The West Seattle Blog knows a lot about Rapid Ride after a brief to the Council made yesterday. Some details from the longer WSB piece:
- Rapid Ride Routes will be given letters instead of numbers. For example, the West Seattle route will be the “C” route.
- The buses will have space for three bikes on the racks.
- Wi-Fi will be available on all coaches.
- There will be ticket machines in “stations” that will enable off-coach payment. This, I think, will be the biggest improvement over regular bus service.
The troubling paragraph from the WSB is this:
The briefing also brought pointed questions from city councilmembers including Transportation Committee chair Jan Drago, who is concerned that the RapidRide bus won’t be so rapid — with a variety of stops planned in addition to the “stations” that will be about a half-mile apart. Metro acknowledged that in fact, while certain parts of the route might save commuters time, in some cases RapidRide will NOT be the most “rapid” way to get downtown — express buses will still beat it.
Not so rapid, huh.
I get this sinking feeling about Rapid Ride sometimes. I asked Sims how many new service hours Rapid Ride would have and he wouldn’t say, I worry there’s very little. And when I read things like this about Metro’s operation budget evaporating as fuel prices sky rocket:
Service increases scheduled for September are not at risk, said Kevin Desmond, Metro’s general manager. But the extent of future service improvements funded by the Transit Now sales tax could be in question. The plan, approved by voters in 2006, calls for bus rapid-transit service every 10 minutes at peak hours to five corridors: Pacific Highway South, West Seattle, Ballard, Aurora and Overlake, to begin in the 2010s.
If only we had electric rail transit. It wouldn’t have these spikes in operating cost…
I think the speed issue is calculated from the starting point of your trip. Ex) If you are starting exactly between RR stops, you have a 1/4 mile walk to one of them. However, it’s possible/likely that another stop might be between you and your walk to that RR stop. So logically, you could walk to that stop, get on an express, and beat the RR commute.
But that would be the case only in those extreme examples. All in all, everyone will be moving faster.
Also, the lettering system is small but significant. Giving them their own identity means the public will consider them different modes (which they are) and the service will be less likely to be substituted with standard buses and more likely to be reconfigured into other modes (streetcar, LR, etc) in the future.
On service improvements: don’t both the Ballard and West Seattle corridors already have 10 minute service all day?
Or is the idea that Rapid Ride would be in addition to, say, the existing 15/18 service?
(from WS blog) “but they still plan to make it possible for people to use cash to pay at the front of the bus” (sigh) There goes the one advantage it had over other busses.
IT was supposed to be new service, but I’ve heard a rumor that there’s no budget for new hours.
steve and anonymous, this would only “rebrand” existing routes. It will not add service to Ballard.
ben –
Is Metro changing the stop spacing at all? Or is there really no change at all from a routing (and thus speed) perspective?
I wonder if RapidRide to Ballard will be faster or the future streetcar (assuming RapidRide is simply a “prettier” bus route)?
steve, I don’t know. I’ve just been told the “no new service hours” line.
This route does exactly what we didn’t want it to do, from the RapidRide website…”It will replace Metro’s Route 54 along Fauntleroy Way SW and California Avenue SW between Fauntleroy and downtown Seattle via the Alaska Junction.” And don’t forget, lest you assume that there will be the same stops as the current 54 route, no…”the ’stations’ that will be about a half-mile apart.” Think about it. They are going ahead with the plan in spite of public input that clearly told them to leave the main route 54 intact and replace the 54x. This means ONE stop between the Alaska and Morgan Junctions. I was told in one of the RR sessions that I could take the 128 instead, with that metro rep not understanding that the 128 has 30 min headways! We will gain convenient access to Westwood, which is good, but we will loose a heavily used, USEFUL local route.
No, there are no 10 minute headways to Seattle from West Seattle, on any route I’m aware of, even during rush hour. Last night, at 9:00 pm it took me one hour to get from 1st and Pike to Morgan Jct, about 7 miles.
No, there’s no other buses except the 128 that you could conceivably use to “supplement” the RR “C” route. The 128 even has 30 min headways so you might as well walk – but those seniors that use the 54? They all can’t walk 8 blocks or more and waiting in the weather at least 30 min for the next 128 that may or may not show up is not a good transit system when we have a reliable route 54 already.
No, there’s no new budget for hours. The RR meeting I went to was filled with people asking RR planners to consider replacing the 54X or the 21X instead which Both need upgrades, badly, due to service hours ending early or buses being packed to the gills.
The ONLY good thing is that the bus will go to Westwood – but so could the 54X route. This whole thing is a joke. And are they talking about dedicated lanes on the Alaska viaduct, or just priority? And once the viaduct goes away, then what? No plans for dedicated lanes elsewhere between West Seattle and downtown, come on!
