March Service Changes

79 Replies to “March Service Changes”

1. Most of these changes are pretty minor, or are just temporary due to driver shortage issues. I wouldn’t get all depressed about them.

   Likewise, the Link “reductions” being announced today are just temporary and are being driven by testing for LLE. As LLE over towards simulated service testing they need to be closer to their eventual operating config. With no access to OMF-E until the plinth problem is fixed, they need to operate in this mode to support dispersed storage. That will change again when full ELE opens.

   And congrats to CT and their Orange Swift. That is the only really big add occurring today. Can’t wait for Blue Swift to be extended to 185th St Station. That will be another big add for my in-laws (who don’t drive).

   But the really big changes will occur at the end of summer when LLE opens. The restructures around that will be substantial, and truly yield a “rail dividend”, particularly for CT when they cancel Seattle service and redeploy those resources to better serve SnoCo residents directly.

   According to the Sound Transit spokesperson quoted in that one Heraldnet article, there should be an announcement on a LLE opening date within a “couple of weeks”. I’m hoping for sooner than that.

2. From taking the brand new light rail line from Bellevue Downtown to Overlake Village, to then waiting up to an hour for the route 221. That’s going to be quite a range of emotion.

   1. The 221 is half-hourly weekday and Saturday daytime, hourly Sunday and evenings. Its frequency has probably gone up and down since 2020, as the 226 has, so you may be thinking of an earlier period when it was hourly. The 221 reroute will solve my problem of how to get from Link to my relative’s adult family home near 164th & Main. But only for one year. With the full 2 Line in 2025, the 221’s successor will move to 156th instead of 164th, which is down a hill to the home. (I usually go to 164th eastbound, and from 156th westbound.) The 226 is and will remain a 20-minute walk from Overlake Village Station (I timed it in February.) A Metro Flex area will be created around Overlake Village Station, but the closest it will get to my area is 164th & NE 8th. Come to think of it, that might not be so bad. I get off the current 226 there, so I could get on and off Flex there. I just won’t be able to use the future 226’s (current 221’s) stop at the home.

      Since I know you like rider experience/station area reports, I’m planning to try Swift Orange tomorrow and check out McCollum Park. When the Line 2 Starter Line starts, I’ll have a report about it and its station areas. I still want to get to the future Redmond station areas sometime, Marymoor Village (which I haven’t seen) and Redmond Downtown (which I briefly saw in February).

      1. I’m sure you are aware that the 221 often runs hourly. (Sundays. Mon-Sat after 6 PM). And the best frequency it has, even during weekday peak, is every 30 minutes. For many, that’s essentially unusable if one also needs to transfer. But, if it works for you, great.

         Marymoor Village is deceptive. At first it first seems like it’s this isolated station almost in the middle of nowhere, but if you start looking at the station area to the southeast, you’ll see lot’s of new, large apartment buildings, some just built, some under construction, that are mostly hidden from view from the station itself.

      2. For many, that’s essentially unusable if one also needs to transfer.

         Right, but one advantage of East Link is that it is consistent. It may be possible to time it if you are going from the train to the bus. Going the other direction you would be dependent on the frequency of the train, which will be good but not great. Other bus routes vary (although most are much worse than the train, making a lot of transfers terrible).

      3. “For many, that’s essentially unusable if one also needs to transfer. But, if it works for you, great.”

         It is essentially unusable, but I have no choice. The only Medicaid-eligible adult family homes are buried deep in single-family areas with only coverage transit if even that. I can’t walk as far as I could two years ago; otherwise I’d walk from the B stop (156th & NE 10th) and skip the coverage routes like I used to do. I can walk a mile or two a day before my arthritis makes it laborious: I think the surrounding muscles work extra to compensate, and that tires them out. And stairs have gotten bad, even just walking one flight down to the Westlake platform I’m pushing down on the handrail each step like people with a cane probably do.

         So I only go there weekdays or Saturday daytime when the 221 and 226 are 30 minutes. I try to go weekdays when the 245 is 15-minutes for the return trip, and the 226 and 245 overlap on 156th so that’s 6 buses/hour. The home’s visiting hours are 1-5 pm, so evenings I won’t be there anyway. If I come back at 5 or 6 pm, that’s in the PM peak when those 6 buses/hour are running.

         What I’d really like is for the 226 to serve Overlake Village Station. That’s what everybody in east Bellevue would like, I think, because Overlake is the nearest retail district for groceries, so it’s the hub for the single-family areas east of it. (Crossroads has less everyday stuff.) Right now the 226 runs on Bel-Red, 156th, and NE 20th. Eddiew suggested rerouting it to Overlake Village Station and Spring Blvd for all the Link stations between Overlake Village and Bellevue Downtown, but Metro hasn’t been inclined to do so.

      4. By the way, when I was looking for Medicaid-eligible AFH’s in Bellevue and Seattle, I found a cluster near 164th & Main, one in Magnolia, one in north Burien off 1st Ave S, and two in Skyway. The DSHS staff had no clue about non-drivers, so they suggested Snohomish and Monroe and I said, “I can’t get there.” There were other homes in even more obscure parts of Bellevue and the cities south of it, and in parts of North Seattle. But they all seemed like the ones I looked at: only on a half-hourly coverage route. Only one was on a frequent route (the 106 in Skyway).

         I chose Bellevue because my relative had lived there for 50 years and would prefer to stay there, and it’s where her friends and volunteer helpers live, and I grew up there in the 70s and 80s so at least it’s familiar. (A familiar inconvenience is better than an unfamiliar one.) And 156th has blinking yellow lights to cross the street safely, while 1st Ave S doesn’t.

         I also discovered that this part of Bellevue doesn’t have sidewalks. The east side of 164th doesn’t, and the residential street the home is on doesn’t. The east side of 156th might not either between NE 8th & Main; I’d have to check if that’s why I always go down the west side and cross at a blinking push-light.

      5. “Right, but one advantage of East Link is that it is consistent. It may be possible to time it if you are going from the train to the bus”

         You can time it up to a point, but often, the best you can do in such a situation is choose a Link trip that gets you to the bus stop 10 minutes early for a bus that will actually show 10 minutes late, which means you’re still standing at the bus stop for 20 minutes. Trying to cut it any closer than that risks being stuck with no bus for a whole hour if you get unlucky. At least that’s what happens when I do Link->bus transfers today to the 255, which is half hourly in the evenings.

         The good news is that, in many circumstances, there is an alternative. For example, if the wait for the 221 is going to be awhile, you could stay on the train an extra stop, take the B line instead, and maybe walk further.

      6. Hoping when they open the Montlake Lid HOV ramps & station it makes the 520 routes more reliable for those 255/271/542 to Link transfers. Eagerly awaiting those HOV ramps and the continuous HOV lane to be able to avoid all that automobile congested on 520 and the Montlake ramps.

