I’ve been reading about Community Transit’s Swift BRT plans and comparing them to King County Metro’s Rapid Ride BRT plans. The proposals are extremely similar: buses that run in existing roads, with more frequent service. But at least on paper, Swift’s plans seem better.
Off-board fare machines. Rapid ride will have payment systems at each door of the bus, but that isn’t as good as off-bus fare machines. Paying before boarding reduces boarding time, and reduces unnecssary interactions between people and the driver.
No schedules. Rather than showing schedules, electronic indicators at the bus stations will show when the next bus will come, and the service will be frequent enough that schedules won’t be necessary.
Transit signal priority and transit-only lanes. The Swift route will have ten miles of transit signal priority intersections, which allow the signals to stay green longer for approaching buses, and seven miles of transit-only lanes. Some of Rapid Ride will have TSP as well, but in places like West Seattle, the improvements are paid by the city rather than the county, and in other places there may be no signal priority. Very little transit-only lanes will be created for Rapid Ride.
On-board bus racks. Bicyclists will be able to board the bus with their bikes through the third door.
On-board bus racks. Bicyclists will be able to board the bus with their bikes through the third door.
Last, but not least, Swift opens in 2009 rather than in 2010 for the earliest rapid ride routes, and much later for some of the other routes.
The major problem I have with Swift, is that most of its press materials say that Swift is “rail-like” or a “rail-replacement”. That I don’t like, because the service quality of even that bus is not like link light rail.
I’ve added a couple of concept pictures from Community Transit. I’ll be talking with a representative from Community Transit, if you have questions about CT’s BRT, please leave them in the comments!
On board bike racks? That sounds like more trouble if the bike rack is full, you have to get on to find whether there’s room rather than look at the bus.
So who exactly is going to be using this service? It doesn’t go to Seattle … so those commuters are out … is it for Boeing employees? or what?
Gordon, it’ll link up to RapidRide at the county line.
that is silly. So everyone will have to stand in the rain waiting for their next bus?
metro could learn something from the speed of execution and focus on passenger amenities of swift. i was up in snohomish county doing some work a little while ago and read about this in one of the local papers and was both depressed (since metro is doing such a lousy job with RR) and blown away that snohomish county, a (more typically) suburban county, was showing up king county on public transit.
good for them!
granted, ROW in snohomish county is a little less complex than the RR corridors, they still manage to do “BRT” better than RR (neither are true BRT of course)
the off-coach fare payment systems are my favorite innovation. i thought metro was going to do that with RR (and they could easily do it in general, but…)
i’d be interested in hearing:
1.) what community transit thinks about rapid ride – what are the similiarities/differences? which is a “better” implementation?
2.) how CT was able to raise the money for swift (it is true that swift was implemented by means of a grant as opposed to a tax increase, right?)
3.) how CT was able to plan and deploy swift faster than the RR schedule?
I took a drive up the corridor and the difference is dramatic.
From the Battery Street Tunnel to 200th & Aurora Ave, it’s this bleak wasteland of old ran down buildings, terrible narrow roads and poor light signaling. Everyone barely exceeded 35mph or at least I never got above it. Think MLK way before Light-Rail came around.
From 200th to Everett, an beautifully paved roadway, slightly wider, clear and easy signage, and speeds upwards of 45-50mph.
While there is a dedicated lane for buses past 140th? I never saw one bus use the lane, they were all in the GP lane until traffic hit then they squeezed over into the bus only lane.
Swift is going to be great but Swift should run the ENTIRE corridor not just to Aurora Transit Center.
I’m a huge, huge fan of the ticket machine approach, especially at busy stops.
And hey, where’s ORCA?
quux, orca is on hold, as far as I know. There’s a huge privacy problem – the transit agencies involved, for instance, all have different information retention policies, nobody knows who will own usage information… it’s basically a much bigger issue than the agencies ever expected, and there’s no plan in place. So it will be a while.
gordon, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Nobody (and by that I mean a tiny number of people) will be using this for what you seem to think they are. It’s not the mainline connector, it’s the highway 99 connector. If people want to go to Seattle, they’ll take Sound Transit’s buses.
Brian, by entire corridor, do you mean into King County? :)
Well Ben, some will take Sound Transit (mainly those from Everett and some from Lynnwood), but the majority of Snohomish commuters I know (including myself) take CT to Seattle or UW.
CT’s bus routes get pretty packed for an area with little transit, and their park and rides are usually almost full. I have to get there before 6:30 to even find a spot at Canyon Park, for example.
I will try to answer some of the questions I see here, checking back as often as I can.
Onboard bike racks
Yes, it’s true you won’t be able to see whether the bike racks are full until the bus pulls up. But if you are standing at the third door, once the door opens you can see the racks just across from the door and know whether you can take this bus or not. If the racks or full, it will be only ten minutes until the next bus.
The huge advantage to onboard bike racks is that it can take 45 seconds or more for a cyclist to secure a bike in front of the bus then climb onboard to pay fare. We expect TOTAL dwell time at Swift stations to be about 15 seconds with the various features we’ve included specifically to keep the bus moving.
Who will use Swift?