I know this off topic, but if anyone would like to hear a sample of the voice that has been selected to make the automated stop announcements on Metro buses starting 2010, you can find it here …
http://www.nextup.com/index.html
Look under NeoSpeech, then select Kate 16.
If anyone wants to know more about how the system will work, let me know and I’ll post more.
In many ways, Rapid Ride was more of a political statement than a real transit enhancement.
History: Sound Transit was well on its way to a phase 2 ballot in 2006. Ron Sims supported legislation tying ST to RTID, and prohibiting the 2006 ballot. Within a month, plans were being drawn up to substitute Transit Now for a light rail expansion. Sims’ transmittal report to the county council contained numerous references to the superiority of BRT as compared to light rail (faster to implement, cheaper, etc). This language reminded me of all the subtle matter-of-fact monorail over-promising.
Like fools, we transit supporters believed Sims was acting in good (multi-modal) faith, and got behind Transit Now. Several of us suckers have also been telling frustrated & stranded monorail-less W Seattle and Ballard friends Rapid Ride could serve as a viable monorail alternative.
Once Transit Now passed, it wasn’t long before transit opponents like John Niles and Kemper Freeman began parroting Sims’ RR over-promising. Even Niles’ fellow Wasington Policy Center hack, Mike Ennis (who had editorialized early and often against Transit Now) suddenly embraced the plan as a viable substitute for rail expansion. Back where I’m from, we call this “dishonest.”
So, it shouldn’t have been a surprise when Ron Sims came out against the rail portion of Prop 1 (save one small 3-4 mile section) But the extent of self-delusion involved in Sims’ BRT conversion was pretty shocking. It floored me he would adopt the transit critics’ strategy of lying about the benefits of light rail alternatives. On several occasions, Sims claimed “Rapid Ride will move more people at .1th than Sound Transit 2 will deliver at .4ths” Of course he never cited any numbers when telling that doozy (they never do). It was a political statement – not a policy statement, afterall.
Now, it seems questionable whether Rapid Ride will deliver ANY substantial number of new riders at all.
They say politics and religion don’t mix. I think we should make an addendum: politics and transportation planning don’t mix, either.
Sam
That’s pretty cool. How do you know that?
I read it here …
http://www.atu587.com/documents/ATUJune20083.pdf
About half way down, in the Letters to the Editor section, under the title of Automated Stop Announcers, someone on the project explains how it’s going to work. It’s actually very interesting.
From what I can tell, the 54X doesn’t run all day. So for 15 hours out of every day (plus all weekends) RapidRide WILL be faster than the 54 express.
Of course, if they invested in an all-day 54X I suppose the latter would win the speed test. But would there be enough ridership to warrant bypassing Alaska Junction at all hours of the day?
I don’t why the feeling of being cheated. It’s not a question of whether it meets the expectations that you or I have of BRT, it is whether the investment made improves ridership in a cost effective manner. It is a game of diminishing returns: maybe Metro could double or triple costs in the corridor to make the routing 10 minutes faster. And 5 times the costs gets an extra 10 minutes for 20 minutes total. Would that justify the cost when that same investment may justify ridership elsewhere? Opportunity costs abound everywhere.
why doesn’t metro hedge against gas prices like airlines do? I can’t think of why that would not be a legal and fiscally prudent use of funds.
I don’t see the RR route being faster when the viaduct comes down, oh around the same time this RR is begun.
Yes, it’s great that there will be regular service at short intervals, IF you live near a RR stop. It’s about 1.3 miles between the Alasaka & Morgan Junction. The one stop is planned at Brandon Street. So all the frequently used Metro stops will not be used by the 54.
Here’s how my bus route works if I take the 54, which I do sometimes depending upon my destination…
Take the 70 or the trolley from eastlake to downtown. Wait about 15 minutes for the 54, sometimes more. Deboard the 54 in about 30 minutes (maximum) and I’m home.
New route, take the 70 or the trolley from eastlake to downtown. Wait about 10-15 min for the “C” route. “C” drops me at Alaska Junction or Brandon. I wait again, 30 minutes or more, for the local 128 to get to my destination that’s THREE buses in 8 miles. I already lose 1/2 hour with the route – if buses are on time – IF BUSES ARE ON TIME.
“…Of course, if they invested in an all-day 54X I suppose the latter would win the speed test. But would there be enough ridership to warrant bypassing Alaska Junction at all hours of the day?…” So then get rid of the 54X and go with the “C” route – but again, metro is disposing of a heavily used, convenient, good metro route.