Metro to restore or revise several bus routes in Seattle this fall – My Ballard

This October, King County Metro will revamp and restore a number of Seattle bus routes.

The change will come on October 2, with Metro Transit’s service returning to nearly 95 percent of pre-pandemic levels. In total, they add 200,000 hours of transit.

Many Ballard routes will see some changes, including revisions to routes 40, 44, and 45. Metro plans to partially restore routes 17 and 18 between downtown Seattle and North Beach and Loyal Heights.

Here are the routes in Ballard with upcoming revisions:

• Route 40: Route 40 begins all southbound journeys at the new Northgate Station and ends all northbound journeys at the new Northgate Station. The route is otherwise unchanged.
• Route 44: Much of this route remains unchanged, but the Westbound route will use a new stop along NE 43rd St on Brooklyn Ave NE to provide a connection to the U District Station and Link Light Rail.
• Route 45: Route remains largely unchanged, but now transit routes with revised Route 75 to connect through the UW campus and has been redesigned to directly service Roosevelt Station along NE 65th Street.

New and restored routes serving areas around Ballard include routes 16, 17, 18, 20.

• Route 16: This route replaces Route 5 and expands the journeys to include the start and end of journeys in North 145th StAdds at selected stops along with Route 5 Local in the top direction to create more frequency. It will also have limited stops the entire length of N Greenwood Ave south of N 145th St. New morning and afternoon peak services will be added from 6:30 am to 8:30 am and 3:45 pm to 6:00 pm
• Routes 17 & 18: Partially restored routes between Downtown Seattle and Loyal Heights (17X) and North Beach (18X). See suggested times below.
• Route 20: Creates a new all-day link between Lake City, Northgate, Green Lake, University District, U District Station, and UW Medical Center. Provides an alternate route for remote routes 26 and 75.

On other metro and transit news, the Montlake Bridge will be closed for most of August while government crews replace the 96-year-old bridge’s lattice deck and work on the expansion joints of the span. Cyclists and pedestrians can still cross the bridge, but it will be closed to traffic during repairs. Closing is scheduled to begin on Monday August 9th and reopen by September 3rd.

During the closure, the metro will divert lines 43 and 48, which run north through the Montlake neighborhood, before crossing the bridge. Here are the planned diversions from Metro:

• Route 48 will take the alternate route it used during the opening of the Montlake Bridge at the start of the boating season, running along East Boyer and Furman onto Eastlake and then onto Campus Parkway.
• Route 43 turns off East John Street onto Broadway and travels down Broadway onto Eastlake and then onto Campus Parkway.

All Metro and Sound Transit lines that normally exit the SR 520 and cross Montlake Bridge will instead pass through Portage Bay and the exit onto East Roanoke Street, which leads to surface streets into the U District.

More information on the closure can be found on this website.