We’re getting more Metro service as part of Transit Now, if the King County Council agrees.
In Seattle, the service changes include expanding 19 individual routes, several of them near South Lake Union, and a Rapid Ride route serving West Seattle with hybrid buses.The West Seattle corridor has not been determined. The service is one of five Rapid Ride routes planned as part of the Transit Now expansion package approved by King County voters in 2006.
As part of the proposal, Seattle would receive more-frequent trips on Routes 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 14-S, 26, 28 and 44 in 2008.
Service frequency also would increase in 2009 on routes 2, 13 and 48 and in 2010 on city routes 5, 7, 8, 70, 74 and 75, with costs to be shared by Metro, the city and the South Lake Union Mobility Partnership for Routes 8 and 70. Some trips on Route 60 would be extended in 2010.
The county also has proposed a new route linking the Colman Ferry Dock and King Street Station, the International District and First Hill, financed partly by Harborview, Swedish and Virginia Mason medical centers. The route could be displaced by a streetcar if one is built in that area.
Details of the plan, part of a 10-year bus expansion financed with a sales tax increase, must be approved by County Council members, although they have generally approved sharing costs of route improvements with others, council spokesman Frank Abe said Wednesday.
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Other projects are proposed for parts of Auburn, Bellevue, Redmond, Renton, Issaquah and Federal Way and include a new Route 913 connecting areas in the western part of Kent.
Another “Rapid Ride” corridor would be established by 2013 between Bellevue and Redmond, though the exact route hasn’t been determined, officials said.
I’m assuming the extra service on the trackless lines will be using existing trackless trolleys or will this require the purchase of new trackless trolleys or the use of diseasels to fill in on these runs?
King County bought new buses for transit now.
On trackless routes, they can only run diesel buses. On routes with trolley track, they prefer to run trolleybuses, mostly because maintence is less. Generally transit works that way, the higher the capital cost, the cheaper the operation cost.
“The exact route hasn’t been determined” – if this is the Rapid Ride line I think it is, then the only question is a tiny (though admittedly important) part of the route between Overlake TC and Eastside Hospital.
While I know about the time delay in hiring new drivers, etc, I do wonder why it’s going to take 5 years to implement most of these Rapid Ride considering the lack of infrastructure improvements associated with the vast majority of them.
cjh, I think it is more a matter of growing steadily and not doing too much at once.
Plus I guess the question about Transit Now is it just paying for the capital costs of new buses or is it also paying for operational costs?
Indeed, but I’m talking about the glacial pace for implementing Rapid Ride in general. Five years seems like an eternity for something that falls between true bus rapid transit and merely really nice express buses.
Then again, I did some digging at the Metro website and saw how the Transit Now monies are divided in an old proposed budget. It rather proves the adage “fast, cheap or good – pick two.”
I noticed the 7 was mentioned as routes to be seeing more service. Although I ride the 7, could use better service, but you cannot get much faster than every 10 minutes. Solve the bunching problem, such as passing wires. THe canopy during the summer in some places can shade or obscure the extra wires from view. I like the electric buses, and would like to boost capacity on the 7, as Ranier Ave in some places is wide, and in others, it feels constrained. Not much room for more lanes, even for a bus-only lane.
Putting more service on the 3, would that be for the First Hill-Downtown sardine can loop, or will this be for the full route, Madrona/34th Ave to Queen Anne Hill?