Renton Highlands will be getting significantly improved bus connections to Link Light Rail at the end of this month. This will be a very welcome improvement for Renton residents who live near this route. The route has historically only provided commuter express service to Seattle for a few hours each weekday morning and evening, at times that don’t always align with individuals’ work schedules.
The new Metro Route 111 schedule will begin on August 29. The new Route 111 will run 16 hours per day on weekdays, 13 hours per day on Saturday, and 11 hours on Sunday providing connections from Renton Highlands to the Link Light Rail station in South Bellevue. Headways will be 15 minutes on peak weekday hours, and 30 minutes during other times. From the Bellevue station riders can catch the #2 rail line to Seattle, Bellevue or Redmond. They can also transfer to the #1 rail line in Seattle to go to the airport, Federal Way, or Lynnwood.
A Renton reddit user recently posed a question on a Renton reddit page asking “could we please have light rail connectivity in Renton?”
Click here to see the complete Reddit thread on this topic.
One commenter says Renton Councils and residents of the past didn’t want light rail, some point to unfair lack of Renton representation on the Sound Transit board when key decisions were made, some point to Renton’s lower density than Seattle, some say our topography is to blame, and some say we’re not working hard enough to get it today. One made an interesting point that Boeing, our largest employer, has many workers with shifts starting too early in the morning for Sound Transit trains (although Everett has a similar workforce and it is scheduled to eventually get Link light rail).
I’ve covered Renton’s concerns regarding Sound Transit extensively in the past, and I don’t agree with some of the reddit comments. For instance, I always wanted Link light rail during the time I was on council (first writing about Renton’s struggles with the agency in 2007), and I don’t think our topography or density are less suited than other areas like Redmond or Issaquah. I also agree with many of the comments, and I’m happy to see our community discussing it. I’m impressed with the level of interest and engagement by our community.
As I’ve said in my previous blog entries, I would like to see Sound Transit complete the five million dollar study that voters agreed to as part of Sound Transit 3 to determine an alignment and layout for a future Link light rail station in Renton. This study should be completed soon, to make sure Renton is not left out of any future Sound Transit 4 planning.
The view as my wife and I crawl for 25 minutes in a typical SeaTac airport arrival traffic jam last week
I’m excited about an arriving visitor this week, but I’m already dreading the traffic jam I know I’ll encounter at SeaTac Airport when we pick her up. While Port of Seattle leaders will give the excuse that these jams can’t be helped because of the large number of travelers, the reality is the Port created this problem with the poor traffic planning of the cell phone lot.
The 1960 SeaTac airport approach was brilliantly engineered for high volumes: three dedicated express lanes approaching the airport, growing into four — two departure lanes and two arrival lanes. Each of these roads double from two to four lanes at the terminal with the addition of curbside pick-up/drop-off lanes. The elegant design could smoothly handle today’s volume of travelers, if Port officials had not implemented the “rideshare weave” that requires 25% of the drivers to cut across four lanes of the other 75% of drivers in the last critical quarter mile of the approach.
As Rideshare became more prevalent –now estimated at about 25% of airport passengers– Sea-Tac and other airports across the nation set up waiting areas for drivers who are picking up. When drivers are notified their passengers are in the pick-up spot, they swiftly proceed to the designated location, and wisk their passenger to their destination.
Except at SeaTac Airport. Here at SeaTac, designers located the cell phone lot such that every rideshare driver must merge onto the right lane of the final stretch of the airport expressway, and then during the next quarter mile move four lanes to the left, before exiting into a typically backed-up lane into the parking garage. This flawed configuration has been snarling evening traffic into SeaTac for years, and can seriously impact all passengers arriving or departing from SeaTac airport by cars, busses, and courtesy vans (whether or not they are rideshare passengers).
Rideshare drivers picking up passengers, and other cell phone lot users, follow this path when informed that their passengers are ready. It requires a merge followed by three quick lane changes across the airport expressway. All arriving airport traffic is slowed by these lane changes.
