County Council Receives Update on Waterfront Shuttle

127 Replies to “County Council Receives Update on Waterfront Shuttle”

1. Having good connections from the north and south would be important. It should connect to busses on the north section of 3rd as well as Seattle center. Then south there should be a bus connection as well as ferry/light rail and train station. The challenge is getting these connections with the waterfront service while not meandering too much.

   1. Agreed. Basically you want a bus (or buses) from the northeast and southeast. From the south I think it is fairly easy. Any of the buses that cut across Jackson would to it (7, 14, 106, 36). From the north it is a bit trickier. You can cut across early, like the 70, but that means covering less of Belltown. That is the approach suggested by the streetcar extension. The 14/1 covers more of First Avenue, but doesn’t connect to as many buses from the north. I think it is just a trade-off and there no obvious solution.

      Personally I would probably go with coverage over transfers in this case. Even if the transfer was painless it isn’t clear how many would use it. For example let’s say I rode the 40 from Fremont and wanted to get to 1st & University. I would probably just walk. In contrast if I’m at 1st & University and want to get to 1st & Wall these buses save me the hassle of walking up to 3rd and then back down again.

2. I think a waterfront shuttle should be a standalone service. This would allow it to be tourist-oriented, and it could increase frequency during tourist season. It also needs to hit at least 1 destination downtown, for the folks who will have trouble navigating their way down to the waterfront. Ideally this would include a stop at westlake center or the hotel district, but for efficiency it could just be at 1st and Pike since most tourists will go there at some point anyway.

   1. I agree. The best approach would be the old streetcars. These are attractive to tourists and they used existing tracks. You didn’t have to worry about turning them around before the railroad tracks (since they on the railroad tracks).

      If that isn’t possible (and it probably isn’t) then the Waterfront Shuttle approach is fine. In terms of routing, it is pretty good. Pike Place, Pioneer Square, the Seattle Center and the waterfront are probably the biggest tourist draws. Getting from Pike Place down to the waterfront will be easier than ever (on foot). There are a few elevators as well (for those who are mobility impaired). I would say the only drawback to the current routing is that it crosses the railroad tracks, which can delay the bus. The alternative would be to turn around at the north end of the waterfront, but I don’t know how practical that is (and you lose the connection to the Seattle Center). If the bus can turn around at the north end of the waterfront, one alternative would be to loop around onto 5th (shopping!) and then connect to the monorail.

3. The one time I took the waterfront shuttle, it spent 20 minutes sitting in traffic, and I wound up having to run to get to King Street Station as the bus wasn’t going anywhere.

   The 99 extended to Seattle Center for a time, but in my experience this didn’t work because it got stuck at the Broad Street railroad crossing a lot. Also, the times I attempted to make use of it, it was 90 minute headways.

   1. > The one time I took the waterfront shuttle, it spent 20 minutes sitting in traffic, and I wound up having to run to get to King Street Station as the bus wasn’t going anywhere.

      I think that’s part of the problem, by having it be a separate “tourist” waterfront shuttle rather than a normal king county bus route, the delays and undercapacity when it is full aren’t taken as seriously

   2. The partial bus lanes along Alaskan Way would help. Our streets look vastly different from when the 99 or the G. Benson streetcar were running..

      1. The center lanes aren’t designed for a local route; they don’t have stops. In the original waterfront transit study, the center lanes are for the West Seattle buses that leave the waterfront at Columbia, and a waterfront shuttle would be in the outer lanes with local stops.

4. Routes like this are a challenge because their market is so different from a typical transit route. In particular, the trips are short so riders often stand. Plus, they need to be run frequently.

   This to me suggests that the type of vehicle used should be the primary consideration. It should be designed for easy and quick boarding. I picture something like a SF cable car (although I’m NOT suggesting a cable car).

   With this in mind, I would have suggested proposing a RapidRide G extension as an alternative. The unique RapidRide vehicles actually seem designed better for the waterfront use than a steep Madison Street use. Of course, such a move would require more of the bespoke buses — which likely keeps Metro from considering it.

   Even if a RapidRide G extension isn’t viable, the vehicles would still seem to be a good choice to use here.

   1. If you are suggesting the G Line turn north on Alaskan Way, where would it turn around? Also, wouldn’t extending the G Line to Broad street, for example, make the route more unreliable? I keep seeing commenters proposing extending routes (Extend the B Line to South Bellevue! Extend the A Line to South Federal Way!), then in some other post those same commenters will complain about long, unreliable routes that must be shortened.

      1. RapidRide G is a very short line! It will be much shorter than the other routes that currently run in the vicinity. So making it longer isn’t really an issue.

         However, the waterfront can get congested — not only because of tourists but also because of ferry traffic. So that could make RapidRide G more unreliable. It’s why the design details would need to be carefully considered.

         However, don’t discount my comment on the basis of RapidRide G. My comment is driven by the vehicle choice more than the routing.

      2. Turning around a bus for any waterfront route at the north end is an issue — even the ones being considered here.

         There may be a belief that articulated buses need more turning radio than standard buses. This is however not true. (“ The turning geometry of a 60-foot articulated bus is quite similar to a 40-foot bus…” https://nacto.org/publication/transit-street-design-guide/intersections/transit-route-turns/turn-radii/)

         It’s a good argument for a streetcar with cabs at each end, frankly.

      3. To me, the route, and not the transit vehicle type, is the most important part. Where will a newly created route will go? Which exact streets? Or, if some current routes will be extended, will that make the route as a whole much more unreliable? If it does, then that’s a dealbreaker.

         I remember that the old 99 bus route used to have just one terminal, in front of the former Four Seas restaurant on 8th and King, and it would do one big loop. West on Jackson, north on 1st, west on Broad, south on Alaskan Way, east on Yesler … then made its way back up to 8th and King somehow. Then at some point it switched to using 1st Ave in both directions. I believe both versions of the route had very passengers.

      4. Sam, if the reliability is your concern, you should oppose the three route extensions presented by staff here. Routes 125, 106 and a Route 1/14 alternatives being presented by Metro here are all much longer than my RapidRide G suggestion.

