Furthermore any plans on what to do with bus lines once U Link and North Link open aren’t set in stone. The 77 may very well live on and see increased service because it works so well the way it is now.

The new cars are bigger and have traded one cab per car for eight seats which allows the low-floor portion to be nearly completely side facing, resulting in much higher standee capacity.

The Kinki-Sharyo’s are essentially the same size as the Type IV Siemens cars, but they do have a cab at each end (IMO a mistake since they’ll never run in single-car service). So the capacity with standees is probably the advertised 200.

As soon as U-Link opens they’ll be running like that.

Look, you’re so hostile to Light Rail why don’t you go start the “Seattle Bus and Vanpool Only Transit Blog”?

The reason for “friction” is that people jump out of a slower lane into the shortest possible gap in a faster one, endangering themselves and the people in the car at the upstream end of the gap. As a result, drivers in the lanes adjacent to a nearly stopped one slow down defensively.

I can sympathize with folks who live on 15th NE north of 84th who will presumably lose the spectacular 77 Express when North Link is opened. They have “walk to my bus get off at my office” service that will be truncated at Roosevelt Station forcing them to transfer vehicles in various types of weather. But I don’t sympathize at all with the people who drive to Northgate, Alderwood or Star Lake Park and Ride who will in the future have to make a few stops on their trip between downtown and the Park and Ride. The trip might take a few minutes longer — especially for the Northgate riders who get to use the tunnel today — but it will be much more reliable, comfortable and cheaper for the taxpayers of the future — including themselves.

You spew these “statistics” about bus versus rail costs per hour, forgetting that the one most unpredictable and damaging “costs” of bus operations is traffic congestion. It leads to overtime, wasted fuel idling, and wear and tear on brakes and running gear stopping repeatedly. Metros like Link exist in order to make it possible for the road network to function.

You have this fantasy of getting everyone into vanpools. And you know what? They’re already a great deal today. They get subsidized by the employers or Metro, they run in the HOV lanes. I’ll agree, you’re right, they’re the perfect solution to traffic congestion!

And they’re also a huge FLOP, because very few people want to ride with same people day after day. If they’re gregarious transit riders they strike up a conversation with someone new every day. If they’re more introverted, they read. But they don’t have to be “on” for anyone.

The only way you’re going to cram people into of those vanpools is by standing on that bridge.

For bonus points do the same for serving Roosevelt and Northgate.

Oh and Rainier Valley has the same problem with a constrained ROW. The at-grade portion would have cost around the same for BRT due to the need for widening MLK.

After Husky football games, I have been on articulated buses with around 140 people on them, but I do not consider 140 to be the “capacity” of an articulated bus, just because I have seen that on special occasions. I have never seen a bus that full during a normal commute.

You obviously don’t ride the 41, 71, 72, 73, or 74 much. The 41 can be crush loads during peak hours and the 71/72/73/74 can be packed when the UW is in session any time between 7 AM and 9 PM. I have no doubt U-Link/North link will show a similar pattern of use with all 4 cars of multiple LINK trains at crush loads during peak times.

In particular, which ones are in the same corridor as Link. as Sounder?

Jim