Route 28 is going through the same stop reduction process the 7, 16, 48, and 120 have over the last few years. A total of 134 stops between Denny and N 145th St, spaced an average of 760 feet apart, will be pared down to 56 with a 1,300 foot (1/4 mile) interval. On busy routes, stop reductions save time and therefore money, while improving the experience for most riders.
Comments about the stop closures can be submitted by phone to (206) 296-4511 or by email (with “Route 28” in the subject line) to community.relations@kingcounty.gov.
The reduction will be implemented on April 4th. A complete list of stops scheduled for the axe is below the jump.
H/T: Commenter “Guest”
* Dexter Ave N at Republican St
* Dexter Ave N at Highland St
* Dexter Ave N at Hayes St southbound
* Dexter Ave N at Crockett St
* N 36th St at Dayton Ave N eastbound / Greenwood Ave N westbound
* Leary Way NW at N 41st St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 53rd St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 57th St southbound
* 8th Ave NW at NW 58th St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 62nd St / NW 63rd St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 67th St northbound
* 8th Ave NW at NW 73rd St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 77th St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 86th / NW 87th St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 88th St northbound
* 8th Ave NW at NW 92nd St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 97th St / NW 100th Pl
* NW 100th Pl at 7th Ave NW westbound
* NW 103rd St at 3rd Ave NW eastbound
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 107th St
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 112th St
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 117th St
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 122nd St
* NW 125th St at 6th Ave NW
* 8th Ave NW at NW 130th St
* NW 132nd St at 6th Ave NW
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 135th Pl
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 140th St
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 143rd St southbound
* N 145th St at 3rd Ave NW eastbound
* Linden Ave N at N 143rd St northbound
* Linden Ave N at N 145th St northbound
* Route 28 will be no longer serve Greenwood Ave N at N 145th St southbound and N 145th St at Greenwood Ave N westbound
I sent an e-mail of support, which should be worth doing since they will probably mostly be getting complaints.
The 28 is one of my alternate routes. It will mean a 3-block longer walk if I take this route home and want to use a traffic light to cross Greenwood. Sad, but it might be worth it if this cuts about 10 minutes from the overall travel time on the route. I wonder how much time this will save?
If there’s a better stop to eliminate you should definitely let them know. The stop by my office (Dexter and Republican) is going away, but they’re keeping a much nicer one by Dexter Deli.
Thanks – but this route is my third alternative from downtown. I can walk the extra distance and I think it best they hear from people who ride on a daily basis.
I hope that the bus drivers will be notified well in advance when bus stops are eliminated. A number of stops on the 66/67 route in the Roosevelt district were eliminated as of the last shakeup, but the drivers told me they had not been informed of this. Although notices were posted a long time in advance for passengers using these bus stops, such notices could not be seen by the drivers.
A three-block walk is about three minutes…would a four-minute overall savings make it worthwhile? That’s probably closer to reality than 10 minutes. I say “yes”! considering all those who would not have any added walk time.
They sent me even more detail:
I’m kind of surprised by some of these changes. As a driver I agree the 28 has too many stops.
SB Greenwood/145th is okay, because if you want to transfer to the 5 or 345 you can transfer at 143rd. But what if someone want to catch the 28 WB on 145th from a 5 or 345…..you should get rid of stops at transfer points.
Also both stops NB on Linden will be gone. What happens after 9pm when the coach layover next to Kid Valley rather than the regular terminal. Usually after 9pm the first stops would be Linden F/S of 143rd. Now the first stop will be on 145th WB F/S of Linden.
I like that they are getting rid of stops, but there might too may on this list. Stops between downtown and 85th make sense, but north of 85th, the route really isn’t that busy. I say keep most of those stops north of 85th, because each trip won’t be stopping at every one of these stop anyway. Plus, most of the area north of 85th has no sidewalks and this is not the area that slows down the bus.
Casey,
Well said. Probably 12 to 15 percent of the stops north of 85th are visited in a non-peak hour run. The streets are pretty minimal, and the route winds back and forth between 3rd NW and 8th NW. Of course the neighborhood is very sparse so I’m sure people accept the fairly low level of service, but not much will be saved on any given run at the risk of alienating the community.