      5. Ok, then let’s look at the G Line suggestion. I’ll keep an open mind. Expand on your idea. On which streets would you have it go and turn on in your plan? After it gets to 1st and Madison, then what? And please don’t say that you don’t know, you haven’t thought it through. Think about it some more. Does it turn north on Alaskan Way? And then where does it go? I honestly want to hear your idea.

      6. The proposed “ revised Waterfront Shuttle Concept” already has it heading south/west bound on Madison street which is the same as the Madison brt/rapidride G

         Could have Rapidride G follow that same path and then rather than head back up north on spring st turn right onto Alaskan way. Then for the reverse turn left onto northbound spring st and just continue as before

      7. Short lines are hard to track with real-time arrival, and therefore can be hard to use. Once its delayed, its off schedule and you don’t know when it departs from the terminal… end up waiting for a long time for it to depart – this is the case with SLU streetcar, FH streetcar and many other short routes.

      8. @ Sam:

         I would have this not connected to any other routes, especially long ones like Routes 106 or 125. I think it’s better as a standalone short shuttle route.

         I would begin by taking a 30-foot low floor coach, removing more seats and wrapping it in unique branding. I would look to making it free too.

         I would put it on the waterfront, and work with the Port to figure out how to turn it around near but before the track crossing at Broad Street. As long as it’s near King Street and Linen Field, I don’t have a strong idea where the south end goes, and it depends on how it could be designed around the Pioneer Square area.

         If it got popular, that’s when I would look into possibly using higher capacity RapidRide G vehicles, like on summer weekends.

         First Ave is different than the waterfront. That’s where I would consider extending RapidRide G — all the way through Belltown with a jog to Seattle Center/ LQA. I would give up on the Center City Connector streetcar. I might even consider adding a Third Ave jog to Columbia Street to enable level boarding stops on Third Ave, before getting to First and heading north.

      9. Lumen Field (darned spell check)!

      10. Al, I like that idea. It solves the problem of how do residents and tourists travel up and down the waterfront via transit. And how do people get to and from a popular transit hub (CID/King Street Station) to the waterfront.

      11. The purpose of waterfront transit is to connect Pier 70 (sculpture garden), Pier 66 (Bell St), Pier 57 (Aquarium), the ferry terminal, and Pioneer Square to each other, and to a transfer point to the rest of the city. A route only north of Madison would serve all these except Pioneer Square. That might be acceptable. A route only south of Madison would leave most of these without transit.

          A 1/14 alignment on 1st Avenue would only marginally serve some of the waterfront trip pairs. You’d have to know where the elevators are, and you could only cross there. If you’re going from one part of the waterfront to another, say from the Aquarium to Pier 70, it’s a large detour to go to 1st Avenue and back.

          The shuttle isn’t just for tourists or summer months. The waterfront businesses and attractions are open year round, so people go to them year round, even if there aren’t crowds in winter. Having only a seasonal shuttle doesn’t fully address the transit issue.

          The Harbor Steps elevator is the only one right off 1st Avenue. There are two Harbor Steps elevators, one north and one south, and one of them is better for getting to the waterfront than the other. I think it’s the north one, but I’d have to recheck.

          The Bell Street elevator has been closed since 2020, doubtless due to lingering covid bureaucracy and work from home. At least it was still closed several months ago when I tried it, and I had to walk painfully down the stairs. So that cuts out a large swath of the waterfront. The Port may reactivate it when the waterfront route starts and keep it running, but how can we be sure?

5. Thanks Nathan for another great article. You are really breathing new life into this blog.

   My thoughts are like the others. The main part of the route is from Pioneer Square to Pike Place Market. One can almost walk that in the time it takes to wait for a “shuttle” and take it so I see this as mainly an extension of the tourist attractions along the waterfront and this route. So the “shuttles” need to look the part, be open to see out easily, and easy on and off with many stops. The cable cars in SF are a good example. Terrible transit but great tourist attraction. Same with the red double decker buses in London.

   I worry extending the shuttle to the Seattle Center is too far, there really isn’t much tourism between PPM and the Center, and it would be too slow. Better to have the shuttle get close to the Monorail for that trip, another tourist attraction in every guide book, and have the tickets for the shuttle work on the monorail.

   Two other considerations. One, cost has to be a factor. It can’t be as expensive as the SCC. Two tourists might not understand ORCA cards (who really does). There has to be an easy paper ticket for the trip or a certain time period that includes the monorail. I would also suggest the shuttle avoid the fight of taking a general purpose lane or two on 1st or folks will argue just run the shuttle on 3rd since it is dedicated to transit, but 3rd is the last place Seattle wants to direct tourists to. Time really isn’t the goal of the shuttle.

   Tourism brings in a lot of easy tax revenue so the ease of tickets is more important than the cost, and the cost should be a round number that is fairly low like $3 and available from a kiosk with credit card. The shuttles should be designed to exclude the homeless riding to sleep and having a fare ambassador on each shuttle or cable car is a good idea.

   Those are my ideas although I would likely walk the route.

6. I think the option of moving 1/14 to 1st Avenue is best. 1st Avenue is close enough for anyone to walk, and putting service right on the water eliminates half of the walkshed. This also seems like the cheapest option.

   1. The one open question is what ‘re-establishing bus zones’ on 1st actually entails. If it’s just a proclamation from hizzoner, sure. But I’d have to think there would be construction all along that corridor to bring it up to the necessary load carrying capability.

7. Al S. in the comments puts it best: “Routes like this are a challenge because their market is so different from a typical transit route.”

   A waterfront-oriented line would basically be a tourist route. When I sightsee in DC, I take the Circulator. A multi-line route operated by red buses that stand out from the rest of the fleet and rider info that’s easy-to-read. They’re filled with mostly tourists and conduct mostly one-directional circulators around the monuments and musuems.

   In Seattle. the waterfront line should:

   -operate to/from IDS, along Alaskan Way, Pier 66 and Westlake Station
   -run May through September
   -live loop at Westlake Station and layover at IDS
   -branded in different livery to stand out from the rest of the fleet
   -impose a whole dollar fare (i.e. $3 or $4) to eliminate the antiquated need for change.