As rideshare drivers negotiate the multitude of lane changes, often hugging the right lane as long as possible before aggressively moving left, the entire airport access road comes to a standstill– not because of volume (as the Port states) but because the Port officials implemented the dangerous weave in the traffic design about ten years ago.
Details of the weave across four lanes right before arrival-departure split
This nightly traffic jam can easily add 20-30 minutes or more to a pickup or drop-off time, stressing travel schedules and making it harder to coordinate driver and passenger connections. When an arriving motorist finally gets past the weave, the traffic into the arrivals or departure curbs usually flow reasonably well, except where it gets blocked by idling drivers whose passengers have not arrived, and refuse to go around again because they can’t tolerate the traffic jam a second time. The weave-related traffic jams trigger additional scofflaw activity near the airport entrance, where scores of drivers pull over onto the shoulder next to “no-parking” signs in an ad-hoc cell phone lot, preferring to risk a ticket over the traffic weave from the designated cell-phone lot.
The airport clearly needs to find a way to NOT have to move all the rideshare drivers from the right side to the left side. But instead of resolving this weave years ago (with perhaps a direct road connection from the cell phone lot to the parking garage), the Port spent $13.5 million improving circulation into and around the cell phone lot in 2022. And next the port will spend $79.3 million widening the airport expressway, and making the backed-up single lane into the parking garage longer. All this new additional pavement will provide more space for jammed up cars to queue, but won’t address the weave problem at the root of the backup.
New pavement will be added with roadway improvements in 2026 for $79.3 million, but the Cell Phone lot users will still have to weave across all lanes of arriving airport traffic
Together, we taxpayers are currently putting about five billion dollars into Sea-Tac Airport expansion, so it would be nice if we could get to the airport reliably. As I sit stewing in these jam-ups, I blame the Seattle Port Commissioners more than anyone else for the traffic mess. They have ultimate responsibility to make our airport usable, and the buck stops at their office. Most of them promise higher energy efficiency and lower carbon in their campaign literature, and thousands of idling cars and people going nowhere doesn’t cut it. The Commissioners could have solved this by now, and instead they are banking on a 2026 fix that probably won’t work.
Departing passengers fret about missing their flights, while drivers picking up loved ones wonder how long they will be waiting in the cold, in this typical evening traffic jam at Sea-Tac Airport. Evening brings the worst jams because aircraft arrivals –and ride share pickups– are typically at their highest.
It seems nonsensical to have an “End School Zone” sign followed so closely by a photo-enforced school zone camera, as shown in this image from southbound Union Ave NE.
When I was on City Council I used to let Public Works know when I saw confusing signage, and I’m not going to stop doing it now. The arrangement on southbound Union Ave NE that puts an “End School Zone” sign right before a school zone with a speed camera seems like a definite mixed-message.
Any motorist trying to accelerate to the posted speed limit of 30 MPH in this gap will have to immediately hit the brakes to avoid a ticket. And they’ll make these speed changes passing through the intersection with NE 10th Street, where their variable speed will be confusing for drivers turning onto Union.
Every sign diverts drivers eyes and attention from the road for a second or two, which is enough time to travel 20 or 30 feet at the posted speed limit. Diverting drivers’ attention from the road, and making it confusing, is especially undesirable in areas around schools.
In short, it seems like it would be a good idea to merge the two school zones.
This confusing signage could be a result of an Arizona contractor, American Traffic Solutions. They install and operate Renton’s speed and red-light cameras, in exchange for a cut of the revenue from traffic fines. Even if they are the ones that engineered this, the City of Renton should take a look at it, and see if the configuration really makes sense.
The “End School Zone” sign is posted right before the intersection with NE 10th Street. Half a block further south the school zone camera tickets drivers for not observing the Honey Dew school zone.
Even on the off-peak hour of 10:30 AM, traffic on Rainier Ave is grid-locked through multiple stoplights by a lane reduction near Airport Way.
The Rainier Avenue Phase 4 improvement project was originally scheduled to be completed this week, but after multiple delays it’s now expected to continue until at least October.
