Metro expanding Flex service to South Park and Delridge

New Metro Flex Delridge/South Park area map (Photo: KCM)

King County Metro has announced that it is adding a new zone for Metro Flex, its on-demand microtransit service, in Delridge and South Park. Service in the new zone starts Monday, July 22nd.

Metro Flex is a service offered by King County Metro that lets users book rides on-demand within a certain zone. Riders use the Metro Flex app to request a ride during operating hours. The app will direct users where to wait for the vehicle (usually a short walk, typically much shorter than to a bus route), and the service will automatically route drivers to each waiting passenger.

Originally debuting as Via to Transit in 2019, this service began as a way to connect riders to Link stations. After a hiccup in 2020 that completely suspended this service for a time, Metro has expanded the number of zones and piloted similar services in Kent and Sammamish under different names and partnerships.

Since 2023, these services have all been consolidated into one service called Metro Flex, operating service in seven (soon to be eight) zones. The new zone in Delridge and South Park is bounded roughly by the Duwamish Waterway, SW Roxbury St, and 35th Ave SW, except narrowing to around Delridge Way SW in the north, and with a few other cutouts to follow the street grid around the river. Service is available seven days per week, from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

This zone is served by many routes, including the RapidRide C and H Lines, 21/21X, 22, 60, 113, 125, 128, 131, 132, and ST 560. However, within the zone, there are some significant gaps in service, such as between SW Thistle and Sylvan Way SW. Even in areas where service is close, that effective distance is often lengthened by the hilly terrain, making service less accessible. For people already close to fixed-route transit service, having Metro Flex service available adds options for connections that would be otherwise impractical, such as a South Seattle College student catching a ride to connect to route 132 to go home.

Bus service improvements starting September 14

In addition to the new Flex zone, Metro is adding trips to routes 60 and 125 in September, funded by the 2020 Seattle Transit Measure and SDOT. Route 125 is getting Sunday service partially restored, with 23 of its 50 pre-pandemic Sunday trips coming back. It is also adding 23 trips on other days. This could bring Saturday service back to half-hourly rather than roughly every 45 minutes as it is today, and hourly service on Sunday, but we'll have to wait for the schedule to come out to know for sure. Meanwhile, route 60 is getting more than 60 new trips. These are enough trips to make serious improvements to the 60, which currently has frequencies that max out at 12 minutes on weekdays, and 20 minutes on weekends. As with the 125, we'll find out in September exactly when these trips will run.

UPDATE: Commentor and STB writer Mike Orr has pointed out that these service hours aren't new, and are coming from routes 10, 11, and 12 from Capitol Hill. This is in the context of long term service reductions caused primarily by staff shortages, resulting in Metro operating fewer service hours than funding theoretically provides for since around 2022.