City Council Gives Green Light for Rapid Ride K-Line Project (3/25/25 Meeting)

At Tuesday’s meeting, Bellevue City Council unanimously agreed to support King County Metro’s RapidRide K Line project (discussion at around 1:07:00 in the meeting)

• What they did: Council is sending a letter of support to Metro supporting the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA), but WITHOUT “Business Access and Transit” (BAT) lanes on NE 10th St.
• What’s next: Metro will transmit the LPA to King County Council in May with the goal of having an adopted ordinance by June/July. Then they’ll submit a Small Starts Grant application to the Federal Transit Administration in August and begin preliminary design in the fall.
• When can we expect it to be done? Construction is currently anticipated for 2028, with service starting in 2030.
• Why this matters: The K Line will create a crucial transit connection between Kirkland and Bellevue, improving regional mobility.

Interesting fact for discussion: In the PowerPoint presentation, I noticed that 43% of the people surveyed during outreach didn’t even know about the RapidRide K Line project (it was 47% in 2024). So, almost half of Bellevue doesn’t know about a big transit project coming to the region. Do you think Council thinks 43% is good, or Is this a problem? What can we do to fix it? How do we effectively inform people?

Watch the full council meeting on YouTube, and check out the meeting details here.

Interesting slides about RapidRide K Line and community engagement:

Expect Service to start roughly in 2030. Interesting that Design takes longer than Construction…

Of 1,094 people surveyed, only 7% felt well-informed about the project. My guess is anybody that read my Reddit posts about RapidRide K would feel well-informed so…how else can we get the word out and inform our community?

The BAT Lanes that got cut.

Why the LPA adoption matters, also a map showing the RapidRide K Line

Didn’t know there were so many RapidRide lines in Seattle!