The last major delay was approved by City Council last summer, when the Council authorized a change order that added about four million dollars and 129 extra work days to the contract. Utility franchises will pay the $4,000,000 in additional charges, but Renton’s motorists and businesses are paying for the delays through their lost time, idling, frustration, and lost business revenues.
This latest delay was specifically caused by installation issues with a Joint Use Trench (JUT) that will be used for utility routing by PSE, Lumen, and Comcast. Because of unexpected conflicts with other in-ground utilities, the JUT has had to be installed at a depth of ten feet underground instead of the planned 5 1/2 feet. The extra 4 1/2 feet of depth significantly increases the cost of the worker protection shoring in the trench, requiring excavator placing of heavy steel frames instead of the hand-placed steel sheets. The extra depth also put the trench deeper into the water table, requiring pumping and loose sand management. Making matters worse, some of the extra soil being removed has some minor petroleum contamination (probably from old service station activities), and the soil has to be taken to a special site.
The 31-month construction project will update the street, sidewalks, signals, planting areas, and utilities
While I understand that utilities can cause delays, I think there could have been more effort placed on minimizing the number of days with lane closures.
In past years Renton Council passionately debated every proposed lane closure; Council used to typically restrict lane closures to hours, not weeks or months, and Council tracked them. When asked about a planned lane closure, or how long a prior lane closure had lasted, former Public Works Director Gregg Zimmerman always had the answer. Mr. Zimmerman usually knew immediately because he had been personally overseeing the work site. In the previous (southern) phases of Rainier Ave improvement under Gregg Zimmerman’s management, he famously committed to keeping five lanes of Rainier Ave continuously open. And Council helped Mr. Zimmerman hold the contractor to it. As quoted in the Renton Patch in 2012 ” Renton Public Works Administrator Gregg Zimmerman’s promise to keep at least five lanes of traffic open throughout construction drew heavy applause and whistles from a crowd of more than three dozen attendees”
Minimizing lane closures should be a requirement in all future road projects. Even if it makes the job more laborious to keep moving cones and steel plates in and out of position when a lane closure is needed (as opposed to leaving the lane perpetually closed), the extra labor can easily pay off. Rainier Ave typically carries about 40,000 cars per day. Many motorists are reporting delays of ten minutes from these lane closures, and google maps confirms this. If every car suffered ten minutes of delay, that would represent 6,666 hours of lost car/driver productivity per day. Assuming $50 per hour for a car and driver (the Uber hourly rate), this amounts to $333,000 per day. (The real losses are people being late for work or school, paying extra for daycare, taking time from family, etc, but these are harder to put a price on.) Whether the delay actually costs $333,000 per day, or half of this, the point is still the same. It’s worth investing $5000-$10,000 per day moving cones, signs, and steel plates to keep the lanes open when work is not being performed in them.
A Facebook user recently asked about this project on a group page, and the question attracted over 70 passionate responses. Here is just a small sample:
“QUESTION???? at RAINIER and RENTON AVE Would anyone care to share why it’s taking so long for the Road / infrastructure project to move forward? It’s been several years and not a single person was working. It’s an absolute inconvenience to all, and taxpayers should know.”
“I have empathy towards construction workers and don’t blame them specifically. Lots of hands at play here. But as someone who travels this intersection at least 4 times a day, it’s absolutely an inconvenience. Is it convenient to have to wait up to 10 minutes to get through a light? Not an exaggeration, has happened multiple times and not only when the power was out. I’m pretty patient and do like city improvements but this project should have been planned better or the city should somehow help navigate the delays.”
“The entire project is an embarrassment to take this long. It would be interesting to know why it has been taking years upon years.”
“Very sporadic as to when they will be working and when they aren’t. Majority of the time not.”
“It shouldn’t be left like it is for the time being. I drive a lifted truck and it feels like I’m out off of exit 38 going through the mountains on Rainier. It’s sick”
“It’s inexcusable and not professional nor is the city functioning in the best interest of it citizens. You don’t just leave it a mess for years. They could at minimum reconfigure the traffic and the ridiculous lane closure if they’re going to do nothing for another six months.”
