travel patterns across the SR-520 floating bridge and within the Eastside might be quite different, as well. Even if a RapidRide route across Lake Washington could shave off several minutes in travel time between the U-District and Bellevue, it would be interesting to see how people would choose between this bus and the train.