   Though an extension of existing lines would be transit-efficient, it’s more confusing to tourists who would have to keep track or research multiple route numbers. Additionally, the majority of those riders aren’t going to the waterfront for fun but need to make transit connections along 3rd or going to work downtown.

8. Would also like to see a stop added on 2nd Ave between Pike and Pine for the 10, 11, 49 to serve the Pike Place Market and Downtown Target while also avoiding the filth at 4th & Pike and 3rd & Pine bus stops.

   1. Poncho: those routes have buses with doors on their right sides; that block has a narrow barrier between the traffic lane and the PBL; it does not have room for bus stops.

9. I’d advocate for an extension of some existing transit line 14/rapidride G/ 106 rather than a short tourist stub.

   1) capacity, with the moderately longer route there’s a lot more buses and capacity to handle tourists as well. a very short route will not be able to handle them at all, and then has turning around and bus layover issue if one wants to add more and more buses.
   2) reliability, the problem with keeping a tourist stub is that both seattle and king county will not take it seriously it is shunted as a tourist vehicle

10. I think the best approach for the waterfront is what M suggested (a stand-alone tourist-oriented bus route).

    I think the best approach for First Avenue is to divert a few buses there, and have them run in the center of the street (which is the plan for the streetcar). Work would also be done on Jackson, as outlined in the “RapidRide+” proposal:

    Strategy RR 3.3: Evaluate tradeoffs of converting First Hill Streetcar running way on Jackson Street to center-running transit-only lanes to allow for shared RapidRide/streetcar operations.

    That would mean buses (and the streetcar) running along Jackson as well as the new buses running on First Avenue would run in the middle of the street (like the RapidRide G will). This would require some capital spending, but likely less than that required to build the streetcar extension. We could apply to switch our grant from the streetcar to this project (like Providence did).

    This might require more buses with doors on both sides. It makes sense to add wire on First and run all of these under wire. That would mean a lot more trolleys with doors on both sides. This is actually good, as it could mean replacing the RapidRide G diesel-electric buses with trolleys. The reason we couldn’t buy them in the first place was because the order was too small. In this case the order would be much bigger. This would be expensive, but federal and state grants could help with the cost. In the long run the extra buses don’t cost us much because we eventually need all those buses anyway (the fact that they would be zero-emission also makes it more likely we get a grant). The RapidRide G buses could always be used as regular (RapidRide) buses (you just never open the doors on the left).

    It is possible though that you could run regular curbside buses on Jackson and/or First if you took the approach they are considering for Aurora. That would give you a lot more flexibility.

    There are a lot of routing options. I like the 1/14 option but I would probably add another bus. If the goal is good frequency on First then you want the additional buses to run at the same frequency (opposite the other buses) or have so many buses that it doesn’t matter (a spine). I don’t see the latter happening. So with the 1/14 you would want a similar bus. I could see the 27 or 62 working, even though they wouldn’t overlap the entire way. These run at roughly the same frequency, which means that the service cost for this project would essentially be nothing. You are just changing the routes a little bit.

11. Whatever is done, it should run often sp it works as an impulse ride and, as Jeremy and Ross advocate, it should have connections across routes from several areas of the city and an easy connection to Link.

    But I don’t think it makes sense to extend some existing bus to do it. The cost for sufficiently frequent headways would kill a line like the 106. Just run a shortie bus frequently from Lower Queen Anne down Queen Anne/First to Broad, down to Alaskan Way, south to Washington or Main and then loop somewhere at the edge of the International District.

    Run it every ten minutes during the day year round on weekends and major holidays, all day every day in summer including into the evening, and less frequently daytime only on weekdays the rest of the year.

    1. Run it every ten minutes during the day year round on weekends and major holidays, all day every day in summer including into the evening, and less frequently daytime only on weekdays the rest of the year.

       That sound fairly expensive. A tourist bus is one thing. It is like Trailhead Direct. By every metric is a terrible bus. But it doesn’t cost that much because they only run it a few times during the summer. Not only that, but it is seen as serving a different purpose. Instead of traditional transit (ridership versus coverage) it reduces parking at crowded trailheads (which is a problem for law enforcement) while also giving a few people a car-free way to get to a handful of trailheads.

       Same goes with the waterfront shuttle. It is designed to promote tourism. It really isn’t that difficult to get to the waterfront, but this is a nice extra feature that tourists (and some locals) would find attractive. The existing shuttle has the right idea. I could see the pathway being altered, but the timing (Memorial Day to Labor Day) and the cost (free) seem about right. Even the frequency (15 minutes) sounds about right. This is not what I call an essential service (there are other ways to get there, they just require more walking). It is reminiscent of the Discovery Park Shuttle (except this shuttle is free and runs a lot more often).

12. Shouldn’t we be discussing this?

    https://seattlewaterfront.org/free-seattle-waterfront-shuttle/

    1. It is mentioned in the post above.

       Its existence is also why I think an extension of a current line will be better.

       The frequency used to be 15minute but since traffic is so bad they rewrote it now to 25 minutes so people aren’t as disappointed.

       The capacity is also just insufficient

    2. I think the free waterfront shuttle is pretty good for the purpose, but it could use higher frequency as well as year-round reduced frequency. Having it run by the DSA(?) is a good thing because it means that it can have its own rules to be tourist-oriented and also not compete for drivers. So I think a partnership with metro is a good idea, and metro can just give them funds in return for increased service levels, and also ability to share stops with metro. Ideally 10 minute frequency during tourist season and 20 minute frequency off-season.

    3. That’s close to the route I like, so I’d support this too. But every 25 minutes is useless, and there are too few stops.

       Such a route is for workers on the waterfront and tourists. It should run every few minutes during tourist season. The F Market and Wharves runs about every seven minutes during rush hours and ten other times in San Francisco.

       1. It runs every 15 minutes.

13. The idea that a Seattle neighborhood shouldn’t have regular full-time transit is absurd. A waterfront shuttle isn’t just for summer tourists: it’s for everybody going to the buildings along the waterfront and the park at the north end. People go there year round, and not just tourists. People work in those buildings, go to restaurants, attend events, and go to parks.

