Route 40 upgrades could be on the horizon. King County Metro and the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) have been working on the Route 40 Transit+ project, which could bring right-of-way improvements to the corridor, speeding up buses and improving reliability. SDOT has developed a variety of conceptual street enhancements, tabbed for several sections of the corridor in Westlake, Fremont, Ballard, and Greenwood based upon feedback from the public and operators. Improvements could reduce travel times by 5% to 10% during peak times.

Westlake improvements

In Westlake, street layout changes are being considered on Westlake Ave N between 9th Ave N and the Fremont Bridge. The 1.5-mile stretch of street would be modified by putting a bus-only lane in each direction on the four-lane street. To support access, four new concrete pads could be added at southbound bus stops. Other possible improvements include a new southbound left-turn lane for buses only at the Westlake Ave N and Valley St/Roy St intersection and a southbound queue jump at the N Highland Dr intersection. SDOT notes that these changes would provide “reduced transit travel times and improved reliability in both directions, especially northbound following bridge opening events.”

With the arrival of light rail on the Eastside soon, King County Metro is beginning a process to restructure bus service to better integrate with East Link and Downtown Redmond Link. The bus restructure could affect some 42 routes that operate on and from the Eastside and near the new Judkins Park Station in Seattle. On the Eastside, cities as far north, south, and east as Bothell, Renton, and Duvall are a part of the Phase 1 Study Area. The initial phase of the study is a survey of riders and residents who could be affected by any bus network changes.

Routes in the study are both Metro and Sound Transit services that operate near future light rail stations or overlap light rail corridors. Some services like local Routes 230 and 240 are not included in the study since they will be unaffected by the introduction of light rail. This also applies to some I-405 bus routes and flexible mobility services. However, the 42 bus routes under review for changes, include Routes 8, 111, 114, 167, 204, 212, 214, 216, 217, 218, 219, 221, 224, 225, 226, 232, 237, 240, 241, 245, 246, 249, 250, 252, 257, 268, 269, 271, 311, 342, 541, 542, 544, 545, 550, 554, 555, 556, 630, 930, and 931 as well as the RapidRide B Line.

A concern that might be pressing to riders and policymakers is whether or not the Eastside bus restructure may emulate the Northgate Link bus restructure. The restructure eliminated Route 41 and largely moved its service hours out of the service area. Route 41 operated from Northgate to Downtown Seattle via I-5 essentially mimicking the express nature of the Northgate Link Extension to Downtown Seattle. The implication there is that a net sum of service hours were pulled out rather than reinvested in the service area, leaving fewer service hours to do the critical work with in improving local bus service.

On the other hand, those hours may get a higher return in terms of ridership or advancing Metro’s equity goals if they are not strictly limited to the study area. In the pandemic era, bus ridership has been relatively weak on the Eastside and remained strongest in Southeast King County, where more service workers and transit-dependent populations tend to live as opposed to largely office workers.

Metro Connects is poised to be updated this year, extending the long-range plan out another 10 years to 2050. Changes under reviewed would add additional corridors as potential RapidRide Lines and expanded and upgrade frequent, local, and express service. The update process will also adjust the interim network period, extending it beyond 2025. Funding for the program, however, has yet to materialize and has been significantly delayed due to the pandemic — though recent rounds of federal financial assistance may change the situation. Nevertheless, cutbacks were made in the fall as part of the biennial county budget.

Those cutbacks included an alphabet soup of delayed capital projects. Metro deferred the RapidRide K Line (Bellevue-Kirkland), RapidRide R Line (Rainier), and part of the RapidRide J Line (Roosevelt), focusing instead on completing just three lines over the next several years. Those cuts expanded on 2018 cuts that saw Seattle’s RapidRide plans for Route 40, Route 44 and Route 48 were downgraded to lesser improvements, though they remain in long-term plans. RapidRide Lines that will still advance include the H Line (Delridge), G Line (Madison), and I Line (Kent, Renton, and Auburn). Originally, Metro had envisioned a larger set of RapidRide projects over the decade, but those had already been pared back over costs and uncertainty.

Nevertheless, Metro is looking ahead with the Metro Connects updates. Key elements are the interim network and 2050 network updates. The interim network updates are focused on changing alignments and frequencies based upon new information, addressing equity gaps in the plan, and revising the RapidRide network. The updates also take into account changes since the last interim network plan and new time horizon. As for the 2050 network, it too takes into account most of the same considerations as it pushes the full Metro Connects plan out another 10 years.

In the slider below, the current interim (2025) network and 2040 network can be compared to the draft versions of the new interim network and 2050 network plans.

While much of the plans are the same, there are some new ideas for even more local, frequent, express, and RapidRide corridors than the current plan versions. Metro has also indicated that some mangled alignments for corridors could be untied, which could mean more legible and useful service.