         The 255 seems like another route reduced to death resulting in fewer ridership resulting in more cuts and again fewer riders. Shame to have lost the one-seat ride to Downtown. A few of these 520 routes should have continued to Downtown or SLU (if they had planned for this a better connection could have been made at E. Roanoke St so buses could have gone down Eastlake to SLU and pick up the life sciences and tech in the north part of SLU).

      7. The problem with the 255 is not the lack of a one seat ride to downtown, it’s that it doesn’t run often enough in the evening and gets stuck in traffic.

         I’ve been through the old 255 that ran downtown, but with crap frequency. It still got stuck in traffic, and could get heavily delayed by events downtown. And, to go to any part of the city except downtown, you still needed to transfer anyway, but it was a worse transfer that required waiting for a bus at a dangerous stop, such as 3rd/Pine and/or out-of-direction travel.

         The truth is, Seattle is much less downtown-centric than it has been in the past, and the 255’s switch to the U district is really just modernizing the routing, picking the point in Seattle that is geographically closest to Kirkland as the transfer point, which is better for a pattern where trips are scattered throughout the city, rather than everyone going to downtown.

         The new Montlake ramps will definitely help a lot, as will not having ramp closures anymore. But, it’s not a substitute for the service itself. You need decent frequency for it to be usable.

   2. @Sam,

      If you really need to wait an hour for the 221, I’d just call an Uber.

      Either get lucky, or get moving some other way. Time is valuable.

      1. As of a month ago ST was still saying 10 minutes for the ELSL.

         When did ST change it to 15 mins? And do you have a link verifying this number?

      2. Oh, you’re right, the Sound Transit link in the article does say 10 minutes. I must have conflated it with something else. I’ll correct the article.

      3. “I’d just call an Uber.”

         Uber requires having a smartphone and credit card, installing a for-profit app, entering your credit-card info into it, using an app interface, paying $10 for a short trip, waiting for an unpredictable amount of time, feeling guilty that you’re exploiting drivers who don’t have benefits or a living wage, and worrying your info may be grabbed by identity thieves and used against you.

      4. When I looked into getting my relative a taxi to go home from the hospital or that she could use for other trips, I was told that “The Eastside doesn’t really have taxis anymore; we could dispatch a car from Seattle but it would take a while.” Uber has apparently eaten up the taxis outside Seattle and the airport.

         I looked into Eastside for Hire, which is supposdly the second kind of taxi (a “for hire” car you can book but it won’t accept people hailing it), but when I looked at its website it was really confusing and I couldn’t tell if it even offered that service or what kind of service it offers. It seems to be something for longer time periods, not a short trip.

      5. Was in a hurry to get from Ballard to U district yesterday, so checked Lyft. 50 bucks. Fortunately caught the 44 I thought we’d missed.

      6. Uber has pretty much been successful in killing the taxicab industry, eating up billions of venture capital over the last 10-12 years providing a service below cost. With investors willing to lose money in the short term, Uber started out by being able to undercut taxicab fares, driving them out of business. Now that we’re in 2024, Uber has significantly raised their fares, is no longer less expensive than a taxicab used to be, and comes with all of the “features” that Mike Orr mentions: You need a credit card, a phone app, and are willing to have your personal data sold to whomever Uber wants to sell it to.

3. I thought the 2 line will run every 10 minutes?

   1. [incorrect information]

   2. It is 10 minutes; I made a mistake.

4. Sounds like the plan is to kill of the 10 by degrading service with multiple rounds of service reductions… getting hit now and in the Fall.

   Capitol Hill needs more service, not less. Would be nice if they increased service on the current 43 route (Broadway/First Hill to Montlake) as a main semi-crosstown route.

   1. I don’t think the 10 is being eyed for future deletion. (If anything they would get rid of the 12 but I don’t they are doing that either.)

      I think the folks who did the restructure just didn’t do it right. They were too focused on coverage or retaining existing routes. As a result the frequency is terrible. This is one approach that I know would be much better: https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/08/30/high-frequency-network-surrounding-rapidride-g/. There are plenty of other variations that would work well.

   2. Ha! Give it the 20 treatment, then declare it a failure, then delete the route.

      I think it was Mike Orr that pointed out that this was a “thing” with Metro, and it seems to be true.

   3. “Sounds like the plan is to kill of the 10 by degrading service with multiple rounds of service reductions”

      It’s the driver shortage. Metro can’t provide the full service it intended to, or that its metrics reports says those corridors should have. The STM is another complication.

      Before the STM, the 5, 8, 10, 11, and 49 were all half-hourly evenings, along with several other “frequent” routes throughout the city. The 40 was hourly evenings, and the 120 may have been too. The STM filled in those evening and Sunday gaps. Since then, various restructures have helped fill in some off-peak frequency with Metro’s base funds. But if the STM is not renewed in 2027, many of these may revert to 30 minutes. The previous G restructure draft had the 10 and at hourly evenings. It got better in the final proposal due to the gradual easing of the driver shortage and the improving economy. But when the STM shifted its support from the 10, 11, and 12 to the 49, 60, and 125, that interacts with the effect of Metro’s fluctuating base hours, and produces a combined result.

   4. “Give it the 20 treatment, then declare it a failure, then delete the route.”

      You can’t delete 15th Ave E. It has apartments, mixed use, and a hospital, and it’s up a hill from the surrounding north-south routes. It would only go away in a severe recession, and then only temporarily.

      The reason the 20 can be considered for deletion is that Latona and 1st Ave NE don’t have apartments or mixed use, other than a couple token ones right at 45th. And the 62 runs parallel a few flat blocks away. (But the 62 doesn’t go north of 65th/72nd.) The city could fix this and make Latona more eligible for a frequent route by upzoning it for small apartments and retail, but it hasn’t been interested. So it’s clearly a coverage corridor.

   5. The multi-level reduce-and-delete phenomenon over several service changes has occurred on the:

      * 17 (32nd Ave NW). All-day route and peak express until 2012 or 2014. The all-day route was reduced to a shuttle to 15th & Leary as route 61 (transfer to the D or 40), then later deleted. The peak express remains, although I think it was suspended during the pandemic. Metro Connects contemplates restoring all-day service in its unfunded “2050” plan, as a crosstown U-shaped route from North Beach to 32nd, Market, west Green Lake, Northgate Station.

      * 42 (MLK-Dearborn to Rainier View): Proposed for deletion in the initial Link rollout in 2009 to avoid being redundant with Link, but saved by squeaky wheels complaining to the county council. It was retained as a truncated part-time route. The hours to resurrect it came out of the newly-created 50, so the 50 couldn’t be as frequent a feeder to Othello Station as envisioned. The 42 was deleted in the 2014 recession. The squeaky wheels continued to make noise and shout “Equity!”, so Metro extended the 106 north to Intl Dist to replicate part of it.