    The DSA shuttle is a stopgap during the waterfront renovation, when different parts of the street are closed at different times, and people who would ordinarily go to the waterfront, don’t, because of the closures and uncertainty. It’s not a long-term solution, unless maybe the DSA wants to fund a 15-minute route full-time including evenings and won’t neglect it later.

    1. It’s also seasonal only. The web site says it’ll only be Memorial Day to Labor Day.

       1. The DSA has its own marketing goals. A Metro waterfront route needs to be year round.

       2. A Metro waterfront route needs to be year round.

          What existing bus service would you cut to pay for it?

       3. “A Metro waterfront route needs to be year round.”

          “What existing bus service would you cut to pay for it?”

          We’re not talking about reallocating service hours right now. We’re talking about some indefinite time in the future, when we don’t know how many service hours will be available. Obviously it should be added as additional service rather than taking service from elsewhere. Otherwise you’re just moving the underserved areas from one place to another, or robbing Peter to pay Paul.

    2. The problem is that the neighborhood is not that far from very frequent transit, and yet does not have enough potential ridership to warrant its own line.

       Just to back up here, there are plenty of neighborhoods without regular transit. Seaview Avenue (Golden Gardens) doesn’t have transit. The 37 is not running, which means a fairly large swath of West Seattle has no transit. When it did run it would only run during rush hour (peak direction). The 17 is like that. It runs four times a day which means Sunset Hill has practically no transit at all. Then there are buses like the 24. This is a classic coverage bus. Without it, riders would have a very long walk to another bus. The bus runs every half hour, but manages to get riders for that reason (there is no good walking alternative). In contrast if the 17 ran every half hour it would still have trouble competing with the 40, simply because the 40 runs more often and is not that far away.

       Which brings be back to the waterfront bus. If you run a bus every half hour (like the 17) it won’t get that many locals. But it is hard to justify running it every 15 minutes (or better) simply because the ridership is likely to be fairly limited. It is worth noting that the south end of the waterfront does have transit. At Alaska Way & Columbia you have the 125, C and H Line (along with some peak-only buses). That is quite a bit of service, really. This means that someone who wants to get to various parts of downtown can catch one of those buses. This includes ferry riders as well (although many obviously just walk). Thus many of the potential riders will take those buses instead of whatever you offer along the waterfront, even if it is relatively frequency.

       Then there are the railroad tracks. A bus that goes over that railroad tracks would be notoriously unreliable. I can’t see running an existing bus over the tracks as it would delay riders. This makes it different than First Avenue (or Fifth, or Boren, etc.) where you can divert an existing bus. That costs you nothing in terms of service. In this case there are really three choices:

       1) Extend a bus like the 106 to the north end of the waterfront.

       2) Run a shuttle to the north end of the waterfront.

       3) Run a shuttle up towards the Seattle Center.

       The first option would cost money with the 106, but might be cheap if another bus coming from the south was diverted there (assuming it doesn’t through-route). Of course this option would limit the value of the bus. All two-seat rides would involve going south. To get to Ballard, Greenwood or even the UW would mean going all the way south to Jackson and then heading back up north. It really only makes sense to catch this bus if you are quite a bit north of Columbia, which means you have to go quite a bit south before you can go back north again. Even though it is a bit of schlep up to First, that would be the faster option for almost all riders (and sometimes it would be a lot faster).

       The second and third options offer more, but they cost a lot more. A new route usually costs a lot more than just adding a bit to an old route. The third option would also suffer from reliability. Imagine you are headed to Ballard. You have to wait for the bus along the waterfront and even when you catch the bus it may be delayed (because of the train). Again, it is quite likely that walking will be faster most of the time. It offers more in the way of one-seat rides, but still not that many.

       Oh, and then there is biking. They are dramatically improving the corridor for bikes as we speak. This should make a big difference. Our bike share system sucks, but if I lived by the waterfront and wanted to get from one end to the other on a regular basis I would just pony up for the bike share. Or I would buy a beater bike and a decent lock (as long as I had some place to store the bike).

       None of these are big issues in the summer. Tourist buses can be notoriously unreliable or infrequent and be OK. They are really trying to solve a different problem. It is really a different category of service.

       1. “The problem is that the neighborhood is not that far from very frequent transit, and yet does not have enough potential ridership to warrant its own line.”

          Says who? What are you basing that on? How full does a bus run have to be to warrant its existence? The Waterfront Streetcar was a separate line, so was it unwarranted? The neighborhood is down a steep hill and a varying number of blocks away from frequent transit, or any transit. The fact that people are asking for transit in the neighborhood indicates that there’s a gap.

          “Just to back up here, there are plenty of neighborhoods without regular transit. Seaview Avenue (Golden Gardens) doesn’t have transit. ”

          You’re arguing that because one neighborhood is underserved, another should be underserved too? The goal should be a comprehensive transit network like other industrialized countries have, not leaving neighborhoods out because you think they’re not important enough, or pretending that it’s only summer tourists. That’s what encourages people to drive and to vote against transit, or creates extraordinary hardships for those who try to get there by transit anyway.

       2. “The problem is that the neighborhood is not that far from very frequent transit, and yet does not have enough potential ridership to warrant its own line.”

          Says who? What are you basing that on?

          Everything I wrote. We are talking about a very small segment of the city that would benefit and there aren’t that many people there. Not to justify a bus running every ten minutes, let alone every six. Keep in mind that a waterfront bus route only gets riders from one direction. So assume that we run buses on First Avenue and that the waterfront bus is just as frequent (which seems generous, but hear me out). The bus on First does not encounter congestion (it runs in the middle of the street). The bus on the waterfront has major congestion (even if it avoids the railroad tracks). The bus on First connects to various places north and south, while the waterfront bus connects to fewer places (since it is a shuttle). Oh, and remember that south of Columbia there are the West Seattle buses that serve the waterfront simply because it is “on the way”. So now you have a bus that competes with a similar (but faster bus) roughly two blocks away. If you are half-way in between it is at best a coin flip, which means you have to be really close to the waterfront to prefer the waterfront bus, and even then you might just take a fairly short walk (since it is well within the 400 meters that riders feel comfortable walking) to the bus on First. Oh, but what if you are on the other of Alaskan Way — well, it turns out fish don’t ride transit.