Stops should be eliminated in the central city where people have to walk shorter distances to the surviving ones.
I agree with the goals here, but is simply eliminating every other stop the best approach? In some situations I expect it would be better to eliminate two adjacent stops but consolidate they into one stop equidistant from the two that are eliminated. Is anything like that going on here too, or is it simply a stop elimination project?
Part of stop consolidation is to reduce operating costs. Why give all the savings in operating costs right back in capitol costs to sign, build and paint new stops? Although I don’t have specific knowledge of all the eliminated stops, I feel that metro generally thinks about stop location and simply dropping one at an equidistant location can make the stop less attractive to riders and cumbersome for operations. I do agree that a general every other stop elimination is not the best way to go about consolidation.
it does seem odd to eliminate a zone with a shelter just to achieve 1/4 mile distance; why don’t they go for an average along the route instead?
The stop consolidations are much more than just closing every other stop. Metro looks at the stop locations and boardings before selecting stops for elimination. In some cases they will close two or more stops and replace them with a stop in a new location.
Consolidating stops, and getting rid of some particularly poorly located ones does quite a bit for speeding up routes and improving reliability.
While the capital expense is higher I’d also like to see more mid-block bus bulbs, especially in areas where buses have problems pulling back into traffic.
bus bulbs have their place as long as there are two lanes of travel. it’s a disaster in wallingford where there are single lanes of travel – buses need to be competative with ars but it should not be gained by slowing down general traffic.
I’ve never noticed a problem with the Wallingford bus bulbs. It seems better that car passengers wait for bus riders than vice-versa.
I have to disagree with that 2-lane minimum. It’s the single lane streets where bus bulbs are most desirable and beneficial since those are oftentimes where buses have the hardest time re-entering traffic.
Anyone notice the new bus bulbs on Pine Street? They look pretty slick, the bike racks are an amusing bicycle shape, and one of them has these cube rocks for sitting on. I can’t tell how much they’ve improved the bus speeds, but the ones in the U-district were an immense help.
Any other news on the Plexiglass separators being considered as part of a pilot program?
I know some drivers are very opposed to the idea. It was suggested after Metro driver Mark McLaughlin was shot and killed while driving the 359 on November 25, 1998. The drivers for the most part didn’t think it was a good idea then.
Good to hear! That’s the bus I use to get downtown aside from commute times and it definitely stops too often. It’ll be nice to have a more reliable ride. Now I just wish they’d use kneeling buses to make wheelchair entrances and exits much quicker.
…followed by reinstating Seattle’s last streetcar route, which was pretty close to identical to the 28.
What are the five shortest distances between stops on any of the Metro stops?
er, I meant “Metro routes”
on route 10, 15th ave e at john street the stops are about 1/2 block apart…
I don’t have exact numbers or routes, but there are a couple of places where there is a Metro stop on both sides of an intersection or right around the corner from another stop on the same route.
On route 11 inbound on 42nd Ave East, there is a stop at each end of the same block just south of East Newton and just north of East Madison.
That’s so the gripman can stop and judge traffic speed vis-a-vis how fast the cable is running at the moment before the line turns on to Madison. People were jumping on the cable-cars anyway; might as well post a stop.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2007/12/09/2003974330.jpg
We should bring back the Madison Park Cable cars! Wouldn’t that be fun?
Too bad we didn’t manage to keep a line or two like San Francisco did. I imagine if the cable cars had made it into the 60’s or 70’s they might have been preserved.
Maybe a modern version. Some family rode this 1970s one in France:
http://www.tul-laon.net/poma.php
They would be huge tourist attractions and beneficial to the economies of their respective end-points.
there are two on college way n, right in front of NSCC, that are ~450′ apart.
The 49 makes two stops at Seattle Central, one on Broadway and the other around the corner on Pine. But it shares each stop with different routes so it probably can’t skip one.
I think somebody commented about the 3 having close stops at 34th & Union, but I haven’t been there for a long time so I can’t confirm.
The westbound East Olive Way stops are notorious, three or four of them between Broadway and Bellevue. (Although I hear the Broadway stop is closed due to the Link construction.)
The UW used to have northbound stops at both end of a block on 15th & 42nd.
