King County Metro updates Bellevue on RapidRide K Line; downtown bus lanes could cut travel times

King County Metro presented details of the RapidRide K Line to the Bellevue City Council on Feb. 11 and returned seeking further city partnership on station access, traffic impacts and legislative changes to allow employer shuttles to use transit-priority lanes.

Ryan Whitney, Metro’s acting line lead for the K Line, said the 16-mile route will include roughly 35 station pairs and connect Totem Lake to Eastgate with frequent service planned every 10 to 15 minutes. Metro described a multi-step project schedule: community engagement concluding Feb. 13, a March request to Bellevue for a letter of support for a locally preferred alternative, King County Council adoption targeted for June, a Small Starts federal grant application and preliminary design starting in fall 2025, with revenue service estimated in 2030.

Yuvia Allison Morales, Metro’s senior community engagement planner, said phase-3 outreach included a multilingual online survey (launched Jan. 16, closing Feb. 13), briefings, open houses and tabling. Metro said the locally preferred alternative will identify both transit improvements (stations and amenities) and access-to-transit projects such as sidewalks, bike lanes and crossings that help people walk, bike and roll to stations.

Metro’s technical analysis of proposed bus-access and turn-avoidance treatments in downtown Bellevue — chiefly business-access-and-transit (BAT) lanes, transit signal priority and a small share of bus-only lanes — shows mixed effects for motorists but clear time savings for buses. Metro said BAT lane segments represent about 15 percent of the 16-mile corridor; wholly bus-only lanes would cover less than 1 percent of the corridor and none of that bus-only mileage is in Bellevue.

Whitney summarized downtown findings: implementing the recommended BAT-lane projects in downtown Bellevue could save about seven minutes of bus travel time for the downtown segment analyzed. Metro also estimated routewide savings — combining all 26 proposed speed-and-reliability projects across the corridor — of about 26.5 minutes for southbound travel (Totem Lake to Eastgate) and about 20.5 minutes for northbound travel. The agency said those time savings reduce operating hours and could translate into roughly $1 million in annual operating-cost savings for Metro, while increasing person-throughput during peak periods.

Council members pressed Metro on likely traffic impacts and mitigation. Councilmember John Lee asked whether Metro had compiled “lessons learned” from existing RapidRide lines serving the East Side; Metro said it would follow up with before-and-after data from the recently launched H and G lines. Deputy Mayor Devdura Malakoutian and others asked who would pay for roadway mitigations if parallel streets saw degraded operations; Metro staff said federally funded transit grants generally cannot be used for non-transit roadway improvements and suggested the city and Metro could seek other funding sources and partners for needed parallel-route improvements.

Councilmember Zahn raised employer shuttles as a potential way to increase person throughput. Metro and Christina O’Claire, King County Metro Mobility Division director, said state law currently restricts private employer shuttles from using BAT lanes in some circumstances; Metro is open to exploring a permitting model or a legislative change but recommended careful study of operational, safety and equity impacts before changing lane-use rules.

Council members generally expressed strong interest in the project and asked Metro to return in March seeking a letter of support for the locally preferred alternative. Metro’s next steps include closing phase-3 outreach, completing traffic and NEPA work, returning to Bellevue Council in March for the locally preferred alternative endorsement and advancing a federal Small Starts grant application.