Lynnwood Link Metro Bus Restructure Analysis

It has been over a year since Metro restructured the buses because of the Lynnwood Link Extension. We now know not only the monthly ridership of the routes but also more advanced data like the ridership per service hour from 2024 and 2025 . This is an analysis of those changes as well as a proposal based on that analysis. We will report on Community Transit routes as that data becomes available.

Seattle

The Seattle bus routes didn't change much for Lynnwood Link.

The 61 replaced the 20

This was one of the more controversial changes. Tangletown lost its one-seat ride to Northgate and North Seattle College. Parts of the neighborhood lost service altogether. On the other hand, Greenwood got a new connection to Northgate and Lake City. From a ridership standpoint it was a success:

Ridership per service hour is up for every time period. This means that for the bus is picking up more riders per dollar spent. Of course ridership isn't everything. There is a new coverage hole in TangleTown with no bus service. The best way to fix this is by moving the 62. This would speed up the 62 and thus likely increase ridership per service hour as well.

65 Extension

The 65 was extended to Shoreline South/148th Station (it used to end at 145th & 15th NE). Here are the numbers for that route:

Ridership is better in some ways and worse in others. In general the extension performed as well as the rest of the route which I would consider a worthy change given the 65 performs well.

Overall I would consider the changes in Seattle to be a success although the changes were relatively small. Some routes will change in later phases, when Pinehurst Station is added and Sound Transit Express 522 is sent to 148th Station.

Shoreline

Unlike in Seattle, the changes effecting Shoreline were quite big. It is pointless to try and compare a new route with an old one. It's better to consider the changes as a group, which makes analysis a bit more challenging. It makes sense to have a baseline. Overall, transit ridership has been trending upward. Consider the RapidRide E Line, which runs through Shoreline. It runs parallel to Link. Yet despite the competition, Link had a minimal impact on the E Line. Ridership per service-hour on the E has increased slightly. This shouldn't be surprising because many of the riders are simply going down Aurora, and Link is too far east for their trip.

Peak Express

While the RapidRide E is doing well, most Shoreline buses are not. First consider the buses that run express from Shoreline and north Seattle to downtown (or to areas adjacent to downtown):

The peak express routes continue to underperform. The good news is that there aren't as many. The 303 and 322 are the only buses left. Metro may have found the sweet spot" when it comes to express buses to the north, which is to run only a couple routes, both go to Northgate and First Hill. On both the 303 and 322, the Northgate Transit Center has the highest number of boardings and alightings north of the ship canal. The 322 also connects Kenmore and Lake Forest Park with Lake City and Northgate. Given that the future 522 will no longer connect Kenmore and Lake Forest Park with Lake City, it seems worthwhile to at least preserve the 322.

All-Day Routes:

There was a considerable downturn in Shoreline ridership pretty much across the board. On average things are clearly worse (I could bore you with weight-adjusted averages but there is no point). Consider the routes that performed fairly well before the change, like the 346 and 348. They had over 20 riders per service hour - quite good for a suburban route. Yet not a single route comes close to that number now. This is despite the fact that Link now stops twice in Shoreline which means riders have more options to catch Link. I think it is fair to say that overall, the restructure in Shoreline is a failure.

A Critique and a Proposal

Several people spoke of the issues surrounding the Lynnwood Link restructure. It is hard to summarize the mistakes but the 333 is a great example. Unlike many of the buses in Shoreline, this bus runs every fifteen minutes throughout the day. It serves two Link stations as well as what is probably the biggest single destination in Shoreline: Shoreline Community College. Yet it performs very poorly. It has numbers similar to a coverage bus. It isn't hard to see why.

This is the route it takes between the college and the station. Notice how it heads east to Dayton and then backtracks to Greenwood. It isn't that slow but it has to be annoying to see your bus zig-zag back and forth for no apparent reason. Then it follows 145th (where traffic is bad) before again circling around to serve the station at 148th. The more straightforward (and faster) route would have been been via 155th. This is the route the old 330 took. It serves more of Aurora including the big complex on 155th (now served via an infrequent bus). This isn't the only flaw on this section. The bus just ends at the station, rather than continuing to Lake City. This not only means fewer one-seat rides to the college but extra transfers or very indirect trips.

But it gets worse. A bus going the other way from the college first heads north via the back roads (picking up very few riders). It then turns east again on 175th. Then it follows 175th under the freeway and under Link. But despite being about half a mile from the Shoreline North/185th Station it doesn't bother to serve it. If you are anywhere along 175th (e. g. 175th & Aurora) you have two very-poor options to get to Link. You can ride the bus west to the college and then back east to the 148th Station. Or you can go east on the traffic-congested 175th until 15th and then head north all the way to Mountlake Terrace. I suppose that isn't bad if you are heading to Lynnwood but most riders want to head south, not north.

The route is flawed in other ways too. The college would have made an excellent terminus for buses coming from both directions. Not only is it a major destination (and thus an excellent anchor) but it is the westernmost point on an east-west route. This means that very few riders stay on the bus once it serves the college. In contrast there would be plenty of riders staying on the bus it just kept going east from 148th Station.

From both an individual standpoint and a network standpoint it is clearly flawed. Yet this is not a simple add-on, coverage route. This is the premier new route in the area, one of the few that actually offers good headways in the middle of the day. It is indicative of the flawed routing in Shoreline.

Unfortunately we have similar changes in store for Seattle. When Pinehurst Station is complete, the 77 will serve both the station and Lake City Way. By making a sharp turn at 125th it shortchanges much of Lake City. Pinehurst station will be by far the fastest option for riders in Lake City but most will have a very long walk to the nearest bus stop. It also serves less of Lake City Way. Meanwhile, the 75 will not change which means it will do what the 333 does. It will get within a half mile of the Pinehurst Station and yet not serve it. It will turn away from it (instead of just going straight) in order to serve Northgate. This might be a decent trade-off if not for the fact that the 61 provides a faster trip from Lake City to Northgate and the 348 connects riders in Pinehurst (at 15th NE) to more of Northgate than the 75. It is just poor routing.

It is clear that the Metro planners made mistakes when designing the routes in Shoreline. They shouldn't make make similar mistakes in Seattle. The county should reverse their proposed plan and make changes as described here. This would save service money while providing a much better network. It would also be better for the bus operators as well. In the long run we need a better network for Shoreline. But since the changes for Seattle haven't been implemented yet, there is still time to avoid a similar mistake. Contact your county executive and ask them to change the routing to provide better service for Lake City and Bitter Lake.