      * 71 (University Way-NE 65th): Proposed for deletion in the U-Link restructure (2016), when the 62 was created on NE 65th. One county councilmember stepped in at the last minute to save it, allegedly because his wife used it to get to UW. The hours to resurrect it came out of the 45 and 67, which were proposed to increase to every 10 minutes but that didn’t happen. (Later it did when the economy boomed again or the STM got into full swing.) The 71 was deleted in the Northgate Link restructure (2022).

      There have been other routes like that; I don’t remember them offhand. Cases where Metro wanted to delete a route but there was public pushback, so Metro reduced it and it was clear it would be the first to be cut in the next recession or restructure.

      1. The 47. Not that it had a lot of ridership. I think the new approach as a tail of the 3 is the way to go for this route, although ideally would have been a more southern trolley route like the 14 so it could have run the length of downtown (was it not previously connected to the 14?).

      2. I think the 17 is a bit different in that Metro didn’t really want to get rid of it (at least according to some people I’ve talked to). It is just a borderline bus that has struggled during cutbacks.

         In contrast, they tried to get rid of a lot of these buses (as you mentioned). Same with the 73. The 73 is otherwise similar to the 17. It provides some coverage, but the walk to the other bus stop isn’t that bad. It is mostly single family homes, but there are some apartments and destinations close to the old bus stops. It competes with the nearby bus and offers something a bit different in places. In the case of the 73 it provides a one-seat ride south to Maple Leaf/Roosevelt/UW (and the various connections along the way). In the case of the 17 it is a faster way to get downtown.

         The problem (in both cases) is that it runs a lot less frequently than the other bus. This makes it even more susceptible to the ridership-frequency death spiral. If a bus runs less often some riders just give up on transit. But in this case, a lot of riders just take a different bus. This makes it different than a bus like the 37. For much of the pathway, there is no alternative (other than driving).

         I think sending the 17 somewhere else could work (or just resurrecting the shuttle) but only if it runs often (e. g. every 15 minutes in the middle of the day). Any worse than that and people will just walk to the 40. I feel like we really should have a standard of 15 minute service for buses in Seattle unless they can be considered “pure coverage” (e. g. the 37). Otherwise we’ve got one foot on the boat and one on the shore.

         The Capitol Hill restructure is an example of this. You’ve got a lot of different buses that aren’t coverage, don’t form a meaningful spine and don’t run frequently. They don’t form much of a grid or even a hub-and-spoke system. Nor are they designed to leverage or feed the high frequency system(s). The approach seems to be nothing more than “let’s keep the buses kinda like they were”.

      3. @poncho — Yes, the 47 is another great example. It is quite similar to the other examples as well:

         1) Metro tried to get rid of it, but reluctantly kept it.
         2) It is close to another bus that runs more often and goes to the same place.

         In this case the solution is fairly simple:

         1) Send the 49 to Beacon Hill (combine it with the 60).
         2) Run the 47 every 15 minutes.

         Then it wouldn’t compete with the 49 and be frequent enough to get good ridership. The key is that this would actually save money making the increase in frequency of this bus (and others) possible.

      4. That’s another Metro strategy: attaching a coverage tail at risk of dying to a stronger route. That can increase ridership on the tail, or even if it doesn’t, it costs less to serve the tail so it can continue operating.

         The 62 and 79 are similar to that. The 62’s eastern half has lower ridership than the western half. Creating the 62 was an attempt to increase ridership on 65th and address a transit hole (Sand Point to Roosevelt) in a more efficient way than a separate Sand Point-Roosevelt route would have been. The 79 absorbed low-ridership NW 55th Street (previously 74 and 30), and attached it to a new corridor that had been requesting bus service (NE 75th Street).

         The 47 was low ridership. The blog has had lots of debates about whether improving service could turn it into a strong route. It was presumably a strong route in the early 20th century, going through dense walkable neighborhoods. But I-5 eliminated half its walkshed, and it apparently has never recovered from that. In any case, extending a stronger route to it is more efficient than a separate route, because you don’t need a separate set of drivers and layover time and space.

         The 47 was part of the 14 until the 2010s. Likewise, the 36 was part of the 1, the 49 was part of the 7, the 12 was part of the 13, and the 44 was part of the 43. That caused a ridership mismatch, with the southern half of the 1, 7, 12, and 14 needing more frequency than the northern half. They were all restructured to pair similar levels together. The 1/14 are now connected. The 7 and 36 are now standalone segments because they’re so busy on their own.

         Another strategy Metro has is to strong all the lowest-ridership tails together into one route. That happens mostly in the suburbs because that’s where those tails are. the 249 is an example.

      5. Even if I-5 didn’t exist, I don’t think it would make that much difference to the 47. The other side of I-5 would still have a big vertical gap, which would make Fairview (e.g. the 70) a better place to go to catch a bus.

         Rather, I think the problem with the 47 is that it is too short. The only trips you can make with it are about a mile in length, which is short enough to just walk in 20 minutes, even without a bus. Or, you can walk 5-10 minutes to Denny to catch a more frequent bus. It’s also worth noting that the densest part of the 47’s walkshed is the section also serves by the 10. Beyond a block or two north of Denny, it drops off.

         If the 47 did get good ridership back in the 1940’s, the most likely difference between them and now is that Seattle was way more downtown-centric than today, and way fewer people had cars. Thus back then, almost anything people did was downtown, and most people got there by riding the bus. Today, the percentage of all trips taken that go downtown is much less, hence the same density translates into less ridership for a bus that goes downtown.

      6. If Metro wanted the 47 to be productive, the chance would be to make it an extension to some other route, although it’s not immediately clear what, and it would probably require abandoning the 47’s trolley wire, at least until they come out with battery/trolley hybrid buses that can do some of route on wire to charge the batteries for the rest of the route.

      7. If Metro wanted the 47 to be productive, the chance would be to make it an extension to some other route

         That is what they are doing by tacking it onto the 3. Not the strongest of combinations but it least gives people more one-seat rides to downtown. I suppose it works for other trips but only after a big detour. It is mainly designed to avoiding having to layover (although it does add a bit of functionality).

         I still don’t see that as the biggest problem though. Obviously the shorter the route the fewer combinations work, but short routes can be successful. The problem is competition and lack of frequency. You are very close to (or overlap) the 10, 49 and Link. Consider this trip: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ddttZQZ5Lqq57kFMA. The 47 doesn’t exist and it would be faster, but only if it was frequent. Otherwise people will continue to walk to the other buses or Link.

         Except the other buses aren’t frequent either. Given the overall frequency, it is an anti-pattern. Imagine two buses a block apart each running every hour. This is similar. The future changes look just as bleak.

         In contrast, look at what I sketched out. I want to be clear: I’m not saying this is the best possible routing. I’m saying this sort of thing is much better. Notice how a lot of people gravitate towards the 47. Suddenly it doesn’t have so much competition. Notice also that there are simply a lot fewer routes. As a result, the buses run a lot more often.

