Alert reader Carl Stork attended an SR520 town meeting and makes a great observation:
While they are considering three different designs for the half-interchange at 84th Ave NE, NONE of the designs will permit a bus route that uses the interchange from serving the Evergreen Point freeway stop. The on and off-ramps are all located on the outside of the freeway and the merge point is relatively close to where the freeway station begins. The freeway station is in the center. From the drawings it will not be possible for a bus entering or exiting at 84th to serve the center freeway stop.
This matters because 84th is where the 271 gets on 520. The 271 is the only route that provides all-day service from the Eastside to UW. When the Montlake Flyer Stop is eliminated, the only possible place to switch from downtown-bound bus (255, 545) to the 271 is at Evergreen Point, which as Carl points out will be impossible in this configuration.
In the peak, there are enough routes from everywhere to everywhere that this won’t be a huge imposition. In the off-peak, there are two ways to fix this without any changes to the roadway:
- Have downtown buses get off at the Montlake exit, drop people off on the lid, and then get back on the freeway to downtown using the GP on-ramp.
- Dramatically improve UW service on the 540 and 542; if necessary, cut service on the 255 and 545 to pay for it, and expect people to transfer to Link at Husky Stadium or take East Link all the way in.
Both of these involve time penalties.
One thing that strikes me as strange is the location of the Evergreen Point stop itself. Why has it shifted twice as far to the east from the existing stop? The design forces people to walk/bike farther from the Evergreen Pt Rd lid and the park & ride to get to the stop. The stop should be integrated with the lid like the proposed Yarrow Point stop and not have an unnecessary walk. There is no connection to the regional bicycle trail on the north side of 520. By moving the stop to under the lid, there will be room left for buses to get to/from 84th Ave NE (as tight those lane changes may be).
I see that to the west of the lid the highway narrows to 4 lanes. I suppose these conceptual project drawings were designed as stand-alone projects to allow individual sections to be completed even if other parts fell through. That might explain the placement of the station in the drawing. The replacement bridge is being built right now, so it is safe to say that there will be a 6-lane bridge. They must design the bridge approach to accommodate a stop closer to Evergreen Point Road.
Moving the station east is likely a function of getting sufficient acceleration distance from the station to the bridge.
If you integrated the stop with the lid, you would have acceleration and deceleration lanes on the floating bridge, and that would add dramatically to the cost, among other things.
WSDOT has designed the project in individual sections, as you note. The I-405 to Evergreen Point Rd. segment is designed to integrate with the existing bridge as well as the new bridge. Integrating with the existing bridge requires a bit of a curve to the south once out from under the Evergreen Point Rd. lid. This strikes me as the reason to stop has moved so far east.
Also, only the pontoons to support a 4-lane bridge are under construction right now (i.e. the pontoons to replace what’s there now, should it sink). The contractor selected to build the I-5 to Medina section would build the supplemental pontoons necessary to support 6 lanes.
Oran, on the WSDOT site they have a couple different renderings if the lid. If I remember right the one shown here is an intermediate step designed to connect to the existing bridge. The “final” version connects to the new 6-lane bridge and I think had the transit stops further West, closer to the lid (accessed by median stairs/elevators from the lid, rather than an overpass from the side). This is why there’s unused space under the North side of the lid pictured, the new 520 alignment will go there.
Another possible solution would be increase the frequency of route 556, and ensure it runs on weekends. This would allow the frequency of route 271 to be reduced, which would lessen the budgetary impact of such an increase.
Still, it really sucks that nobody spotted this before it entered construction.
I assume WSDOT’s long term thinking is UW-Bellevue trips would be carried by East Link and the 271 in its current form would cease to exist.
That wouldn’t make sense for to me
* We know that there are going to be ~5 BRT routes along SR520–that was always part of the deal for not getting light rail. One of these routes is going to be UW-Bellevue. Given that we are investing in such a BRT, it wouldn’t make sense to kill it in a few years…
* Using the Link to go UW-Eastside will never really make sense, it hugely out of the way and will take a time penalty compared to the new 520 BRT.
No, I think a much easier solution would be to just move the 271 to use the Bellevue Way exit and then moving local service off Bellevue Way to replace what’s lost on 84th Ave (riders from the westside to Medina would have to transfer to local service at Evergreen Point, but that’s not a very dense area with high ridership anyways).
I really like your idea of moving the 271 to Bellevue Way NE. Bellevue Way has much more higher-density residences and businesses than 84th Ave NE, where most of it is a golf course on one side and inaccessible backyards on the other.
I’m not so sure WSDOT thinks about the minutea of bus routes and individual trip planning. They probally leave that up to Metro, ST, etc. Also i’m not convinced this subject is worth more than a note for now. By the time this project is built and done things could be totally diffrent for the routes or even transit in the region. The good thing about bus routes is they can be easily modified to suit changing needs.