          It just isn’t worth it. Again, I ask: what would you cut so that riders along the waterfront can take a slower bus to avoid walking a couple blocks? The 28, which sits in the middle of one of the more ideal north-south grids in the city? It runs every half hour and now you want to run it every hour? How about buses to Magnolia, which also run every half hour. Or should we cut a frequent bus like the 7 or 44, even though we know way more riders would be hurt by that? While we are at it, why are we focused on this bus instead of something that would change the lives of way more people, like a bus on Boren?

          You’re arguing that because one neighborhood is underserved, another should be underserved too?

          No, I’m arguing that we don’t have any service to space. Obviously. Every example I gave has a more compelling argument. If we were running buses in various parts of town a lot more often then running buses along the waterfront would definitely be warranted. But that simply isn’t the case. At best this would be yet another bus that make the US a laughing stock when it comes to transit. They would not be particularly frequent nor fast, yet quite close to buses that are both frequent and fast (and a metro that is very fast and will soon be quite frequent). Running buses so close to other buses in this manner leads to a very infrequent network, which is a much worse problem.

          The Waterfront Streetcar was a separate line, so was it unwarranted?

          The Waterfront Streetcar was tourist transit, which is exactly what I am proposing for the waterfront.

          The neighborhood is down a steep hill and a varying number of blocks away from frequent transit, or any transit.

          In several cases it is not steep at all. In others there are elevators that can help people deal with the grade. That is assuming you go up the hill. A lot of people could just walk (or ride a bike) south, to where there is frequent transit (on Columbia).

       3. “there aren’t that many people there. Not to justify a bus running every ten minutes, let alone every six.”

          You’re not specifying your threshold. How full does a bus have to be to justify 10-minute service? Why isn’t an office building, the Port, a park, a hotel, condos, a cruise ship terminal, retail, restaurants, and the city aquarium enough to justify regular bus service?

       4. “The bus on First does not encounter congestion. The bus on the waterfront has major congestion.”

          They’re two different transit markets. It’s not reasonable to walk over to 1st Avenue and back to get from the aquarium to the Broad Street area, or from the ferry terminal to the Port/office cluster, or from the aquarium to Pioneer Square. These are the kinds of overlapping trips you support everywhere else, but not on the waterfront.

          And I don’t recall a lot of congestion on Alaskan Way. The congestion is mostly because of the construction closures and detours. The ferry now has its own queuing lane.

          I don’t care if the waterfront route is standalone or attached to a longer route. The initial concept was a standalone route because the waterfront task force designed it. It’s a placeholder for an unattached or attached route. We could attach it to the 106, since it has no expectation of going downtown anyway, so there are no transfers to destroy (unlike the 125, 70, or 40).

          “south of Columbia there are the West Seattle buses that serve the waterfront”

          They’re expresses there. They don’t stop between Jackson Street and Columbia Street. Some of them will go away in ST3. They don’t serve north of Columbia Street at all, which is where almost all the destinations are (Madison Street, Pike Street, Bell Street, Broad Street). The area they overlap in is too short to worry about redundancy. What matters is the longer area they don’t overlap.

          “Again, I ask: what would you cut so that riders along the waterfront can take a slower bus to avoid walking a couple blocks?”

          You’re pitting two goods against each other. We should add waterfront service, not take it from somewhere else.

          “why are we focused on this bus instead of something that would change the lives of way more people, like a bus on Boren?”

          We should have that too. Why are we focused on it? Because there’s only one waterfront. It could be a unique asset to the city that people could use if it had reasonable transit. Because we have to focus on transit in all areas, so we rotate between the waterfront, Beacon Avenue, Broadway, Henderson Street, etc, because we can’t focus on several simultaneously and we can’t leave any behind.

       5. “The Waterfront Streetcar was tourist transit”

          It was called transit, so people thought it was regular transit, and non-tourists used it.

       6. The old streetcar ran every 20 minutes. Transit that runs every twenty minutes is not that useful. For a typical trip a rider would be better off walking up the hill and catching a far more frequent bus. This explains why it only carried a little more than 1,000 riders a day. In contrast nearby corridors carried tens of thousands of riders. From a ridership standpoint it performed poorly. From a coverage standpoint it was OK, but since it was fairly close to other transit, it’s value in that sense was limited as well.

          From a tourist standpoint it was great though. It was definitely attractive. It made sense to use heritage cars for that reason. I’m sure there were locals who used it, but just not that many.

14. Fyi there’s a bit more details in the report page 20 and page 22 outline the frequency and the service hours needed for the a) Waterfront Shuttle b) Route 106 extension

    ## Waterfront Shuttle
    * 6 am to 11 pm
    * Every 20 minutes
    * Operational cost of 23,800 annual service hours
    * Complexity in finding layover station in uptown/belltown

    ## 106 extension
    Weekdays
    * 5 am to 6 am 30 minute frequency
    * 6 am to 7pm 15 minute frequency
    * 7 pm to 11pm 30 minute frequency
    * Operational cost of 21,300 annual service hours
    * Complexity of speed and reliability passing by sports events near lumen field
    * Similar issues with layover station

    1. Seattle City Council Transportation Committee Chair George Benson operated Mission Pharmacy at 19th Av E & E Aloha St. As such he was my neighbor and we shared a common interest in railroads. I was a trainman at Burlington Northern, often transiting the waterfront on yard transfer jobs between Balmer Yard at the north end and Stacy Street Yard at the south end. Benson had his work cut out for him getting the railroad to cooperate to fulfill his dream of running his imported antique Australian equipment over one of their two waterfront lines. But he eventually prevailed (and he helped me on the extension of the Burke Gilman Trail to 2nd Av NW, another story). The waterfront streetcar, Metro Route 99, was a great success. But under the regime of ignorant Mayor Greg Nickels, and his glib Transportation Honcho Grace Crunican all was lost. A “sculpture garden” just could not co exist with an established popular transportation service, and infinitely bigger tourist draw, if that is ones metric. Only in Seattle. John Crosby.