Ahha… I remember early on when I first used the 49, I didn’t know which one to get off. Turns out it didn’t really matter.
The 3 does the loop there where it goes around to the layover on 34th, and then loops around again to start the run toward downtown. I’m not sure you’d save any significant time taking one or the other stops out though – honestly though I’m a fan of what they’re doing with the 28, it still feels like we could save even more time with low floors and single-door entry/exit!
I don’t know how my data compare to other routes, but I’ve noticed that the 5 seems to make an awful lot of closely spaced stops on Phinney Ave N. Here are some examples I found (southbound direction) using the drag-and-drop pins in Google Maps:
Phinney & N 55th St / Phinney & N 54th St: about 365′ apart
Phinney & N 61st St / Phinney & N 59th St: about 440′ apart
I usually board at 59th, but I’d gladly walk further in exchange for a faster bus making fewer stops (and picking up/dropping off more people at each stop).
My wife rides the 28 every day and she is THRILLED about reduction in stops. This should really speed things up.
Make sure she sends her comments in. This kind of housecleaning should be done for every metro route every 5-10 years in my opinion.
Is Metro adding tons of new stops on any of their routes? I haven’t seen new stops added on any of the routes I’ve been riding for the last 10 years – all I’ve seen are stops taken away. In other words, I don’t think a system-wide review is necessary at nearly the frequency you’re proposing.
It seems to be a change in philosophy. These routes were created decades ago, and it must have been the fashion then to put stops every block or two. Maybe it made more sense when the region’s population was half the size, multistory buildings were not as common, and ridership was less (before the commute reduction initiatives with subsidized passes).
Some stops have also been moved from “near side” (before the intersection) to far side, which seems to be another change of philosophy.
Yeah, for low-ridership routes it makes sense to put stops every block. It reduces their walk, and since most stops aren’t utilized it doesn’t slow down the bus that much.
I will have to walk an extra block now, and in return I will have a more reliable and speedy trip. The 28 is notoriously late during non-commute times. I’m extremely happy. See MyBallard blog for a discussion by people who actually use this route.
http://www.myballard.com/2010/03/10/metro-eliminating-nearly-half-of-route-28-bus-stops/
Unrelated to the stop consolidation but related to the map posted: Why did it take Metro so long to revise the snow route for the 28? As a former 28 rider, there was nothing more frustrating than living on 110th and 3rd but being dropped off at 85th and 8th because that’s as far as the bus would go. Figures they would change it after I moved.
Will these stop clousures apply to the 26 in the portion of the route where 26/28 travel together?
Yes. These stop reductions are for the route 28, but routes using these stops will also be affected. Such as the 26 and 46. Although, I know the 5, 345 will continue to serve SB Greenwood and N 145th & the 304 will most likely still serve WB N 145th and Greenwood (its too close to the intersection for the 28 to serve and then merge to the middle lane)
Any idea how we can best comment on stops to be removed? I’ve got a laundry list of stops that I’ve *never* seen a customer at. Better yet, I’ve got a list of pairs of stops where I *always* have to stop at two stops in a row that are within a block of each other.
There was a Metro employee on the 16 today handing out surveys regarding whether or not riders were satisfied with the stop consolidation on that route last year. Hopefully the results should be out soon.
Please read the above comments by the bus driver, Casey: “Stops between downtown and 85th make sense, but north of 85th, the route really isn’t that busy. I say keep most of those stops north of 85th, because each trip won’t be stopping at every one of these stop anyway. Plus, most of the area north of 85th has no sidewalks and this is not the area that slows down the bus.”
The bus stops north of Holman Road are already 2 blocks apart, so removing every other one makes a much longer walk in an area with NO sidewalks. The bus is driving along that route anyway, so there is no harm in keeping those stops open. There is almost no savings in removing those stops, and it is a great inconvenience to the riders in that area.
As for the snow route, in February, Metro actually cut the snow route and now no longer runs north of Holman Road. This cut service to a large community.
Yes I know what you mean about the snow route, but the reason is:
1: 3rd Ave NW is not a great street for buses in the snow.
2: You are only 3 blocks from the 5 on Greenwood. Unless you are on 8th, but when it snows, people need to except to walk farther to the bus. Running the bus north of the QFC just risks getting more buses stuck.