More Buses, Less Waiting: Changes Coming to the Community Transit 112

Great news for riders on the Community Transit 112 route: starting August 30, the bus will run every 20 minutes during peak hours. This means you’ll have a bus to a Link station every 10 minutes in either direction, making your commute even more convenient.

For the first many years of my career, I worked in suburban office parks. About a dozen years ago I took a job in downtown Seattle. We lived in Town Center at the time, so the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center was a short 10-minute walk or 5-minute bike ride away. My office was at the south end of downtown, so I could hop on the Community Transit 413 or 435 and go nonstop from MLT to 5th & Jefferson.

That commute was great, most of the time. But it only took a crash on I-5, a good rainstorm, or some other hiccup in our fragile surface transportation system to throw it off. Still, it worked well enough that we sold our second car, even with a two-year-old and five-year-old at home.

In 2022, we moved farther east near 44th Ave W, between QFC and the high school. That turned my trip into a two-seat commute. My first leg was either a bike ride or a local bus to the transit center. I love biking, but not in the rain, so most days I caught a bus, usually the Community Transit 112 southbound, which came every 30 minutes, or the rarely-used and infrequent 111 from Brier. Either way, I had to time it carefully or face a long wait.

Everything changed in 2024 when Link light rail opened. My house is about halfway between MLT Station and Lynnwood City Center Station, and I realized that while the 112 still ran every 30 minutes, it was in each direction and the northbound and southbound buses were staggered so that a bus came by about every 15 minutes. Paired with light rail's consistent service, I no longer had to check a schedule. I could just leave the house, hop on whichever 112 came first, transfer to Link, and in about 30 reliable minutes I’m stepping off at Pioneer Square—traffic on I-5 be damned.

This frequency is pretty amazing, especially for what is still a relatively low-density neighborhood where I live. And it's about to get even better. The new 10-minute frequency will nearly match light rail’s 8-minute peak frequency. And when the 2 Line opens across Lake Washington in 2026, peak train frequency will drop to about every 4 minutes.

We’ve focused a lot of our growth and housing planning on Town Center, which has the most convenient access to mass transit. But the 112 corridor along 236th St SW, Cedar Way, and 44th Ave W is also a great place to live car-lite or car-free.

Other parts of MLT aren’t seeing frequency increases right now, but our existing service is still strong. The map below has local bus routes overlaid on the city’s land-use map—you can see our planners have been smart about aligning density with transit.

While this frequency increase is fantastic, our work isn't done. The next challenge is making the first mile/last mile safer and more comfortable for walking and rolling. We still need to get to those bus stops and to the light rail stations.

For example, 44th Ave W north of 228th St SW is a prime example of where we need to make improvements. Four lanes wide with fast-moving cars, it’s uncomfortable to walk or roll along and unsafe to cross. South of 228th, though, it’s a completely different story. Thanks to a road diet from a number of years ago, it’s calmer, quieter, and safer with bike lanes and slower traffic. One day, I’d love to see the same kind of transformation north of 228th.

Much of our recent transportation funding has gone to the Main Street project. From an access-to-transit, economic development, and safety standpoint, it is a great project and should be a priority. But other areas are overdue for upgrades.

One last note: the Link restructure left southeast MLT without a bus route when Metro’s 347 was cut. There is currently no bus service south of 236th St SW and east of 56th Ave W. That gap needs to be addressed so all parts of the city can connect to our rapidly improving transit network.