       1. @John Crosby,

          I feel bad for your friend George Benson. He did everything right, and he got a system put in place that was doing wonderful. And then it all got shut down for a sculpture garden with really bad art. Thank you Seattle!

          The WFSC was doing great. Paid most of its bills, and was second only to the monorail in farebox recovery.

          Then Metro replaced it with a standard bus painted to look like a streetcar and nobody was fooled. Not even the tourists.

          Ridership plummeted and the whole system got shut down. But now they want to bring it back? Ya, stupid idea,

          One has to wonder how many times this region can make the same mistake before we start to learn.

       2. “it all got shut down for a sculpture garden with really bad art”

          It’s not the sculpture park’s fault that the county failed to build a replacement facility.

       3. “The WFSC was doing great.”

          There was one major problem with it. It ran only every 20 minutes, and the single-tracking limited its frequency.

15. I don’t like the special shuttle idea. Routes that short, especially u-shaped routes, compete more with walking than driving, so without extremely high frequency (which would cost more than it’s worth), it ends up effectively being just a shuttle for the elderly/disabled, while everyone else just walks because it’s faster than waiting for it.

    An extension of a route that actually goes somewhere solves a lot of these problems by offering one seat rides to places beyond walking distance. It also costs less to operate because you don’t have to pay for a layover after every mile of travel.

    In the discussions above, it looks like the ideas have been around attaching tye waterfront to a route from the south, but what about east? For example, could route 8 be extended by taking Denny to Broad to Alaskan Way to Jackson? Traffic-wise, this could be bad without dedicated lanes, but geographically, I think a trip down the waterfront would fit with a bus down Denny very well. It it makes the route too long, maybe it could be split in Madison Valley, with the MLK section moved to some other route?

    Or, maybe route 32 could do the extension?

    Another option I’ve imagined from time to time is a version of route 70 that serves Seattle Center and the waterfront rather than downtown, but sending route 70 there is probably not viable until SLU Link opens to provide a quick downtown connection and, even then, I could see such a move being very controversial.

    1. Your route 8 from Denny-Broad-Alaskan is interesting. I’ve been thinking about the future of route 8, because the proposed move to Harrison and Mercer through SLU and uptown feels almost like a different route that doesn’t serve the northern ends of Belltown and Denny triangle, and there’s also been talk of splitting its N/S and E/W segments.

       We can have 2 separate routes:
       1. The existing route 8 through central district and capitol hill, but offset to Harrison through SLU and Mercer through LQA/uptown.
       2. And another route that serves the waterfront on Alaskan way, Broad street through northern belltown, and Denny through SLU, overlapping with route 8 through capitol hill.
       This speeds up route 8 without removing the slow service along Denny, and connects the waterfront with the seattle center as the shuttle does today.

       1. I’ve been thinking about the future of route 8, because the proposed move to Harrison and Mercer through SLU and uptown feels almost like a different route that doesn’t serve the northern ends of Belltown and Denny triangle.

          Agreed. If we ever end up with enough money to provide two routes like that it makes sense to keep the 8 (or at least everything west of MLK/Madison) and then run a different bus. In my opinion this other bus would be an extension of a bus that runs along Boren. After reaching Fairview the bus would head north to Harrison, then east until Mercer, then north along Mercer or Roy.

          Of course you would need bus/BAT lanes for a lot of this route, but that is true of the existing 8. That should be a higher priority than routes that don’t exist yet. For that matter we need higher frequency more than we need (frequency sucking) new routes. I would delay a route on Boren (even though it would get a lot of riders) until we have decent frequency on the existing buses (and we don’t).

    2. The (L)8? You want to extend the (L)8 to the waterfront? Yes it sounds (Gr)8 — connect Capitol Hill and SLU to the Waterfront…Kewel — but what an erratic thing it would be. Both routes have traffic congestion problems. So, WOW, let’s connect them. Then we can just throw away the schedule because it will NEVER be on time.

       This is not up to your usual high quality of ideas, asdf2.

       1. Well, I put the comment together imagining an idealized world of where it would be geographically nice to see a bus route go if we didn’t have to worry about traffic. In the real world, this would likely need bus lanes to work and maybe also a grade separated crossing of the railroad tracks.

          In any case though, the general principle still bothers me that because a particular route sometimes has bad traffic, a bus rider can never travel that route at all (except by walking), even when there is no traffic. This is not at all how driving a car works, and this phenomenon tends to lead to trips that have very high transit-time-to-drive-time ratios during off-peak hours. For example, because Metro is afraid of traffic on Boren, everybody who rides the bus has to detour to other streets, even when there is no traffic on Boren. Similar with Montlake near the U district, just north of UW station.

          Again, for this particular case, I don’t think service on the waterfront in general is high enough priority to be adding expensive service or fighting political battles over bus lanes. But, I still stand by the fact that in some idealized world where Metro had a ton more money and SDOT actually could install bus lanes on Broad and Alaskan Way, while moving the railroad tracks into a below-grade trench, then, yes, a westward extension of the 8 would make sense geographically.

       2. I don’t think traffic is the only issue. The geography isn’t great. The bus would be more or less making a loop (which is bad). For example a bus would do this (as part of the trip): https://maps.app.goo.gl/w73cUZfzwK18Zn9C9. This isn’t as bad as the streetcar — the loop is far more broad — but it is still less than ideal. In contrast if you ran the 3/4 down to the waterfront it would be going the same basic direction the whole time. Maybe a little bit back and forth (https://maps.app.goo.gl/w73cUZfzwK18Zn9C9) but not looping around like the 8. You could do the same thing with an Aurora bus (like the 5, 28, E) https://maps.app.goo.gl/xYzGhgC1P8ydNuw6A. The two could be combined to form a bit of a grid in the area. There is a limit to that approach, however. As you move further south it is simply not possible until you get down to Spring. It is worth noting that one idea for the RapidRide G was to go all the way to the waterfront (and thus connect to the ferries).