North Renton residents issue press release about their Logan Six appeal. This appeal was announced on Monday night after North Renton neighbors tried one final time to get assistance from Renton City Council. This is the statement in its entirety:
PRESS RELEASE
NO Logan 6!
Contact: Sheryl Friesz, Matt Hanbey
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RENTON ‘AHEAD OF THE CURVE’!? MORE LIKE ‘BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE!!’
Renton Neighbors Raise Funds, Hire Lawyer to Appeal Proposed Logan 6 Development.
Renton, WA (March 25, 2025) – Renton Neighbors, fed up with city, the mayor, and the city council are taking their issues to court:
“We’re fed up. We’ve tried to work with the city and our elected officials for more than eighteen months, including our city council members and mayor, but they played ostrich and dug their heads in the sand. So, we’re taking our issues to Superior Court.” “The message we’re sending— and have been sending– to the City, the Mayor, and the City Council is: we will not tolerate the inaction, lack of engagement, and disregard for process on developments, like Logan 6, that impacts all of Renton.”
Here is the Hearing Examiners Final Decision regarding the file Logan Six – LUA-22-000283 dated 3/3/2025. You can also find the Hearing Examiner’s decision at this link – LUA-23-000283. Also here is the HEX folder with the Land Use link (LUA-23-000283)
North Renton residents were protesting on Logan Ave yesterday. They’ll be doing it again today, starting at 3:30 PM.
North Renton residents have taken the unusual step of organizing protests after being denied an opportunity to work with Renton City Council on their concerns over two years.
Because of Renton City Council’s last minute change to their Hearing Appeals process, residents feel like they’ve never had a proper opportunity to discuss their concerns with the council, and may never get one. The residents consequently asked the Council this past Monday night to implement a moratorium to buy some time for Council and the community to work together on the North Renton concerns, but the Council rejected the motion in a 5 to 1 vote.
Residents feel the planned 100-unit Logan Six apartment project is oversized for its site, has inadequate parking, and should be using the Logan Ave arterial for access as opposed to residential side streets. For over two years City Council had said they were going to review the project on appeal if the residents had concerns following the Hearing Examiner’s review, but then the Council changed their minds on the eve of the Hearing Examiner’s review.
Everyone is currently awaiting the Hearing Examiner’s decision, due for release any day.
The initial submittal for Logan Six in 2022 included a street modification request. Final line of item 1: “The site is narrow, and without these modifications, the project would not be able to be built.” Council could have questioned the scale of the project on the record.
At last night’s council meeting, a Council Member told the audience that the State of Washington forced Renton to approve the Logan Six development with only one parking spot per unit.
While the State of Washington did implement parking regulations in 2020 that could potentially supersede a city’s parking regulations, the state standards specify a minimum standard of one spot per BEDROOM, as opposed to the lesser standard of one spot per unit that Renton has imposed on Logan Six. Here’s the State law on this topic. (Presumably the 0.75 spots per unit applies to studio “no-bedroom” units)
Cities planning under RCW 36.70A.040—Minimum residential parking requirements.
In counties and cities planning under RCW 36.70A.040, minimum residential parking requirements mandated by municipal zoning ordinances for housing units constructed after July 1, 2019, are subject to the following requirements:
….
(3) For market rate multifamily housing units that are located within one-quarter mile of a transit stop that receives transit service from at least one route that provides service at least four times per hour for twelve or more hours per day, minimum residential parking requirements may be no greater than one parking space per bedroom or .75 space per unit. A city or county may establish a requirement for the provision of more than one parking space per bedroom or .75 space per unit if the jurisdiction has determined a particular housing unit to be in an area with a lack of access to street parking capacity, physical space impediments, or other reasons supported by evidence that would make on-street parking infeasible for the unit.
Reason 2: the Council probably had an easy opportunity to stop this project after the first submittal in 2022 if they had wanted to. In the initial submittal for the project, the applicants provided a letter making it absolutely clear that they were concerned the site might be too small for the project.