If the 271 moves to Bellevue Way, wouldn’t it have been desirable to have an HOV ramp there? There isn’t any efficient routing to access HOV ramps at 108th Ave NE. It really doesn’t seem that the road/ramp designs were done in conjunction with thinking about how it would operate…
Carl, I think the 108th HOV ramps were designed to make access to/from the South Kirkland P&R easier. The 255 and 540 both get off 520 and go there.
I know the 108th ramps are for the 255. There was a suggestion that the design at Evergreen Point is fine because the 271 will be shifted to Bellevue Way instead. The 271 (or its replacement) is one of the 5 “BRT” routes that were promoted in the plans for the rebuilt 520 corridor, but it doesn’t seem like there has been any particular thought or plan for how it will operate or whether it will allow transfers. If it stays on the Medina routing on 84th, then it cannot serve Evergreen Point freeway station. If it moves to Bellevue Way, then it will not have HOV ramps. The Bellevue Way/520 intersection may turn into a huge congested mess anyway, since the cloverleaves are gone, and there will be new intersections and left-turn movements needed.
Single biggest improvement would be retaining the Montlake Freeway station. Which I agree carries far ridership than either Evergreen Point or Yarrow Point (92nd) Freeway stations – but those 2 stations provide close to the only transit access for significant influential communities, especially if the 271 is moved to Bellevue Way.
Wishing there were better edit/preview…
Regarding the Bellevue Way/520 interchange, there will be new SIGNALs at the ends of the eastbound off-ramp and westbound on-ramp, and eastbound traffic heading north will have to make a left turn at Bellevue Way instead of going on a cloverleaf, as will northbound Bellevue Way traffic entering the freeway here.
Has this entered construction already? I thought it was still short a significant amount of money.
The contract for the Medina to SR-202 (Eastside) segment has been awarded, and construction is expected to start this year. Cost is $306 million.
WSDOT is currently accepting bids and proposals for the I-5 to Medina section. My understanding is that the bridge is funded, but the West side approaches aren’t yet. Until money is found and construction is completed, the new Eastside and bridge segments will connect to the existing Seattle infrastructure.
I asked KC Metro staff on this issue, and unofficially route 271 would simply exit off at 108th Ave NE (where there will be a left hand HOV) exit and probably approach Bellevue TC via 112th Ave NE instead. Route 271 would no longer serve Medina and areas west of Bellevue TC anymore. Unfortunately, I thought of an idea of combining the Evergreen Pt (76th) and Yarrow Pt (92nd) Freeway Stations into a single station at Hunts Point (84th), using inside HOV ramps (similar to Eastgate at 142nd), and having stops there, thus the 271 could continue to serve Medina and the Gold Coast and the SR-520 buses could exit off, make at stop at top of ramp and continue on (would also serve as a 3+HOV carpool ramp too), but I thought of this idea after the SEIS process has gone through. Personally, the Montlake Station would outperform both Evergreen Pt and Yarrow Point stations, and would advocate for a combined Hunts Point Station instead. but too late.
Martin – regarding your suggestion that routes 545 & 255 could serve the stop on the Montlake lid – have you checked with anyone with knowledge of the construction and traffic signaling to know if this is possible? In the Eastbound direction, it requires that a right turn be enabled from northbound Montlake Blvd onto the HOV lane. In the Westbound direction, it requires that the traffic signalling & curb cuts allow a straight through operation. When I attended the working group session, it wasn’t clear that either movement would be permitted, and none of the documents that are available are very clear on this point. I am fairly sure that a left turn from the westbound HOV off-ramp is not permitted – that movement is to use the left at 24th Ave instead – and it could well be that it is intended that all HOV movements from the end of the lid be to/from the north only.
Also, any time there is a Husky football, basketball or other large athletic event, or bridge opening, the eastbound exit at Montlake Blvd gets backed up, so this would be less reliable than today’s freeway station. Potentially also in the westbound direction.
Because I’m too lazy too lazy to search for the answer, and I’m sure somebody must know this…will the Montlake Flyer stop disappear before the UW Link Station opens up? Is the rationale of doing away with the Montlake Flyer stop because it will be duplicating service from the North Link? But, (assuming the answer is yes) won’t this crappify (NEish) Eastside to downtown service? That stop seems to me to be as close as you can get to BRT efficiency without actual BRT…so, a sort of step backwards, I guess for the 545 and related.
At one point, the Montlake stops might have disappeared before U-Link, but I believe that there is neither a design nor funds for the western portion of the project, so it’s quite possible that the new 520 bridge will connect to the existing western end, including the Montlake stop, and that U-Link will be running before they tear out Montlake. I do suspect that the Montlake stop will disappear long before the lid and replacement infrastructure are in place.