          Of course there is another way to slice the triangle and that is to approach from the west. One of the Magnolia buses could just stay on Elliott/Western. It could then dogleg to the waterfront or (as folks have suggested) and just continue down to the waterfront by the aquarium. That avoids the railroad mess, while still covering the waterfront area quite well (and quite quickly). The only big drawback to that approach is that it doesn’t connect well with other buses. As a result you are basically robbing Peter to pay Paul. Folks on that bus that want to get to say, Fourth and Pine now have a long walk after riding the bus or they transfer to the D before it heads up to Mercer. Neither is very appealing. If we had a lot more buses on 15th/Elliott I could see it working, but we don’t. Maybe if the D skipped Uptown and ran a lot more often it could work (the 8 could then be extended to Smith Cove (via Mercer) making that connection). But we don’t live in that world (there isn’t enough service).

          That pretty much leaves the buses from Queen Anne. It is not much different than sending the 1/14 to First Avenue, and it works out fairly well (https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ffe1kpiYEZzRgWrx5). If you are coming from upper Queen Anne, you cross the 2, 13 and D that can take you to Third (along with the 8 to take you Capitol Hill).

          From a network standpoint I think a waterfront bus comes down to some combination of those three corridors (which I’ll describe using examples): The 1, 3, 5. But do we want to do that? Are riders of those buses OK with having their bus diverted to the waterfront? The same questions apply to First, which then creates other questions: Do we want to divert buses to First and the waterfront? If not, then I think First is the obvious choice. Not only was it promised transit a while ago, but it would likely attract more riders. Riders on the waterfront would use it, whereas riders on First might ignore a waterfront bus (and walk to the buses on Third instead). But the other questions are tougher to answer. It is worth noting that First also has more options in terms of buses. Corridors like the 40, 62 and 70 could work.

          Personally I would just go with sending the 1/14 and maybe one other bus to First. For a revenue neutral approach I would send the 62 down to First as well. These are both fifteen minute buses which means that they could be combined for 7.5 minute frequency on First. This would give you plenty of good one-seat rides. Both connect to plenty of other buses heading down Third so riders from the north can easily transfer to go on the Third. Even though it splits fairly early, the buses work for other trips with a transfer. For example if you are at Uptown and just miss the 1, you can pick up the 2, 13 or D to get you to Lenora where you would pick up the 62.

          Ideally the bus would not follow Leonara/Blanchard, but Battery/Wall. This covers more of First and thus more of Belltown with 7.5 minute service since the split would be further north. To divert the 62 to Battery/Wall the bus dogleg over to 7th, via Harrison. Harrison is supposed to be a future transit street, and this would use one tiny part of it. You would need to add left turn arrows, but that actually makes it easier. Just paint the left lanes red (only buses can be in the left lane) and then add a detector (underground) for the left arrow and you are good to go. Some day the entire street could be for buses but that would work for now.

          If we have a bit of money then another alternative would be to send the 28 to First instead. This would require bumping up the frequency to every 15 minutes but that is justified for other reasons.

          That still leaves the waterfront and I can’t see serving it in the near future (maybe when we get automated buses). I see the advantages of more of a grid downtown, but consolidation has a lot of value as well. It is tough for a bus to compete with buses nearby that are really frequent. As the frequency of the other route or the distance between them increases it becomes more effective, but in this case First Avenue is not that far from the waterfront. The steep hillside complicates things, but that begs for more forms of vertical conveyance (more elevators). I think they are adding a few with the waterfront project, but I have no idea what is out there. (Some of these are unofficial and have limited timing. You can enter an office building on one avenue and exit the other.)

       3. For example, because Metro is afraid of traffic on Boren, everybody who rides the bus has to detour to other streets, even when there is no traffic on Boren.

          That is part of it, but part of it is that Metro lacks money, and has become very conservative with its planning. The RapidRide G restructure was the worst of both worlds. I get why they put off a new bus route on Boren. It makes sense to focus on increasing frequency. But they failed to do that as well! There is really no good reason for this. It is one of the reasons I wrote this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/08/30/high-frequency-network-surrounding-rapidride-g/. This does *not* have a bus on Boren, even though I very much support a bus on Boren. We need to get the buses back to decent frequency before we start adding routes.

       4. “because Metro is afraid of traffic on Boren, everybody who rides the bus has to detour to other streets”

          When has Metro said traffic is the reason there’s no bus on Boren? To me it seems to be for typical Metro reasons: tradition (buses are on Broadway and 9th), limited service hours (not enough to add Boren without subtracting elsewhere too far), and the lack of walk-up retail on Boren.

       5. “I would just go with sending the 1/14 and maybe one other bus to First. For a revenue neutral approach I would send the 62 down to First as well. These are both fifteen minute buses which means that they could be combined for 7.5 minute frequency on First.”

          They’re not coordinated. The only route pairs that are evenly spaced are a few like the 131/132 or future 10/12. The 62 can’t be coordinated until its near-bottom reliability is fixed.

          Other corridors that look like they should be coordinated like Pike/Pine aren’t. With three routes it should be able to reach combined 5-minute frequency, but in fact they come at random times, and evenings/Sundays they often come within a minute of each other and then there’s a 15-minute gap until the next bunch.

          And the 131/132 coordination is a fiction.

    3. As I wrote up above (https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/05/21/county-council-receives-update-on-waterfront-shuttle/#comment-932343) one big issue is the railroad tracks. This is what makes it different than First Avenue. It explains why even the extension ideas suggest coming from the south (106) and ending in Belltown. Ideally it would not cross the tracks. Otherwise you have reliability problems (which were noted in the report). Thus connecting to the north just doesn’t work.

       1. The bridge over the tracks on Elliott are great! It is a new network feature that could be used by a new route. It would be an alternative to crossing tracks at Broad Street.

          Using Western and Elliott could pose a challenge to get to destinations at the north end on Alaskan Way. However, a loop to turn a bus around at Broad Street (or maybe Clay Street) with no end layover could mitigate that.

          That’s where having a shorter line would be advantageous. The layover could be somewhere near King Street or the stadiums with no end layover needed.

          If Metro still felt like it was too short, I’d love to see a route go further, using Holgate to get to Beacon Hill or maybe further to Judkins Park or Mt Baker.. Think of it as the other half of a Route 8 “loop” in Central Seattle.

