A plan to cancel a bus route from Tacoma to Seattle will derail the morning commute for many Pierce County residents, its riders say.

Sound Transit is preparing to end the 586 express bus service between the Tacoma Dome station and University of Washington’s Seattle campus at the end of this month.

The route usually sends seven buses north in the morning and another seven back to Tacoma in the evening. In its place, the transit agency plans to add more frequent service elsewhere, such as on Route 574, which currently travels between the Tacoma Dome and Federal Way. Then passengers can transfer to the Link light rail in Federal Way and ride to the UW campus.

The cut comes as the regional transit authority’s long-promised Link light rail service to Tacoma, which would eliminate the need for the bus transfer, remains years away.

Sound Transit says connecting to the light rail via the 574 or other routes will take the same amount of time or less as the direct bus to campus, but will still require at least one transfer.

Last year, the route carried about 250 people per week, with around 18 passengers per trip, Sound Transit spokesperson Henry Bendon told The News Tribune via email. It cost roughly $2 million to operate during the year, he said.

Early Monday morning, The News Tribune joined more than a dozen commuters on the 6:29 bus from the Tacoma Dome station. Most slept or tapped on their phones during the nearly hour-and-a-half-long trip, which stopped once at Federal Way before making its way up I-5 and onto the campus.

Along the way, riders said they were concerned that the new trip will be less reliable and more inconvenient than taking the direct bus.

Tacoma resident Sumayyah Firozi, 29, said she is “really disappointed and frustrated” about the cancellation. She works part-time at the university hospital and told The News Tribune that she has ridden the route to work three days a week since starting three years ago.

“I know the push is to have riders ride the light rail,” she said. “But I don’t like that I’m being forced to make that decision.”

She isn’t sure how she’ll navigate the changes at the end of August, she said, but isn’t looking forward to taking the Link instead.

“There’s all kinds of shenanigans going on the light rail versus this being a commuter route,” she said. She’s often so concerned about her personal safety and the possibility of theft that she doesn’t sleep on the light rail, she said, like she often does on the bus.

“I feel a lot more comfortable on the bus],” she said. “I know who’s going to get on here. I can see who’s on here, and they’re going to be here for the next hour and a half.”

At eight months pregnant, she said, she isn’t looking forward to the extra walking and standing required from having to take the train and cross over to campus from the light rail station.

“This bus drops me off directly in front of the hospital,” she said.

Joel Ross, 42, a university faculty member who said he rides the route several times a week, told The News Tribune the new trip will likely take him 20 to 30 minutes longer because of the added walking, connection time and frequent train delays.

Despite Sound Transit’s promises that the new route won’t change his arrival time, its estimates don’t always match up with the reality “on the ground”, he said.

And while adding new 574 bus services on nights and weekends is “great,” he said, it shouldn’t be at the expense of the morning commute.

“It’s like saying, ‘we’ll give you this thing, but we’ll take away the third thing you actually need,’” he said.

Instead of cutting the route entirely, he questioned why the agency didn’t simply cut the frequency of buses each morning and evening.

“Then, at least you can still get there, even if it’s not on time,” he said.

He, Firozi and other riders said they had voiced their concerns in the agency’s survey last year, but didn’t feel that they had been heard. The survey tallied over 70% of riders who said they were “strongly opposed” to the route change, according to the agency’s plan.

Bendon, the Sound Transit spokesperson, said “redeploying” the resources used by the 586 route to other parts of the system allows for more frequent service and less travel time. Transferring to the light rail at the International District or King Street stations via bus or commuter rail, respectively, will save 7 to 20 minutes, including transfers, depending on the time of day, he said.

“Existing 586 service operates on a limited, peak-only schedule with only 7 round trips a day, and new options will provide significantly more service,” he said. “In addition, the future trip can be made all day, seven days a week, in both directions.”

He added that the low survey feedback was presented to the agency’s board for consideration, but its members ultimately chose a plan with “a larger net benefit in travel time and trip opportunities” and “overall network benefits of redeployed service hours”.

And he said the agency’s calculated travel times are “estimates”.

”Actual travel time will vary from person to person,” he said.

Dean Owen, a 70-year-old Federal Way resident and communications professional at a health-focused research institute, said he had “strongly argued” against the proposed change when he filled out the survey form. But he had thought the upcoming change only involved eliminating his stop in Federal Way, rather than the entire route from Tacoma.

“That’s unconscionable,” he said, after learning that the whole route would end. “So many people I know take this all the way from Tacoma. And unless and until light rail extends to Tacoma, Sound Transit is depriving these people of an important resource.”

Once the change goes into effect, he said, he hopes Sound Transit will compare ridership on the new routes with the impacts of eliminating the 586 bus.

“If, after a year or so, [Sound Transit sees that there’s more traffic on I-5 because of more people having to drive from Tacoma to the university,” he said, “I would hope they would reverse their decision.”

Bendon told The News Tribune in a phone interview Monday that the route change is “one of the biggest restructures we’ve seen”.

“In any case where a one-seat ride is changed, it’s difficult,” he added, referring to the route with no transfers. “You’ve got your pattern; you know what you’re used to.”

Once the route comes to an end, Bendon said, transit personnel will be onsite to help riders navigate the new system.

“It just means that we’re going to have to earn these specific riders’ trust on these routes,” he said. “We’re really proud of this new service plan.”

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