         I’ve been purposely vague with the frequencies on these maps. I can’t easily calculate the savings. But it is clear that they are big. So big that it is quite reasonable that the *least* frequent bus runs every 12 minutes in the middle of the day. For example the 49 and the streetcar could each run every 12 minutes. Of course 10 minutes would be better. But combining for 6 minute frequency along Broadway would be a huge improvement. Even running buses every 15 minutes would be a big improvement over what they have planned! Look at that map again and imagine trying to get from Summit to downtown. Also remember that Summit is one of the most densely populated places in the state. Here is what it will look like:

         1) Walk over to the 3, which will run every 30 minutes.
         2) Walk over to the 49, which will run every 20 minutes.
         3) Walk south to Olive and catch the 11, which will run every 20 minutes.
         4) Walk beyond Olive to the bus stop on Bellevue Avenue where the 11 and 3 converge. The buses can’t possibly be timed to work together (one runs every 20, the other every 30) but you have better odds of a short wait.
         5) Walk all the way to Pine & Bellevue where two other buses (the 10/12) merge as well. From the north end of Summit that is about a 20 minute walk.
         6) Walk to Olive and just catch the first bus that arrives (which most likely will be the 8). It isn’t heading your direction, but it will get you to places where the buses run more frequently.
         7) Catch Link, even though it is about a 10 to 15 minute walk to the station and it takes a while to get to and from the platforms.
         8) Walk the whole way (about a half hour).
         9) Give up and call a cab.

         Remember, this is from a very urban neighborhood to downtown! This is the type of thing you expect in Magnolia, not on Capitol Hill! In contrast, with my proposal to get from Summit to downtown you catch a bus (on Bellevue Avenue) running every 10-12 minutes (in the middle of the day). That’s it.

         Notice how this *complements* the other options. If you are north of Summit you catch the 49 and transfer. From the 49 you can transfer to Link, the 2/10 (running every 5-6 minutes midday) or the G (running every 6 minutes midday). If you are close to the station you just walk to Link. If you are south of the station you take the 2/10 combination (which runs every 5-6 minutes). You are never far from either frequent or very frequent service.

      8. Short routes tend to have a hard time getting good ridership. Not only because of fewer trips served, but because a large portion of the trips that are served end up competing with walking.

         For example, let’s imagine you’re trying to go somewhere a mile away, and the bus runs every 15 minutes. If you time your trip accordingly to the schedule, you can spend 5 minutes walking to the bus stop, 5 minutes waiting for the bus, 7 minutes riding the bus, and 3 minutes walking to the destination…or you can not bother with the bus and just spend the same 20 minutes walking directly to the destination. This kind of choice occurs when traveling around cities all of time, and to be clear, people choosing the “walk” option is not at all a bad thing. After all, walking is free (to both the individual and taxpayers), clean, and does not contribute to road congestion. But, the fact that many people will choose the “walk” option absolutely will reduce ridership on the bus. And, even if the entire length of the bus route is just a bit further than most people want to walk, most trips along a bus route are not end to end, so the fact the the bus route competes with walking still applies. (It is also worth noting that some people do have medical conditions that prevent them from walking very far; those people will, of course, ride the bus, but, as most people do not have such conditions, and those that do are disproportionately likely to be using a door to door form of transportation, such as a car or taxi, anyway).

         Those short distance routes that do do well usually require either an extremely high base of people traveling the route or the route has something to dissuade walking, such as missing pedestrian infrastructure or high numbers of people with luggage. For example, lots of airports have parking shuttles covering <1 mile distances which are very popular because the number of travelers is huge, and the combination of luggage and lack of sidewalks means everybody is riding the bus, nobody is walking. Hong Kong has lots of <1 mile bus routes that get very high ridership, in spite of the city being walkable, simply because the city is so dense. But, without Hong Kong-level density, good ridership on routes that run very short distances through walkable areas is almost impossible.

      9. The 3 extension will help me get from Bellevue/Summit to Harborview and Swedish Cherry Hill. There’s never been a bus that direction (southeast) so I end up walking. Or I take the 11 east to 17th and walk south from there. It’s not worth it to go to Broadway and take a bus/streetcar south because most of the time would be walking and waiting rather than riding. I do take the streetcar or 60 to get to Jackson because it’s further and way down a hill, but not to James.

         The trip through downtown and slow James Street will be circuitous so I don’t know if it will be much better than walking, but it’s still an option that will be worth trying.

      10. Actually Poncho, the 14 Summit was the original 14 when the streetcars were replaced by trolleys and buses. The Mount Baker end of the route was actually connected with the 10 that went to Capitol Hill.

      11. Not only because of fewer trips served, but because a large portion of the trips that are served end up competing with walking.

          Which is why frequency is especially important for such trips. Basically the shorter the trip, the more important frequency is. Yes, some people will walk no matter how frequent the bus is, but there are other people who will do the opposite.

          The extension should help. Mike is right — there will be people who ride the bus as it wraps around to First and Cherry Hill. But the dynamics of that are complicated (because of the loopy nature of the route). In contrast, the extension downtown is fairly straightforward (https://maps.app.goo.gl/BNFTbWGnqor4YUpr8). That is a fairly straight route — every combination of trips works. For some trips there is competition and for other trips there isn’t.

          The route is similar to the one taken by the Capitol Hill Streetcar. It is not especially long. It goes through a very urban area. It has competition in some places, but is unique in others. The streetcar does poorly as a streetcar, but as a bus (or segment of a bus route) it does quite well (by our standards). But I could also see it fall apart if it isn’t frequent enough. If it ran every half hour it would only attract tourists, and at that point ridership would dwindle to practically nothing most of the year. Routes like this need good frequency to do well, otherwise people find alternatives (like walking).

      12. It is also worth pointing out that the cost per service mile isn’t that high because it is being tacked onto the 3. It is essentially just the cost of running the bus from 3rd and Virginia up the hill. Yet it offers more trips (because it is part of the 3). It also avoids having to layover downtown (which the city is trying to avoid).

      13. “Which is why frequency is especially important for such trips.”

          Right, but it begs the question of how much money Metro should be spending luring people off of their feet rather than out of their cars. Walking is already the cheapest, cleanest, cleanest, and most space-efficient form of transportation possible. The money spent to run a short shuttle route every 3 minutes rather than 10 could be used to run a longer bus route every 15 minutes rather than 30.

      14. @asdf2,

          “… it begs the question of how much money Metro should be spending luring people off of their feet rather than out of their cars.”

          Got a chuckle out of that one. Thanks.

          But you make a good point. Walking is more environmentally friendly than any other mode of transportation, except maybe a bike. And it is healthier for the person doing the walking.

          Should we really be spending scarce transit dollars trying to convince walkers to switch to a less environmentally friendly mode of transportation?

      15. > But you make a good point. Walking is more environmentally friendly than any other mode of transportation, except maybe a bike. And it is healthier for the person doing the walking.

          > Should we really be spending scarce transit dollars trying to convince walkers to switch to a less environmentally friendly mode of transportation?

