Bus Route 30 Upcoming Route Change Will Not Bring Evening and Weekend Service To Laurelhurst

Ashley DeForest, with King County Department of Transportation, just sent us an update on the upcoming changes for Bus Route 30 starting in October.

Here is the post we did last month in which two proposed alternatives were laid out, one route would either serve Hawthorne Hills (blue route above) or  the second proposed route would turn south to serve Laurelhurst and Children’s Hospital (green line).

Ashley informed us that Altenative 2 was chosen, "the Hawthorne Hills Loop."

With this Alternative, the new route will no longer serve Sand Point Way NE north of NE 65th Street, but instead serve the NE 65th Street entrance of Magnuson Park. Riders will need to board and exit the bus at different locations because of the one-way loop.

Alternative 1, that wasn't chosen, would have served Children's' Hospital and Laurelhurst, but would no longer serve Sand Point Way NE north of Princeton Avenue NE, or Magnuson Park.

Ashley's email says:

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts about alternative routing for the Route 30 during evenings and on weekends. We heard from more than 300 people via our online survey, email and phone.

We also attended the May 5th meeting of the Northeast District Council to talk to community members about the proposed change.

The majority of respondents indicated a preference for Alternative 2:

East of 40th Avenue NE, Route 30 would make a one-way loop. Eastbound, it would still cross the Princeton Avenue NE bridge and continue north on Sand Point Way NE. It would turn west at NE 65th Street, and end on the far side of Sand Point Way NE. Westbound, it would go west on NE 65th Street, continuing on NE Princeton Way NE to NE 65th Street and 40th Avenue NE. At this intersection, it would turn south on 40th Avenue NE and rejoin the regular (weekday daytime) routing with a west turn onto NE 55th Street.

Metro will be implementing this alternative for Route 30 evenings and weekends routing in October 2011.

If you have any additional questions about this change, please feel free to get in touch at ashley.deforest@kingcounty.gov or by phone at 206-684-1154.