Bellevue's Train Crosses the Lake. The Last Half-Mile Runs on a Pilot.

Two blue Volkswagen vans wait at the curb next to Bellevue Downtown Station, at 110th Avenue NE and NE 6th Street. They have no app and no fare. You walk up and get in. On weekdays they make short runs from the platform to Bellevue Square, Meydenbauer Bay Park, the Spring District or the H Mart, then turn around and come back for the next train.

These vans are now part of how people get around Bellevue, and they are funded through December 2026. The Route 550 ended on Saturday, Aug. 29. It had carried riders between downtown Bellevue and downtown Seattle since 1999. Since then, the cross-lake trip has been the easy part. The harder part is the stretch between your front door and the platform.

The bridge stopped being the hard part

Sound Transit's Crosslake Connection opened March 28. It runs the 2 Line over the I-90 floating bridge, stops at Mercer Island and Judkins Park, and meets the 1 Line at International District/Chinatown. Trains run from about 5 a.m. to midnight every day. They come every 8 minutes at peak and every 10 to 15 minutes off-peak. They continue past downtown Seattle without a transfer to Pioneer Square, Symphony and Westlake, and north to Lynnwood. The 550 shared the road with traffic. The train doesn't.

Fares are the same. As Downtown Bellevue Network reported before the switch, Link costs a flat $3 for adults, the same as the old ST Express fare. Riders 18 and under ride free, and ORCA LIFT and senior fares are $1.

Ridership grew quickly. The Seattle Times reported that about 3,700 riders a day boarded the 2 Line at Bellevue Downtown Station in spring 2026, with about the same number getting off there. That made the station twice as busy as it was before the cross-lake segment opened. All of those people have to get from the station to somewhere else.

Who covers the half-mile, and when

Visit Bellevue's spokesperson Anna Yan told the Times that the vans were added because the new light rail connection had increased train ridership, and with it the need for shuttles. Downtown now has two free services that work in different ways. The difference matters most in the evening and on weekends.

Visit Bellevue's BellHop page describes a six-mile service area and expected waits of up to 10 minutes. BellHop has been running for three years and has carried 265,000 passengers. About half of them were Bellevue residents, according to the Times. Circuit operates both services.

The van's service zone extends east of I-405. It reaches Overlake Medical Center, the Bellevue Botanical Garden, Lake Bellevue, Wilburton and the Spring District, and Uwajimaya and Whole Foods are also inside it. That means someone coming back from Seattle with groceries to pick up, or with a free afternoon at the Botanical Garden, can ride from the platform to the door. On weekdays, it works until 6 p.m.

There is one limit to know about. The vans don't have wheelchair ramps or lifts. Yan told the Times that officials are considering adding them later.

A first month that left the outcome open

On Sept. 1, Visit Bellevue reported 937 shuttle rides in August. The service started on Monday, Aug. 3. August had 21 weekdays from that date, so 937 rides works out to about 45 a day. The station's spring baseline was roughly 3,700 people getting off trains each day. The vans are carrying a small share of that crowd, which is expected for two seven-seat vehicles in their first month.

What happens next depends on how that share is judged. According to the Times, whether the shuttle runs past December will depend on ridership, public satisfaction and funding. As of mid-October, no public update has reported September ridership or a decision about 2027. The vans are a working service that could end in about 11 weeks or keep going, and neither outcome has been announced.

East of downtown, the buses got rearranged around the stations

The same Aug. 29 service change rebuilt the bus routes that feed the stations, so the effect reaches well beyond downtown.

• Metro Route 220 is new. It connects Eastgate, Bellevue College and Lake Hills with downtown Bellevue by way of East Main Station. Seattle Transit Blog's guide lists daytime service every 15 minutes on weekdays and every 30 minutes on weekends. Metro's weekend timetable shows buses dropping to hourly later in the evening. That schedule runs through March 26, 2027.
• Sound Transit Route 556 now runs to Bellevue Transit Center and Bellevue Downtown Station and no longer goes to the University District. It has added Issaquah stops, with daytime service every 15 minutes. If you used to catch the 550 on Bellevue Way, the 556 is now the bus for that corridor.
• Route 271 was deleted. Metro split its segments among Routes 270, 556 and 203 and DART Route 249.

In practice, many neighborhood bus trips now end at a light rail station. That works well when the transfer is short. On a Saturday evening, though, the 220 runs hourly, and the van that would cover the last stretch from the downtown platform doesn't run at all.

South Bellevue Station has the park-and-ride garage that connects directly to the platforms. For South Bellevue, that is still the option that doesn't depend on any of these connections.

Game nights are where the train helps most

Game nights and weekend events happen when the van isn't running. Sound Transit's posted 2 Line schedule shows about 22 minutes between International District/Chinatown and Bellevue Downtown, and about 24 minutes to Pioneer Square. A night out in Seattle works like this:

1. Get to the station. BellHop runs until 9 p.m. on weekends. Route 220 connects at East Main. South Bellevue has the garage.
2. Pay with ORCA, a contactless card or the Transit GO Ticket app. Sound Transit recommends these on event days so you don't wait in line at ticket machines, and it says to expect bigger crowds than usual. Transfers within two hours are credited automatically.
3. For T-Mobile Park or Lumen Field, get off at International District/Chinatown. Sound Transit says both stadiums are a short walk from that station.
4. For Climate Pledge Arena, stay on the train to Westlake and transfer to the Monorail.

Big events have tested the system. Sound Transit reported a Link systemwide record of about 309,000 boardings on July 6, during the World Cup. That number covers the whole system, not just Bellevue. Still, it shows the trains carried a crowd far larger than any regular-season game is likely to bring.

One thing to check before you go: the Seahawks dates on Sound Transit's event calendar, Nov. 8 against Arizona and Dec. 13 against New York, are for Sounder commuter rail. They aren't extra 2 Line service.

What to watch between now and December

Metro's 220 timetable already runs into spring 2027. The shuttle's funding runs through December. On weekdays until 6 p.m., they connect the platform to Bellevue Square, the Botanical Garden, Overlake and the Spring District. Ridership, public satisfaction and funding will decide whether that link continues once the December funding runs out.

How far you live from a station, and how you would get there, now affects daily life in Bellevue more than it did a year ago. If you're weighing how station access fits into your next move, or just want to know what a particular street is like for getting around, Hema Real Estate is happy to go over it with you. Let's Connect.