          I know y’all are just being sarcastic here, but for anyone else reading, this is why VMT (vehicles miles traveled) is a better measure rather than analyzing the efficiency per mile. The latter is how los angeles ended up subjecting bus/bike lanes to intense environmental reviews for slowing down cars. Or forcing new apartments to widen streets to gain approval to be built.

      16. I used to despise all through-routing including the 14/47 and 7/49, because a delay in one part of the route would be transmitted to the rest. But as I increasingly started shopping in the eastern CID and Little Saigon while living on Capitol Hill, I found them convenient when I could get one (infrequent 14, evening/Sunday 7). The 3 extension replicates that model, although in the Jefferson corridor instead of Jackson.

          Other through-routes I grew to appreciate were the 26/28/131/132 (transfer in North Seattle for South Seattle), the 31/32/65/75 (Childrens/U-Village to Fremont), and the 11/125 (Capitol Hill to West Seattle). Some of those are gone now, or one route has been extended to serve the most useful part (e.g., the 31/32 extension to Childrens). But it gave me an appreciation for through-routes in general.

      17. “Should we really be spending scarce transit dollars trying to convince walkers to switch to a less environmentally friendly mode of transportation?”

          When the walk is long enough or steep enough to be inconvenient for people not named asdf2, yes. Untimately transit improvements will make the neighborhoods more vibrant and dynamic like high-ridership/walking cities, and that will increase both ridership and walking. And let’s not forget bike-lane improvements, which have a similar effect.

   6. It’s the driver shortage.

      Yes, this particular cutback is due to the driver shortage. But the overall low service levels in Capitol Hill are due to poor routing. The 10, 11, 12 and 49 will run every 20 minutes at best. https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/travel-options/bus/rapidride/g-line

      Jarrett Walker has this great post about how you can think of transit as rivers. https://humantransit.org/2011/02/basics-branching-or-how-transit-is-like-a-river.html. In this case Metro has decided to have a bunch of little streams trickling through one of the the most densely populated parts of the city instead of having a couple raging river (like other neighborhoods). It doesn’t have to be that way. It wouldn’t take much effort to consolidate the pathways and build a really good system. But they don’t.

      1. In fairness while those routes are infrequent they do pair with at least one other route to create river corridors… per future plans: 11 with 8 on John/Thomas, 49 with 60 (& 9) & FHSC on commercial Broadway Capitol Hill and 10 with 12 on Pike/Pine… but yeah they do become tiny streams branching off. Also in fairness light rail took a lot of the ridership away from the Capitol Hill trips northward and the Capitol Hill trips downtown. Bus service on CH is now largely feeder service to the station.

      2. Rather than connect the 49 to the 36, I’d like to see it continue down Rainier and serve the Judkins Park station. Metro could potentially delete the 4 south of Jefferson St in this scenario and have the 49 connect Rainier Valley with First Hill.

      3. @Broadway Bound: Metro’s current plan is for 106 to be shifted to serve Boren when the 49-36 (Rapidride M) merger happens, creating that exact connection.

         The 106 would go up Boren to SLU, and then cut west on Denny or Harrison to Lower Queen Anne, and it’s southern terminal would be Rainer Beach Station.

         The 105 would be extended to cover the Southern part of the 106.

      4. In fairness while those routes are infrequent they do pair with at least one other route to create river corridors

         Right. They form spines. Except the spines just aren’t good. They are too short, or have odd combinations (or both). Consider a few:

         1) Thomas/John between Madison and Summit. The 11 will run every 20 minutes, which means it can’t really be timed with the 8 (unless we plan on running the 8 every 20 minutes, in which case — Yuck!).

         2) Pike/Pine between downtown and 15th. This is probably the best combination but since the base line frequencies for both the 10 and 12 are twenty minutes the combination means ten minute frequency (which is good, but not outstanding). The nearby G runs every six minutes.

         3) Broadway. You have the 60, the 49 and the streetcar. They all take slightly different paths and never seem to cooperate to provide good combined frequency. Oh, and there is the occasional 9 and 43 too.

         There are also areas that have several routes but no spine:

         4) North of Madison between 15th and 19th. You have three buses to choose from (the 10, 11 and 12). The problem is, they are all on different streets! So close, yet so far away.

         5) The RapidRide G and the 2 will be very close to each other. But they don’t actually follow the same pathway. Again, no shared bus stops except for a tiny segment on Spring, where the (far less frequent) 2 has a chance to slow down the very frequent BRT.

         6) MLK and 23rd. You have buses running on each corridor (the 8 and 48) often very close to each other but rarely actually serving the same stops. Oh, and don’t forget the Central Area part of the 4 as well. For that matter you might as well throw in the 43, which runs along the same corridor as the 48, but so rarely it doesn’t add much.

         It just doesn’t work nearly as well as it should. I get why you might want to branch the 10 and the 12 at the north end of Capitol Hill. But at Pine? Look at item number 4 again (north of Madison, between 15th and 19th). This is an area with plenty of density: apartments, shops, even a hospital! Yet imagine someone trying to get downtown from there:

         They can walk over to 15th and catch the 10 which runs every twenty minutes. Or walk down to Thomas and catch the 11, which also runs every twenty minutes. Or maybe walk over to 19th where the bus runs (you guessed it) every twenty minutes. Or walk ten minutes to catch the new G. Or maybe walk ten minutes and go deep into a tunnel to catch a train one stop before exiting the very deep tunnel. Or maybe catch a bus to the station, except the 8 doesn’t run that often (and the stations are deep).

         The point is: All choices are terrible. These are for trips from very urban areas to downtown and the options suck, despite the prevalence of plenty of buses. It is easy to say “just take the train” but even in Manhattan, which has a much better subway system, and much shallower subway stations there is a much better bus system. That’s because a lot of the time the buses are just easier, especially for trips of this distance.

         Also in fairness light rail took a lot of the ridership away from the Capitol Hill trips northward and the Capitol Hill trips downtown. Bus service on CH is now largely feeder service to the station.

         Only because the buses suck! Oh, and the buses don’t do an especially good job of feeding Link (or anything else, really). A big reason is because they are so infrequent. The buses are such a mess that a lot of people just give up on them and walk really far to the station, even though a bus would be a lot more convenient. The current (and future) plans don’t seem to know what to do with Link. They are at various times redundant — connecting with Link but insisting on turning and going downtown as well. The 49 and 11 will both go by the station — and both go downtown. That isn’t exactly feeding Link, nor is it providing much of a spine, or doing pretty much anything resembling a positive pattern.

         I realize the various routes and choices are complicated, but let’s back up here and set some reasonable goals:

         1) Folks close to downtown (in very dense areas) have a frequent bus (or set of buses) to downtown.

         2) Those farther away (in places like Madison Park, Montlake or the north end of Capitol Hill) can take a frequent bus that will connect them to Link.

         3) There should be frequent transit along the main corridors (Broadway, 23rd, Thomas, John, Pine/Pine, etc.).

