ST Express: How 10 minutes could expand your travel options

ST Express 594. Photo credit: Zach Heistand on Flickr.

This month, Sound Transit finally presented its first proposal for Sound Transit Express bus service in 2026. The upshot? Good news if you were worried about your fast bus to Seattle going away. The situation for a large portion of riders (including nearly all south sound riders) will be essentially the status quo, at least as currently proposed, with the following routes seeing no changes proposed (with routes serving downtown Seattle in bold):

• 510: Everett - Downtown Seattle
• 512: Everett - Lynnwood City Center
• 532: Everett - Bellevue
• 542: Redmond - University District
• 545: Redmond - Downtown Seattle
• 560: Westwood Village/SeaTac Airport - Bellevue
• 566: Auburn - Overlake
• 577: Federal Way - Downtown Seattle
• 578: Puyallup/Federal Way - Downtown Seattle
• 590: Tacoma - Downtown Seattle
• 592: Lakewood/Du Pont - Downtown Seattle
• 594: Lakewood/Tacoma - Downtown Seattle
• 595: Gig Harbor/Tacoma - Downtown Seattle
• 596: Bonney Lake - Sumner Sounder Station

While a relief to current riders, the lack of a significant restructure leaves a missed opportunity for significant expansion of service other than the proposed night-owl service. In fact, the service coverage of Sound Transit Express is set to shrink, with the discontinuation of route 580. Worse yet, the future prospects of service expansion are dimmer than ever. With Sound Transit sending almost as many buses on I-5 through Federal Way as trains, these buses aren't available to take commuters to other regional destinations, like Tacoma, or Bellevue. And continuing frequent bus service directly from Redmond to downtown Seattle on the 545 means no bus service to South Lake Union or South Kirkland P&R, and no frequent service on 542.

An alternative proposal: slight inconvenience for a lot of new bus service

While Sound Transit has proposed only a mild restructure of service (particularly in the south), ST's Director of Systems and Service Planning, Emily Yasukochi, has opened up a bit about how they decide whether to shorten a bus that parallels Link (quote from our friends at The Urbanist):

When comparing the scheduled travel times and the actual travel times for the routes that we have proposed to change, shorten, [or] eliminate, we are finding up to 25 minutes of savings at the worst times to about, I would say, 10 minutes of additional travel time for some of the trips at some of the times," Yasukochi said. When it kind of went above that about 10 minute mark is when we were thinking [...] these routes should remain fully bus routes, continuing all the way into where they're currently serving.

This standard - no more than 10 minutes of additional travel time - is evident in which routes they decided to cut or shorten to connect with Link. Trips on routes like 515, 554, and 574 are not significantly slowed by switching to Link, so these routes are being shortened or deleted to improve nearby service. Routes like 545*, 578, and 594, on the other hand, would incur a larger time penalty if reduced or eliminated, so are not just not cut back to Link, but are preserved in their entirety under this proposal. This means no service hours from these particular routes will be freed up for expansion (particularly in Pierce County).

*Even thought taking the 2 Line instead of route 545 would handily exceed the 10 minute delay, there's another alternative that would keep the delay under 10 minutes. More on that later.

Getting more service, while keeping the 10-minute standard

Since we have a standard for the maximum we want to delay riders (10 minutes), it's natural to ask, is this the best we can do? Turns out, there is key modification we can make to routes 590, 594, and 595 (Pierce County to Seattle) that fits within the 10 minute standard: add a stop at Federal Way Downtown Station, then continue to Seattle.

While not currently proposed on any routes, this idea is nothing new. Back in 2021, Sound Transit added a Federal Way stop to route 586 (presumably to provide alternative service to suspended Metro route 197). By comparing old schedules, I've found that the stop added 8 minutes of travel time, squarely within the 10 minute standard. The move from the old transit center to Federal Way Downtown Station did not add any time to the schedule, so this calculation still applies to the new station.