In the relatively brief two page letter, the applicant says they need a Street Modification because of their overly narrow site. Then they say three times that without this modification, they could not build the project. Here are some excerpts:
“STREET MODIFICATION NARRATIVE
This narrative is provided to request and justify a street modification on the Logan 6 project. The applicant is requesting a street modification to retain existing improvements with. 1.5 feet of Right of Way dedication on Logan Avenue N, and to retain the existing curb-curb. pavement with, with a 0.5’ curb, 8-foot planting strip, 8-foot sidewalk, and 2-foot clear space for. 3rd and 4th Avenues N…..
The site is narrow, and without. these modifications, the project would not be able to be built….
The modification also allows for the project to be built at all, given the narrowness of the site….
The shown modification is required for the building to be done without incurring additional. costs. The site is narrow and if much more were given, the project would likely not pencil….”
Any of Renton’s eight elected officials could have questioned the requested modification, on the record, and consequently questioned whether the project may be too large and dense for the site. Even the rules governing quasi-judicial hearings do not bar Council members from asking questions about a project, on the record. Since the developer said three times they were concerned the project would not fit on the site, this would have been an opportune time to scale it to a better size.
Instead, Council did not ask any questions and City Staff appear to have approved the modification request, enabling the project to go forward.
So no, the State did not require this project to take its present form, pushing the street boundaries set for the zone with consequent minimal parking. That appears to be just a story.
Looking east across the site of the proposed Logan Six development (field in lower third of photo), toward the adjacent historic homes in the North Renton neighborhood. Residents are concerned their neighborhood streets will be inundated with cars from the 100-unit Logan Six, which they fear has too little parking for its size. They are also worried about traffic in and out.
Architects rendering of proposed Logan Six Development. The project includes 1, 2, and 3-bedroom apartments, but has only one parking spot per unit.
North Renton residents have brought the long-simmering issue of Renton’s parking requirements back to the forefront. They are rightfully concerned about parking in their neighborhood. As the new Logan Six project makes its way through the process, it would be a good time for Renton Council and staff to reevaluate our parking standards to prevent the kinds of parking controversy that this project has generated.
The recommendations were controversial, because Metro was encouraging Renton and other suburbs to reduce our number of parking spot requirements to Seattle levels, even though our level of transit service was nowhere near as good as Seattle’s. Some of Renton’s Planning Commissioners, Council members, and staff embraced the recommendations, and some of us didn’t.
Train headways that were once as brief as 6 minutes pre-pandemic (and were targeted to be 8 minutes) are now heading to ten minutes or more due to vehicle shortages and other financial challenges. Photo credit: Sound Transit
Urban Planner Stephen Fessler published an insightful op-ed in the Urbanist this week, with his suggestions for Sound Transit to get in front of their looming Link Light Rail capacity issues. I hope Sound Transit gives the ideas the consideration they deserve. In previous posts I’ve mentioned that Link Light Rail is running into vehicle shortages, and Mr. Fessler’s suggestions could potentially help mitigate these.
When Sound Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit Stride service gets implemented in Renton in 2028 (originally planned for 2024 ), it will drop passengers at Tukwila and Bellevue Link light rail stations. Link must have capacity and frequent service for the system to offer value to Renton commuters.
An excerpt from Mr. Fessler’s op-ed: “Ultimately, Sound Transit and its board need to understand that Link isn’t a bus, and the agency shouldn’t be in the business of treating it as such. Voters and partner agencies have approved billions of dollars to construct Link exactly because it’s a train, not a bus. But 10-minute frequencies and short trains tell the tale that Link is being run like a glorified bus. A rail line needs high frequencies and sufficient capacity to serve as the backbone of the regional transit network.”
Lind Avenue has been closed at the crossing over I-405 since June 13, 2022
Repair work on Renton’s Lind Avenue overpass will finally get under way later this month, and will include complete demolition and replacement of the northern span of the bridge. Motorists traveling between Renton’s downtown and the Renton/Kent valley will be relieved to get this important connection back in service.