Swift is a local bus service along Snohomish County’s densest retail and housing corridor, and the highest transit user route. People will use Swift to get to destinations along Highway 99 more quickly, with more predictability. In addition to capturing many people who use the current Route 100/101, we expect new riders to try transit for the first time because of the service level and… the novelty.
Seattle commuters can take one of our 19 routes to Seattle, the Sound Transit regional buses or Sounder trains.
On RapidRide…
I’m not going to ask you whether you think your brother’s wife is ugly or pretty, so don’t expect Community Transit to offer a criticism of RapidRide. What we will say is that we are happy to have Metro planning a rapid transit system in King County, and look forward to the enhanced regional mobility that a Swift-RapidRide connection will provide at Aurora Village.
Swift funding
It is true, no new taxes and no increased fares are funding Swift. Rather, Community Transit has secured half a dozen state and federal grants to buy the buses (60-foot hybrids), design and purchase the technology and design and build the stations. We have also partnered with the City of Everett to secure funding from them for stations and traffic improvements (including TSP) within Everett.
Swift timeline
Because we did not have to go out for a tax increase, and did not include federal money in the stations (a longer process), Community Transit was able to keep its timeline relatively short to get Swift in flight. Our 29 stations sites will be dug up beginning this fall and the buses will be delivered starting next winter.
Martin,
Thank you for your comments!
Quick question, are the buses the New Flyer DE60LF-BRT (Diesel-Electric {Hybrid} low floor BRT model)
Will the coach feature the adjustable head rests and reclining seats?
Will the fares be the same as CT/ST Express buses?
Also, will CT consider the 40 foot Double Deck bus for use on this corridor or will that remain on the CT Express routes into Downtown Seattle?
Hybrid buses
Yes, we are purchasing the New Flyer DE60LF-BRT buses. These buses are now being used in Eugene on the EMX system and in Cleveland.
I couldn’t tell you about the seating just yet. Some of those details are still being worked out.
As for The Double Tall, we do not use that bus for local routes because it would take too long at each stop to get people on and off. Most people want to ride on the upper deck, and we don’t operate when people are on the stairwell, so the dwell time would be pretty high.
We are keeping that bus on commuter routes where people all pretty much get on or off at one stop.
47hasbegun, the people you’re talking about taking CT won’t be using Swift at all.
I live in Everett, and I would certainly use SWIFT. It runs pretty close to my house, and I could take SWIFT to Downtown Everett (as opposed to the long and infrequent Everett Transit route 8), to stores along Evergreen Way/Highway 99, or make connections to other routes that will take me throughout the county and even the entire region. And i’m sure many of the people living along the new apartment complexes popping up along Highway 99 will use SWIFT, and SWIFT could promote the cities of Edmonds’s and Lynnwood’s Highway 99 redevelopment plans, not to mention connect Everett residents to Downtown Everett.
Though I do have several questions:
1) Will you consider BRT for the following roads: 164th Street, 128th Street/Highway 96/Airport Road, Highway 527/Everett-Bothell Highway, and Highway 524/196th Street?
2) Will any bus-only lanes be added (such as between Airport Road and 148th Street SW and along Evergreen Way)? If you do plan to (along Evergreen Way), what will you do to improve traffic conditions on Evergreen Way if you do convert the third GP lane into a bus-only lane?
3) So exactly how many stations will there be, and where will they be located? The last time I heard there was going to be 26 or something.
4) What’s the fare?
5) Do you have any final design plans of stations, buses, etc., you can share?
Thanks!
Will SWIFT run every 10 minutes all day, every day? Or will it be 10 minutes in Rush Hour only? If the 10 minute service is rush hour only, what will the frequencies be during other times?
What are the hours of service planned?
Is CT planning to combing the SWIFT BRT with the Aurora Ave. RapidRide?
I have read CT is planning more BRT lines. Has CT identified any lines that will go forward soon after the Hwy. 99 line? If so, what are they?
Thank You.
You’re probably right on that, Ben. However, anyone who lives in South Everett or Lynnwood, would probably rather ride on a 400- or 800-series route than ride down 99 and transfer at Aurora Village when going to Seattle.
Thanks, everyone! I’m really happy to see so much interest in Swift.
As for future BRT corridors, we are looking at several. If you go to Community Transit’s website and wade through our new Six-Year Plan, you can see our future high-capacity corridors, which are roughly the ones we’re looking at for future BRT. We’ll know more at the end of this year…
Transit lanes
Right now, the existing transit lanes in south county are the only ones on the route for sure. Everett is looking at how to make the curb lanes within the city more effective for transit, so we’ll see what they come up with. As for the section between 148th and Airport Rd., that’s on our wish list but not in any plans at this point.
Fares
Swift is intended to be a local service, and our existing local fare is $1.25. There are no fare increases planned before Swift begins operation.
Frequency
Our plan is to have Swift run every ten minutes most of the day on weekdays, something like 5 a.m. – 7 p.m., then probably 15-20 minute frequencies until 1 a.m. and on weekends. We are saying “Every ten minutes most of the day” to show that it is more than just rush hour.
Station design
We have not selected the vendor to build the stations yet. It is a design-build contract, which saves us money and time, so we only have very preliminary design concepts now (you can see the watercolor above). Later this year we’ll have something more specific on the station design.
Same with the buses. We should have a new artist’s rendition of our bus out in a brochure within a month or so.