Route 550 Staying in Tunnel for Now

Atomic Taco (Flickr)

Last week we reported that, in a bid to improve tunnel operations and ULink reliability, Route 550 would be surfaced to 4th Avenue westbound each weekday afternoon. Confirming the change, OneBusAway showed trips departing Bellevue from 2:35-5:25pm as running on the surface.

But in an email update, Sound Transit's Bruce Gray says the agency is backing off the idea for now:

Wanted to drop you a quick note about the 550. Those inbound trips in the afternoon will not be coming out of the tunnel initially. We're going to keep that in our pocket as an option to roll out quickly if needed to keep things running smoothly after the big [Metro] service change on the 26^th