         Somehow the latest Metro proposal fails on all fronts. Yes, Madison Park gets a connection to Link. But it runs every 20 minutes! Same goes for those at the north end of Capitol Hill. Service along Thomas/John and 23rd is not as frequent as it should be because everything is watered down. The Pike/Pine corridor is OK (and again the best of the bunch in the area) but it is still not as frequent as Madison or Jefferson, because the 2 ignores it (while trying to mimic the G). In dense areas close to downtown you are stuck walking a long ways or trying to guess which 20-30 minute bus will show up next.

         It is way too easy to excuse these kind of mistakes. We look at the really bad frequency in this — the heart of the city — and shrug. We blame the driver shortage. We blame the lack of funding. Those are real problems and contribute to the bad frequency. But a lot of it is just bad routing.

      5. Rather than connect the 49 to the 36, I’d like to see it continue down Rainier and serve the Judkins Park station.

         That could work too. The advantage of merging with the 36 is that you save service hours. This is essential. The biggest problem in the area is bad frequency. By combining the 49 and 36 you can bring good frequency to the area.

         Metro could potentially delete the 4 south of Jefferson St in this scenario and have the 49 connect Rainier Valley with First Hill.

         They could do that anyway. The 4 is a relic from the past that just doesn’t make sense anymore. It is neither here nor there. It runs infrequently because you can’t justify running the bus more often. Because it runs infrequently it doesn’t pick up many riders. You are much better off just catching the 48 and then taking the 3/4 from Garfield. It increases the number of buses along this corridor, but doesn’t really help them. It is one of those buses that made sense when other buses also ran infrequently. Or it would make sense if the 48 was running every 6 minutes and was crowded. Neither is happening. It should be eliminated and the money should go into running the 48 more often.

         Same is true of the 43 by the way. It increases service along Montlake, which is OK, but not exactly the busiest part of the corridor. It makes for a one-seat ride from 24th to First Hill but riders will be much better off just catching the 48 and then transferring to the G. It should be eliminated and the 48 should run more often.

      6. @Broadway Bound: Metro’s current plan is for 106 to be shifted to serve Boren when the 49-36 (Rapidride M) merger happens, creating that exact connection.

         What plan is that? If you are talking about “Metro Connects” map, that isn’t a real plan. That is basically something that a handful of people sketched out in a weekend. I’m not saying there aren’t good ideas in there, but no one at Metro (or anywhere within the county) is looking at it as a long term vision. In contrast the goals (e. g. “More than 70 percent increase in service by 2050”) are definitely things that people are looking at and planning towards. But what the actual network will look like is anyone’s guess.

         But yes, it would be great if the 106 was sent to Boren. I think the highest priority though is better frequency (and sending the 106 to SLU would actually make frequency worse).

      7. > What plan is that? If you are talking about “Metro Connects” map, that isn’t a real plan

         Ross you really don’t need to repeat it over and over everytime, we get it you don’t like/trust it.

      8. “What plan is that? If you are talking about “Metro Connects” map, that isn’t a real plan”

         “Ross you really don’t need to repeat it over and over everytime, we get it you don’t like/trust it.”

         There’s no other comprehensive vision to refer to instead. If you dismiss Metro Connects, you throw away all long-term planning. That’s what Metro did in the 80s and 90s when it couldn’t see past the end of its nose and and left the thirty-year-old concepts to stagnate on the ground.

         Ross has innovative restructure concepts but they’re all single-district and get buried in the STB article archive; they haven’t been vetted by anybody except ourseives; and they’re never integrated into a countywide plan or a reference website where they can be easily be found. Metro Connects is the only reference point we or the rest of the governments/public have as a starting point for the target of long-range planning, levies, and getting the governments/agencies to implement it. If you just send the agencies piecemeal district concepts at different times, the impact of the first district’s gets lost when you focus on the second one. Seattle Subway has a vision map that serves as an unofficial reference point. There’s nothing comparable for bus routes at this time except Metro Connects.

5. Pierce Transit isn’t too surprising, getting rid of some peak busses and move said busses elsewhere in the system is probably for the best to better focus on better frequency and service hours.

   1. Except that these Runner rides cost between $50-80 per boarding and do not scale. That takes massive amounts of scarce transit dollars. If it’s popular, it’s a budgetary disaster. If it’s got such big wait times that people stop using transit, it’s a service disaster.

      either way it’s a terrible idea.

      1. Yup, the only way to prevent a service like this from blowing the budget is to limit the number of vehicles and let wait times balloon if too many people use it until nobody wants to use it anymore.

         Even Bainbridge Island, I once made the mistake of trying to order a ride on their on demand service and, when the wait time was an hour, decided to just walk the three miles to the ferry instead. If “microtransit” can’t even handle the ridership volume of Bainbridge Island, it can’t work anywhere.

6. Unfortunately the pool at McCollum Park is permanently closed…https://snohomishcountywa.gov/Facilities/Facility/Details/McCollum-Park-Pool-45

7. Stream runs a handful of trips between 5:30 am and 7:30 am and two handfuls between 4pm and 7pm, every 20 minutes.

   spSo it appears they are trying to directly compete with their free, largely empty, parking structure to connect to the Sounder and the 59X.

   I predict most will continue to park and ride.

   1. For people with cars, I agree, but there has to be some people in Pierce County that don’t have cars, otherwise, route 1, which follows the Stream route, but with more stops, wouldn’t get any riders. For people without cars, I can see the Stream bus being a nice upgrade over the local service offered by the 1 – but only for those living near an express stop. Of course, the buses will not run often enough for a transfer between local and express to be faster than just riding the local all the way.

      1. There are definitely people who don’t have cars in Pierce County. But this is geared towards folks commuting to Seattle or other points north, like Kent or Seatac. Very few people living in Pierce would take a job in Seattle without owning a car.

         The 1 is popular for local trips among non-choice ridership.

         Stream’s commute orientated service model is elite projection. Politicians who don’t ride transit trying to picture what might be useful for them.

      2. And Stream terminates at Tacoma Dome instead of continuing to downtown Tacoma, where many non-drivers are going. That would be fine if Tacoma Dome were a major village, but the only thing there is transfers, Freighthouse Square, and Tacoma Dome itself if you occasionally go to an event there. Meanwhile downtown Tacoma is just one mile further but you’ve got a last-mile problem to get to it.

      3. I agree with the conditions and problems as identified by Cam and Mike.

         It is again the tail wagging the dog for our local transit planning.

      4. Yeah, it seems flawed. Just to back up here, this is a peak-overlay. These are common. Metro used to have a bunch (but the pandemic and the extension of Link made them less common). The 301 was a good example. It ran when the RapidRide E was running every couple minutes. At that point riders don’t benefit for the increased frequency very much — it is merely designed to deal with crowding. The 301 was designed with that in mind. By running express it is the best of both worlds. It gave those riders a quicker trip to downtown (by using I-5) and it cost less to operate than yet another RapidRide E.

