RapidRide K Line

• Select route options that reflect the needs of the community.
• Conduct and document an intentional, inclusive and equitable community engagement process.
• Ensure community partners are aware of the RapidRide K Line and understand how RapidRide will impact and benefit their communities.
• Establish and grow positive relationships between Metro and community organizations, businesses, cities and community members in Kirkland and Bellevue.

• Community members want transit that will get them to important destinations within the community.
• Speed of travel is important.
• Community members want to be certain the bus will be there when they need it.
• Many expressed concerns for planned changes to Route 255 and the resulting lack of direct connections to downtown Seattle.
• Some noted a need for better service to people with mobility, vision, hearing or other disabilities.
• Safety is important at stations, including lighting and crosswalks, as well as surrounding sidewalks.
• Difficulty getting to and from the bus stop can make it hard for people to use transit.
• Buses take much longer than other transportation methods, which creates barriers to getting places on time.

These community-identified priorities from Eastside residents are aligned with the East Link Connections priority mobility needs that were developed in 2021-2022, and reconfirmed in 2024.

In the summer of 2024, Metro gathered community input during the planning phase to help make key route decisions for the K Line. This feedback helped decide:

• Routing choices in downtown Bellevue
• Station locations in main areas
• Areas of focus to improve path and walkways for transit, bike or pedestrians

Metro will use community input gathered to help develop the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA), which will be presented in the Phase 3 community engagement set to take place in early 2025.

The LPA is the final step in the planning phase which summarizes the research and work completed in this stage. Key elements and projects are identified for further development in the following phase, otherwise known as the “design phase.” After community input is collected, the LPA will inform the King County Executive’s recommendation of a Locally Preferred Alternative for the King County Council to discuss and act upon in mid-2025. This milestone confirms the RapidRide K Line route and station (stop) locations. During the design phase Metro will continue evaluating projects to make the bus easier to access, faster and more reliable.

The adoption of the LPA also allows Metro to begin seeking federal funding for construction.

The K Line in downtown Bellevue is planned to run on 110th Avenue NE from Main Street to the south, and NE 10th Street to the north. This route will provide convenient access to Link Light Rail and the Bellevue Transit Center.

Station (stops) placement will depend on multiple design factors, including but not limited to: utility relocations, property impacts, ease of construction, access to safe crossings for pedestrians, access to nearby businesses and activity centers, connections with existing transit services and project cost.

The construction of special transit lanes and upgrading stations to RapidRide standards may impact nearby property in some areas of the K Line route. During the design phase, Metro’s RapidRide real estate team will measure these impacts and contact property owners and/or tenants affected either temporarily by construction or more permanently by permanent land acquisition. See FAQ section for further information.

Metro prioritizes improvements in areas that lead to transit on each RapidRide project. Feedback received during Phase 2 of community engagement on the K Line emphasized the ability to safely access RapidRide stations. This includes improvements to the various ways people get to transit service, whether on foot or with a mobility device. Access to transit investments were incorporated into the overall project based on a combination of community input, equity goals, partner input.

Metro has identified several types of transit priority treatments for this project, including transit priority lanes and signals. Both may be implemented in a variety of ways. Treatments have been identified to provide adequate time savings to meet project goals for travel time and time savings. Specific implementation of recommended treatments will be evaluated in the next phase of the project—preliminary engineering.

Transit priority projects are the most important element of RapidRide to provide fast, reliable and frequent service and to welcome more riders. The impact of transit time savings anticipated for the K Line are summarized in the images below.

Project notifications were sent to landowners along the K Line route during Phase 2 of community engagement. The next phase will include preliminary design, which will further identify any potential property impacts. Once a potential impact is identified, the property owner will be contacted. If property owners are not contacted, it means there is no planned impact to the property. No matter the impact level, all property owners along the route will continue to receive project notifications throughout the project lifecycle.

During the preliminary design phase, if the project team identifies a right-of-way need, the property owner is contacted directly by Metro (with support from city partners). Property owners can participate through the larger community engagement process and impacts to their property are not decided without a Metro conversation. Metro plans to identify these property impacts during the preliminary design phase starting in 2025. Affected property owners would be contacted by summer/fall of 2025.

Ridership projections were developed in 2019, however ridership trends have shifted following the COVID-19 pandemic which saw a national decrease in transit ridership. King County continues to see an increase in riders and some routes are back at (or near) previous ridership levels. The project team is revising ridership projections to reflect these new conditions and will have revised ridership for the K Line in early 2025.

For comparison, the RapidRide B Line which serves eastside cities of Bellevue and Redmond is reporting 76% ridership recovery (as of Oct. 2024). Route 250 is reporting 58% ridership recovery (as of Oct. 2024). Route 239 and 250, introduced in 2020, have seen ridership growth each year and are currently averaging 700+ and 2500+ average weekday boardings.

The projected travel times with proposed improvements for the K Line are 68 minutes for northbound travel (from Eastgate Park-and-Ride to Totem Lake Transit Center) and 70.1 minutes for southbound travel (from Totem Lake Transit Center to Eastgate Park-and-Ride).

By comparison, corridor travel times without any proposed improvements would be 88.5 minutes northbound and 96.5 minutes southbound.

Note: the travel times reported above are for the Weekday PM Peak Hour, which is typically 3 pm to 7 pm.

The new RapidRide K Line route will include a restructure of surrounding transit service. This restructure will include a separate engagement process with city partners and community, in order to identify local routes that should be included in the service restructure and how the new, proposed transit network can best meet community needs. A service restructure will aim to reduce duplication of service and deliver a unified transit network that will maximize frequency, coverage area and timely connections to other regional transit service.

The $120 million is the planning-level estimate to deliver RapidRide service to meet national and county standards for bus rapid transit. The project budget includes new and upgraded stations with enhanced passenger amenities, ADA compliant ramps and other access projects, such as sidewalks and new crosswalks. All new features will be designed provide safe and convenient access to bus stations, as well as transit priority improvements (new bus signal technology and transit lanes, etc.) to ensure the RapidRide service is fast, reliable and frequent.

The project budget is assumed to be a 50/50 split between federal funds and a local funding match, of $60 million each. The cost of operation is not included in the project budget.