To see what this would look like, here are maps of routes 590, 594, and 595 (which run non-stop from Tacoma to Seattle), as well as routes 577 and 578 (which run non-stop from Federal Way to Seattle):

Routes 590, 594, and 595 all converge in Tacoma, then run non-stop to SeattleRoutes 577 and 578 converge in Federal Way, and then run non-stop to Seattle

Adding stop at Federal Way Downtown Station to Pierce County routes would allow Sound Transit to delete route 577 and shorten route 578 (trips on route 578 from Puyallup could be timed to facilitate transfers to route 594, keeping the delay under 10 minutes). This would look like this:

A partial map of how routes 578, 590, 594, and 595 could be modified to converge at Federal Way, and continuing to Seattle from there.

This is frees up about 25 miles worth of two-way, all day, half-hourly service (exact service hours depend on traffic levels and speed, but a preliminary analysis, I'm going to use this as an approximation). It would also allow Sound Transit to delete route 574, as the Federal Way stop would make the 574 redundant with both buses and Link, and shortening it is already determined to be acceptable. This would free up nearly 30 miles of two-way, all day, half-hourly service.

Potential new service from Lakewood and Tacoma to Bellevue (red) along side modified service to Seattle (blue).

While not as transformative as turning all Seattle bus service around at Federal Way would be, this would leave a large amount of service hours available for new service. One such service that could probably be funded with this is a new route from Lakewood to Bellevue, which would follow route 594 to Federal Way. After Federal Way, it would move over to Auburn, and then follow route 566 up to Bellevue (it would not continue to Overlake, favoring a transfer to the 2 Line). Such a line could run every 30 minutes, and timed with route 594 to provide frequent service from Federal Way to Pierce County, and every northbound bus from Tacoma or Lakewood heading either to Seattle or Bellevue. This could also free up even more service hours by deleting route 566 (while at the same time more than restoring the service levels of route 566 which are currently suspended). This would also fulfill the longtime goal of having service from Tacoma to Bellevue, and finally give weekend service to the SR 167 and I-405 corridors from Auburn to Bellevue. At around 50 miles of 30-minute frequency service, this route may be affordable after the modifications I suggest (Sound Transit would have to study this idea further to see if this is the case).

Another change that could be done is surprisingly one that Sound Transit has already decided against in the proposal: deleting route 545, and replacing it with frequent service on route 542. Why did Sound Transit not propose this? Presumably because the alternative being compared is to take the 2 Line the whole way. Because the 2 Line will go through Bellevue and run on I-90, there is a significant geographical advantage for trips from Seattle to Redmond, and the speed improvements of Link do not keep the additional travel time under 10 minutes.

The other option? Take route 542 to UW, and transfer to the Link 1 or 2 Line at UW. Here are how the travel times change:

545, Evergreen Pt to 5th & Pine: 13 to 23 minutes

542, Evergreen Pt to UW Station: 6 to 11 minutes

Link, UW Station to Westlake: 7 minutes

As a result, before taking into account waiting for transfers, total travel time actually goes down from between 0 and 5 minutes! With the 1 and 2 Lines providing 4-5 minute frequency on the Seattle leg, wait times will be between 0 and 5 minutes. Assuming a walking time of 4 minutes at UW Station, average overall delay compared to the 545 would range from 2 to 7 minutes. Similar figures hold for the eastbound direction, except the transfer time of even an improved route 542 will be higher since 542 won't have 4 minute frequency in any event. But this can be mitigated by timing outbound trips of route 542 to align with Link trips (something that is not as feasible in the reverse direction), easing the transfer penalty.

Map of suspended route 544, whose 2023 service restoration never materialized

Considering that route 545 is a frequent route from Seattle to Redmond, it would free up a lot of service hours if it were to be deleted. This would very easily provide enough service hours to boost route 542 to frequent service, even very frequent at the busiest times, and would still leave a significant amount of service hours leftover. These additional service hours could be used to restore route 544 (or a route like it) from Overlake to South Lake Union. This was a route that was set to be restored in East Link Connections based on public feedback to Metro, but with Sound Transit proposing to continue to withhold in its draft 2026 service plan.

Conclusion

Transit in the region is changing, but with the proposed 2026 service plan, we risk letting outdated service patterns continue, rather than adapting to Link Light Rail corridors to meet new regional needs. There are tradeoffs for everyone, and not every existing rider will have an improved experience. But for the region as a whole, a new 2026 service plan could dramatically improve mobility in underserved corridors while keeping impacts to a minimum. Sound Transit's 2026 service plan phase 3 survey is open through November 7.