Month: June 2010

RapidRide has of course been in the works for a long time, but the King County Council last week formally approved the October 2nd Metro service change, which eliminates the venerable route 174 and replaces it with RapidRide A from TIB station to the Federal Way Transit Center.

The BRT-lite features of RapidRide are dependent on both the largesse of host cities (for transit lanes) and the availability of funds in Metro’s budget for stuff like ticket vending machines.  What we do know is that the A line will have at least 15 minute headways between 4:15am and 10pm, 7 days a week.  There will be longer headways through 1:30am and a couple of night owls.

Other changes:

• extend all-day service on Route 200 to Issaquah Highlands and the Talus Urban Village.  This Transit Now “urban partnership” leverages funds from the City of Issaquah and various community organizations.  This will begin no earlier than February 2011, pending final agreement.  As recently as December this wasn’t going to happen.
• implement revised routing for Route 903, for which there was a public comment earlier, in October 2010.
• new route 910 and revised route 919, serving the Auburn Sounder station, in October 2010.

From the Central District News:

The LCC meeting on June 2 at CASC (500 30th Ave So) from 7:30-9:00 p.m. will feature presentations on the Seattle streetcar lifestyle, past, present and future.

Presenters include noted Puget Sound historian Junius Rochester and Jim Falconer, a prominent Seattle property owner and developer and an instrumental member of the planning committee for the successful creation of the first line of the new Seattle Streetcar network in South Lake Union (http://www.streetfilms.org/ride-the-seattle-streetcar/).

Learn how the area was built up into a city neighborhood based on three different historical routes and hear about the possibility of future routes in a citywide planning effort underway today.

Routes 3 and 4 are the latest to get stop consolidation from Metro:

Currently, the corridor has 116 stops north of Denny Way and east of Fifth Avenue, with an average stop spacing of about 700 feet. Metro will be removing 27 of these stops, increasing the average spacing between stops to about 950 feet.

As a result of this change, approximately eight percent of riders will have to catch their bus at a different stop. When the project is completed, all riders should have a faster, more reliable trip.

You can submit a comment online by June 11th.  The change is scheduled for June 26th.  Metro doesn’t waste time executing these.