At the time of bid opening the Washington DOT was predicting a summer repair, so this is a little later than planned. A year and four months ago the bridge was struck by an excavator being transported on a flatbed trailer, and the bridge has been closed to traffic ever since. It turns out the bridge is more damaged than it originally appeared, and the whole northern half of the span of the bridge will need to be replaced.
Overnight work may begin as soon as October 23, and require one northbound and one southbound directional closure of I-405, from 11 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. Then a full weekend closure of all the southbound I-405 lanes is planned, from November 3-6 (weather permitting), to demolish the damaged northbound bridge section. Eight new girders will be lifted into place during this closure, to support the replacement span. Plan ahead if you are going to be headed to the airport (or anywhere else that is time-sensitive) during that closure.
The WSDOT press release with further details can be found below, or found online here.
WSDOT photo of damaged girder on Lind Avenue bridge
Millions of dollars were allocated in Sound Transit 3 to study a link light rail connection between Renton, Tukwila, and West Seattle. The study must be prioritized. Photo credit: Sound Transit
As I’ve covered in previous blog entries, Renton taxpayers have paid between 1-2 billion dollars for Sound Transit, and have received very little benefit.
When Sound Transit 3 (ST3) was approved by voters, it included several million dollars for a planning study of a light rail connection to Renton. Renton must continue to push for this study to be completed, to ensure we are not left out of link light rail if a Sound Transit 4 is proposed in the future.
Many transit insiders believe there will be an ST4 proposed within a few years, as Sound Transit 3 funding isn’t covering all of the ST3 commitments, with one of the latest challenges being the quantity and cost of new trains. While the Sound Transit Board has a fiduciary duty to deliver as best they can with the funds they are allocated (making necessary compromises to design, operating frequency, implementation schedule, etc), the public could bring forward a new proposed ST4 bond issue to resolve these issues and enhance this service at any time. The last I heard, the buzz was that it may happen between 2024-2026.
We must have a Renton Link Light Rail connection in any future ballot proposals. I worked hard along with Renton’s Mayor and several council colleagues to get the Renton study into Sound Transit 3, and we then worked to jump-start the study by hiring a consultant to help us identify potential station locations and potential alignments. We now need for Sound Transit to take this good work, and finish the job.
“The planning studies would help to identify the range of alternatives, evaluate potential routes and station locations and terminals, inform local comprehensive planning, prepare for formal environmental review and engineering, and position the Sound Transit Board to evaluate options and establish priorities for implementation in future phases of high capacity transit investments in the region. The studies will include public outreach, preliminary environmental assessment, ridership forecasting, and conceptual engineering and cost estimating.
The studies include: HCT Study: Light Rail Extending from West Seattle to Burien, connecting to Renton via Tukwila This study would examine a light rail extension from West Seattle to Renton via Burien and Tukwila. The study would be completed in coordination with local transit partners to examine a variety of options for service provision and to maximize opportunities for regional integration.”
The Issaquah-Kirkland line is an example of a completed study. It includes 4 new stations and was funded with Sound Transit 3.
Part of the approved (and funded) plan for a Kirkland to Issaquah line
It’s way past time for Renton to get on the Sound Transit Link Light Rail long-term plan. Unfortunately there are Seattle-based transit interests that don’t think Renton deserves a light rail line and they still want our tax money. Renton officials must push back against these opinions. For example, prior to ST3, the popular Seattle Transit Blog published an article which said:
‘The “tell” of excess focus on new regional connections is the heavy emphasis on the east-west Burien/Renton corridor. To put it mildly, this is not a corridor where existing demand suggests a need for true high-capacity transit.’
Renton officials must be firm advocates for Renton when working with Sound Transit, so that Renton taxpayers do not spend many more billions of dollars while receiving very little benefit.
Part of the ST3 commitment to voters. Source: Sound Transit
Sound Transit’s 2023 Progress report does not include any discussion of these planning studies.
Randy Corman testifying to the Sound Transit Board in 2016. One of the board’s commitments was the study of a Renton-Tukwila light rail connection. The full story is here.
More Sound Transit 3 documents and reports can be found here.