         So how does this compare:

         1) The Pierce Transit 1 runs every 15 minutes at best.
         2) The overlay will run every 20 minutes
         3) It won’t serve downtown, which is a major destination and connection point to other buses.
         4) It is definitely faster than the regular bus, but I’m not sure how much faster. It is still fairly long.

         It fails miserably in every regard. A bus running every fifteen minutes is nowhere near the point where you are worried about capacity. It is still well within the range where your biggest concern is frequency. You haven’t effectively increased frequency along the corridor — even if you are standing by a stop served by both (and are going to a destination served by both). You basically need to time the bus, and the fact that it runs every 20 minutes makes that difficult.

         It seems like the money should have just gone into running the 1 more often. The project reminds me of American streetcars, where the transit agency copies some sort of system in another part of the world without understanding why it exists (and does well there).

      5. Of course you could also say that this route is *not* an express overlay. It just happens to share the same road and a few of the stops along the way. It is mostly designed to get people to the Tacoma Dome in the morning, and back from the Tacoma Dome in the evening.

         OK, but why this route then? The 1 is a successful route that carries a substantial number of riders (a higher proportion of Pierce Transit riders than any bus in King County does). But partly this is because it is so long. In terms of ridership per hour it is good, but not exceptional. The 202 actually gets more riders per hour. With that in mind I’m not convinced they chose a good route for this.

         As I wrote up above, this does not enhance the corridor of the 1 very much. The main reason someone would take this bus is to get to the Tacoma Dome. That’s it.

         At the very least they should have considered other options that would have done more, and probably have cost less. For example, how about a 202/42 hybrid. It would start in Lakewood, work its way over (following the 202 path) until it turned north, going by the Tacoma Dome and then ending in Downtown Tacoma (following the 42 path). Both the 202 and 42 run every half hour — this bus would as well, opposite them. Thus a lot of existing riders would have double the frequency. Riders for the 202 would have a one-seat ride to the Tacoma Dome and Downtown Tacoma. I’m not saying that is the ideal route, but it seems like it would offer a lot more than this bus.

         This is just another reminder of how awkward the Tacoma Dome location is. Even during peak the various agencies are looking for ways to somehow work with the station. It is a shame Sounder can’t use the old Tacoma Station (downtown). I think the only practical solution is to run more buses to the Tacoma Dome, but not the way they are doing it. Rather than divert buses from the south to the station, they should extend a few more buses from the north and west to the dome. I probably wouldn’t do this all day long, but when Sounder is running (during peak).

         For example the 28 just loops around after following 12th. The 16 ends at the north end of downtown. Both could be extended while benefiting riders (who might be heading to the other end of downtown). Buses like the 2 and 48 could loop around and head to the Dome. This isn’t as straightforward (as the other extensions) but it would still form a better spine than the one now.

         Of course part of the problem is the streetcar. It isn’t frequent enough to solve this “last mile” (or last half-mile) problem. Nor does it complement the other buses in creating a good spine. You can see the problem on Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/DkicgPuUskevDPWM7. This is 7:00 AM, and you’ve just gotten off the bus. The bus stop is completely different than the streetcar stop. The streetcar isn’t very frequent and there aren’t enough buses to make the bus ride frequent either. You have to quickly make a decision and neither one looks good. The fastest option (by several minutes) is to just walk — even though it is 9 minutes. If nothing else that is annoying.

         In contrast compare that to a similar situation in Seattle. Imagine trying to get from around 19th & Madison to Tacoma (using Sounder). First step is to take the 12 (or the future G). Of course you could walk to the streetcar, but it is a ways. You could transfer to the streetcar, but the streetcar isn’t very frequent. So you just ride the bus downtown — but then what? The 12 (and future G) basically end there. You are still quite a ways from the train station. The difference is, you can catch buses that arrive in seconds that will get you there (or at the very least get you really close). For all of its flaws, the spine through Seattle is actually very effective for trips like this. I wouldn’t expect Tacoma to have something of the same caliber, but something that would result in a bus every minute or two (consistently) would actually do it.

      6. Agreed, Ross. They are looking at the 1’s ridership numbers, and deciding to add an commuter express to it. Except the 1’s ridership doesn’t need an express to the dome, they need more frequent service to downtown and beyond, to UPS and TCC.

         This may be me struggling with elite projection myself, but those that are more likely to have jobs and commute to Seattle aren’t likely to be on the stream corridor. Some, sure. But my guess (based simply on those I know who do it, which is hugely biased), is most Pierce residents who commute to Seattle live in downtown or the north end. If you want to serve them, fine. But not with this bus. It does them no good.

         My guess is they were thinking about equity and proving commuter service in the southend to balance out the T-Line feeding the dome for the downtown, Hilltop and a bit of the northend. Which is a good thing to do, but it’s not what the southend riders mainly need. They need more frequency all day, weekends and evenings on the 1.

         The 202 would be find as well, but it shouldn’t feed the dome. There is a Sounder Station and the 5XX already serving the peak commuter in Lakewood.

      7. They were trying to save the Stream project, which would have run frequently all day and had transit-priority lanes. When the budget couldn’t achieve that, they tried to at least do something as an interim step. I’m not sure if it was to keep the federal grant or it’s all they could afford locally without the grant. Some bird must have whispered in their ear that a peak express would be the best interim service. I can’t imagine why, since the Stream project was never like that and Pierce Transit has no other peak expresses.

         And why can’t they call it a peak express because that’s what it is, rather than pretending it’s a first-step toward BRT. BRT runs off-peak: that’s its point, to provide an all-day frequent transit corridor that allows people to downsize their number of cars. Three-quarters of people’s trips are non-work related. You need something that allows you go to go the store or church and other things, not just a 9-5 job. (Much less a 9-5 job in Seattle because the line stops a mile short of downtown Tacoma.)

      8. For the agencies, there are three key reasons to serve the Dome: connect riders to Sounder, connect riders to the 574, and to promote the facility ahead of a light rail opening (once 2030, now delayed to at least 2035). Possible major ST Express truncations at Tacoma Dome in 2035 could add more reasons, but the present “need” to serve the Dome is a fallacy of our own making. The Sounder is stuck there, yes, but the 574 can and should be rerouted to pick up Pacific Avenue. Regional light rail should go into Tacoma City. Regional buses should go into Tacoma City until then. Tacoma Dome is then irrelevant save for peak hour Sounder.

         Past studies of Tacoma Dome Station access showed that about 1 in 10 Sounder riders took transit to it. The vast majority drove alone, which reinforces Cam’s point. Sounder doesn’t generate all that many riders out of Tacoma, so I struggle with the idea of adding tails to Pierce Transit buslines in service of it. Furthermore, Pierce Transit plainly doesn’t have the resources to do that, as recent service cuts show. If anything, the agency should be focused on a lean arterial grid system that avoids duplication.

