The World is Orange
The Swift Orange Line BRT launched on Saturday. I tried it out Sunday afternoon with my friend in north Lynnwood, who lives northwest of Ash Way P&R. The Orange Line is a limited-stop east-west bus route between Edmonds College, Highway 99, Lynnwood city center, Alderwood Mall, Ash Way P&R, Mill Creek, and McClollum Park. It runs every 10-12 minutes weekdays, and every 20 minutes weekends and evenings. Swift is Snohomish County's version of BRT, running frequently on arterials RapidRide, but stopping only every mile like Link, some ST Express routes (512, 550), or the upcoming Stride BRT.
(Map by Community Transit. A larger version is in the link at the top of the article.)
The Orange Line joins two existing Swift lines in Snohomish County. The Blue Line runs southwest from Everett to Aurora Village. The Green Line runs southeast from the Everett Industrial Center to Canyon Park. Community Transit is building a few other Swift lines and extensions. The next ones will be a Gold Line north from Everett Station to Smokey Point, a short Blue Line extension south to the future Shoreline North/185th Link station, and a Green Line extension southeast to UW Bothell. [Correction: The Gold Line will not go to Lynnwood.[
Transfers: Orange-Green at three stations in Mill Creek. Orange-Blue at 196th & Highway 99. Orange-512 at Lynnwood Transit Center or Ash Way P&R.
My friend was skeptical of the Orange Line at first because it still wouldn't address her biggest problem: the last two miles to her house, and the hourly bus that goes only halfway to it. But after riding the Orange Line on Sunday she said it will be very useful to get to central Lynnwood, and it opens up travel to to Mill Creek and McCollum Park, which she'd rarely been to because there wasn't good east-west bus service on 164th.
I took Link from Seattle and transferred to the 512 at Northgate around noon. The 512 also runs every 20 minutes on Sundays, so I had a 10-minute wait. It took a speedy 20 minutes to get to Ash Way P&R. The 512 feels more luxurious than King/Pierce ST Express buses, and reminded me of taking long-distance trips on Greyhound.
The Orange station is on the street adjacent to Ash Way P&R, one station for both directions. To get from the 512 stop inside the P&R, you cross the wide bus driveway, then go on a new sidewalk to the street. On Saturday that sidewalk was closed and unfinished, but on Sunday it was open. There's no crosswalk across the bus driveway so you have to treat it like shared space. My friend was afraid it might be illegal to cross the driveway, but I had no patience for that when there's no other way to get between the stops without going out of your way to cross another street twice to/from a sidewalk at the northern edge, that was in any case still closed and unfinished. So the agencies should paint a crosswalk across the bus driveway the shortest distance between the BRT station and the regional bus stops.
This Orange station and several others have a new next-arrival display similar to ST's new series at CID Station, although not identical. It has three rows for the next three buses. The stations have an ORCA reader and a new kind of ticket kiosk, but the ticket kiosks weren't turned on yet.
We took the Orange Line east to the eastern terminus. Martha Lake looked beautiful. Neither of us had seen it before due to the previous skeletal bus service. In Mill Creek the Orange and Green Lines share three stations, with retail resembling mini big box stores.
The eastern terminus is McClollum Park P&R, which is adjacent to the same-name park. Walking west from the station you go through a large round lawn (officially an athletic field) to the woods beyond. There's a paved path around the lawn. The woods feel like the dirt forest trails in the interior of Lincoln Park, Longfellow Creek, or Carkeek Park. A stream runs north-south through it, and another stream comes from the west and joins at a T. To get across the north-south stream you have to go to the northwest corner of the lawn circle.
We then took the Orange Line the other way to the western end, Edmonds College. We stopped there at Mod Pizza, then went east back to Ash Way P&R and went our separate ways. A fare inspector checked our ORCA cards along the way. On the first segment east we were the only ones on the bus. On each of the other two segments some ten people accumulated, and another ten got on or off at different points. That's good for the second day of the route, and on Easter Sunday.
It takes half an hour to get from Ash Way P&R to Edmonds College. The route traveled the speed limit except for a congested patch on 164th. The route detours and the surrounding land uses will disappoint King County urbanists. The line detours to get to Ash Way P&R and to Lynnwood Station, further than RapidRide F at TIB. The north-south segment on 36th is blocks of single-family houses. That's between Swamp Creek P&R and Alderwood Mall, so on the way between Ash Way and Lynnwood city center. There' s substantial lowrise density along several parts of the line, but it's transit-adjacent development" instead of transit-oriented development", meaning it's car-oriented with parking in front. Swift doesn't continue west to downtown Edmonds or east to Silver First, so other routes have to do that and overlap with it. Still, they're the local shadow in the overlap, which is needed anyway given Swift's 1-mile mile station spacing. But even though Swift doesn't go all the way east and west, it does go several miles both east and west of Ash Way P&R or Lynnwood Transit center, serving all the densest areas between Edmonds College and Mill Creek.
All these flaws should make a rapid BRT line questionable, but Swift can't help the surrounding land uses or the location of the regional stations; it's either Swift or nothing. Even with all its flaws, Swift Orange is substantially more frequent and faster to go east-west in Southwest Snohomish County than any other transit alternative.
My friend and I decided to go this summer to McCollum Park again for a picnic and a longer walk, and also to visit Martha Lake and Scriber Creek Park. I've been to Scriber Creek Park twice in the past few decades; it's a wooded wetland oasis with a swamp and a boardwalk. It's currently closed for renovation, but when it reopens it should be within walking distance of the Lynnwood Link station with a trail between them.