         That fabulously rich Sound Transit may force the addition of expensive tails on otherwise good local routes—further burdening an under-resourced Pierce Transit—is not good practice. A spine is a fine concept, but the City has no desire to implement one on Pacific Avenue where it would logically go. Market Street could host it, but it is no Pacific Avenue and is substantially uphill from premier city destinations and connections. Plus, no serious planning has been done to envision a Market St spine from what I can tell.

         I argue that riders taking transit to Sounder either need to transfer to buses or the T Line, or walk those blocks from Pacific Avenue or D Street. In essence, maintain the status quo. Note that Sound Transit promised us 10-minute T Line headways through the Hilltop project, but only delivered 12s. That impairs our status quo.

         Finally, yes, run the Route 1 far more often. However, this particular investment is chained to a Tacoma Dome detour due to Sound Transit 3 funding stipulations. It’s so fascinating that the T Line somehow qualifies as serving Tacoma City with regional light rail, and yet this busline was/is being forcibly deviated to Tacoma Dome to qualify for regional transit funding—even though it connects with the T Line in the actual city center.

         Tail wagging the dog.

      9. This may be me struggling with elite projection myself, but those that are more likely to have jobs and commute to Seattle aren’t likely to be on the stream corridor. Some, sure. But my guess (based simply on those I know who do it, which is hugely biased), is most Pierce residents who commute to Seattle live in downtown or the north end. If you want to serve them, fine. But not with this bus. It does them no good.

         I think that is a safe bet. The folks who are most likely to travel all the way to Seattle have good jobs. It just doesn’t make sense to commute from Tacoma to Seattle if you aren’t making good money (there are almost always similar jobs that are closer).

      10. John Bailo used to cite a Kent survey that half of Kent transit trips remained in Kent. So for all the people going to Seattle or Southcenter or Highline College or GRCC, a lot of people were just going between Kent neighborhoods. That’s doubly so in Pierce County where it can take a long time just to get tot he King County border, much less Seattle.

          At the same time, transit trips are biased by where the routes go and how frequent they are. If the routes aren’t feasible for your trip, you go some other way or stay home. You have to look at people’s total trips by all modes, however much that information is available.

8. Pierce Transit should have just stuck with BAT lanes for the route 1. I think trying to go for median lanes was just too complicated for their first brt. And complicating it is that pacific avenue is a state route 7 so it’s controlled by WSDOT.

   1. Even when they backed off and moved many of the median lanes, it was still cost-prohibitive. They really needed to just take a general purpose lane, instead of trying to buy up almost 300 different slices of property.

      WSDOT has a new complete-streets mandate that might provide some hope, though the attorney general recently ruled that legislation requires they must provide bike facilities on the actual highway, not on a parallel route (they were looking at A street, I think). If it forces WSDOTs hand to take a general purpose lane, that might be good for both non-motorized users as well as transit. But if they persist in keeping 2 fast general purpose lanes in each direction for personal vehicles, we will see the traditional bikes vs transit fight, and cars get a free pass.

      Given the both Tacoma and Pierce County have adopted Vision Zero goals, and the only reasonable way to achieve those goals is to slow cars down on roads like Pacific Avenue, and the only way to slow cars down is to remove the raceway aspect of the road with the 2 general purpose lanes, the solution is obvious. Well, the infrastructure solution is obvious, the politics is much messier.

      1. > Even when they backed off and moved many of the median lanes, it was still cost-prohibitive. They really needed to just take a general purpose lane, instead of trying to buy up almost 300 different slices of property.

         I agree, there were some easier BAT lanes even without expanding the road. For instance at 56th st https://maps.app.goo.gl/nBfrcHSbCKpg7ENJ8 the road is pretty wide at 64 feet. They could have built a southbound BAT lane. Or shifted it over for a northbound BAT lane. For other sections it looks like with some slight removal of parking it could have a BAT lane as well.

      2. Cam, would you mind linking to the attorney general guidance that you refer to here?

      3. Hey Troy! Someone mentioned this in a meeting of WRPC last week, when discussing Picture Pac Ave, iirc. Maybe Liz Kaster at the city? Or maybe someone at Pierce Transit. They were lamenting that it would hamstring the full rollout of the paused BRT. Assuming that 4 general purpose lanes were inviolate. Which is a pretty reasonable assumption, unfortunately.

         I don’t know if there is documentation, but I’ll see if I can dig something up.

      4. I reached out. I’ll what I can find out and let you know.

      5. https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=47.04.035

         The RCW sure seems like it would allow it. It seems to depend on how you define “adjacent”. Apparently Bob didn’t think the next parallel road was adjacent.

         That actually has implications for Aurora as well.

      6. They really needed to just take a general purpose lane, instead of trying to buy up almost 300 different slices of property.

         Exactly. That was the main problem.

      7. So the state makes sure arterial highways have a cycletrack, and ignore the need for bus lanes? Somebody needs to knock them upside the head and tell them the buses would carry more people than the bikes or cars.

      8. > So the state makes sure arterial highways have a cycletrack, and ignore the need for bus lanes? Somebody needs to knock them upside the head and tell them the buses would carry more people than the bikes or cars.

         It’s a bit more complicated than that.

         For alternatives 1) they could technically get an exemption, though if they are rebuilding the road there’s probably enough space. 2) Technically they could lower the speed limit to 30 mph (currently 35) and the threshold lowers for smaller bike lanes 3) t

         The law says as Cam noted https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=47.04.035

         a) Identify those locations on state rights-of-way that do not have a complete and Americans with disabilities act accessible sidewalk or shared-use path, that do not have bicycle facilities in the form of a bike lane or adjacent parallel trail or shared-use path, that have such facilities on a state route within a population center that has a posted speed in excess of 30 miles per hour and no buffer or physical separation from vehicular traffic for pedestrians and bicyclists, and/or that have a design that hampers the ability of motorists to see a crossing pedestrian with sufficient time to stop given posted speed limits and roadway configuration;

         and then over at section
         d) Plan, design, and construct facilities providing context-sensitive solutions that contribute to network connectivity and safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, and people accessing public transportation and other modal connections, such facilities to include Americans with disabilities act accessible sidewalks or shared-use paths, bicyclist facilities, and crossings as needed to integrate the state route into the local network.

         The law isn’t precise enough, so WSDOT then released a (June 27, 2022) memo to clarify what exactly would need to be implemented.

         https://wsdot.wa.gov/publications/fulltext/ProjectDev/ProjectDeliveryMemos/Memo22-03.pdf

         The most relevant section is “that are in incorporated cities, or in areas where active transportation network gaps have been identified in WSDOT (or local) plans, or overburdened communities exist, unless there is a compelling reason to not implement, and as approved by the Region Administrator”

         The actual design bullentin is here https://wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/DesignBulletin2022-01.pdf where it’s a matrix by speed, traffic volumes and number of car lanes.

      9. @Mike

         As a side note, I do kind of wonder would a bus only lane that allows bikes count? Also as a second question is WSDOT the final “judge”/arbitrator of what fulfills the requirements?

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