          Or maybe it can run to Lander on First (by Starbucks Roastery + HQ) and lay over near SODO station.

       2. The track crossing is at Broad Street. If the bus goes simply up to Pier 70 or a block or so south of it, that would serve the entire waterfront. It doesn’t have to go up to Seattle Center; that’s just a bonus wishlist item. Although if it did, that would allow transfers to the 8 without walking five blocks up a steep hill (as I have done several times). The sculpture garden is halfway up one hill block, so no matter whether the route is on Alaskan or Western/Elliott, there would still be a half-block elevation difference to it.

       3. One point is that Western/Elliott Avenues don’t have any bus service. It’s incongruous that some of the biggest residential highrise blocks don’t have bus service without going up a step hill. So it’s not just the waterfront that’s lacking. And a route on Western/Elliott would at least make waterfront-area transit better though not idea, and would serve the residential highrises that look like downtown but don’t have transit.

       4. “ It’s incongruous that some of the biggest residential highrise blocks don’t have bus service without going up a step hill. ”

          Mike, I agree. It’s part of a larger blind spot in our circulation planning. The vertical elevation changes in Downtown are the big circulation problem elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about or plan for directly. Not any transit agency, not the City, not the Port, and not DSA nor developers.

          Instead the action is piecemeal — adding stairs here and an elevator and walkway there. Maybe there is dialogue with a building owner about escalators — but the ones I see downtown were added decades ago (nothing recent). Add to that are the missing down escalators and pre-ADA smallish elevators at Link stations.

          I think it’s time for a Downtown vertical movement systems plan to face the issue directly.

          There are many ways to make things better. They just need to be coordinated and funded as needed.

          As our population ages, there will be fewer and fewer of us who can simply hike up steep hills. That’s especially important if we want thousands more people to live Downtown.

16. If route 125 is rerouted to Alaskan Way, how are people going to South Seattle College supposed to transfer to it? Get off a 3rd Avenue bus or Link, walk two blocks to the Harbor Steps apartments, go down the elevator, walk another block to Alaskan Way, cross the boulevard, and hopefully find a bus stop right there? We’ve been talking about the untolerably long transfers threatened between the 1 and 2/3 Lines if the CID/N-S station proposals go through, but this would be worse. And did I mention that the bottom of the elevator is inside a building on the east side of Western Avenue in the middle of the block, not visible from Alaskan Way unless you can see around a corner?

    1. It seems to me whatever gets rerouted to Alaskan (if that’s really necessary) it should be something that’s already running east-west so that transferring to it from most everything else isn’t a problem.

       Eg: something like the 7. But, you’d probably not want it to be the 7, since that already has so many other traffic problems.

       Maybe the 70? You’d have to figure out some way around the Broad Street crossing.

    2. Yeah, that seems like a strange choice. I could see doing that for the 21, since it runs on Fourth, so it could take a left on Jackson and then follow the waterfront. Maybe they would re-route the 125 to do the same thing. This would explain the talk about Pioneer Square issues with the bus.

       So far as I can tell, the 125 always ran close to the water. It used to take the viaduct, leaving it at Seneca and then up First until Virginia (connecting to the various buses and Link at that point). When the viaduct came down it just ran along First for longer (making that same turn). Now it goes along the waterfront until Columbia then doglegs to Third (where it soon ends).

       Odd choice to be sure, my guess is it was chosen because of the low frequency (and thus lower cost). But it doesn’t make sense from a network standpoint.

       At various points it used to run on 1st and then head east

17. It seems pretty obvious the city doesn’t want to extend the streetcar to the waterfront, but if it did, something like this Gomaco car has 100% door space, so would allow for quick boarding of summer crowds:
    https://www.gomacotrolley.com/Resources/pages/batterypowered-glendale.html

    A few of the products made by TIG/m would be appropriate too:
    https://tig-m.com/products

    1. Cute but wouldn’t it still need tracks? I thought the main issue for extending the FH Line was cost and much of that cost was attributed to track construction. Personally, if we lived in a transit-healthy era, I’d support a full-fledged extension of the current streetcar. But reality can only support a dedicated bus instead.

18. There is an editorial in today’s Seattle Times. Third Avenue plan in Seattle will further choke Pioneer Square | The Seattle Times

    Merchants and business owners in Pioneer Square object to more buses and a bus terminal in order to “revitalize” Third avenue. Sometimes I think transit advocates miss the inconsistency in their argument that cars on streets can create a negative pedestrian experience (think Pike Place Market) but buses don’t.

    I could see businesses along 1st Ave. arguing that if the “shuttle” is just going to be a repurposed Metro bus serving areas outside the waterfront with part of the route along 1st or the waterfront with any kind of frequency it will be a detriment to the waterfront and make 1st Ave. no different than Third Ave., and the better solution in that case is to just have tourists walk up to Third and catch one of the many buses. Ruin one Avenue, not two. Keep First and the waterfront pedestrian focused. Most will walk the route anyway.

    It is a losing argument that tourists shouldn’t use Third because it is too dangerous and unpleasant, which is why SDOT and the DSA are looking at ways to make it safer and have fewer buses on Third, but then tell the businesses along First or along the waterfront that a regular Metro bus will be a pleasant shuttle or trolley.

    The prior trolley had very good ridership. It also looked the part: on rails, touristy looking, easy to get on and off. The route was very short. The vast majority of riders were tourists, before the homeless began to use buses to sleep or others to do drugs. I think it would be a mistake to simply reroute a regular Metro bus to First Ave. and claim that is the “shuttle”, and I would expect the merchants to object just like the merchants in Pioneer Square are objecting to more bus traffic.

    Either the shuttle is about tourists – and the massive revenue they bring in – or it is about through “transportation” and “transit”. In the latter case just tell tourists to catch a bus on Third with regular bus riders, and try to clean Third up, and leave First alone so at least those tourists who want to walk the route won’t have a lot of buses on First. Do no harm to the waterfront and First should be the first priority.

    At least that is how I think businesses west of 3rd will think, and it is west of Third where the green shoots are downtown because Third is so unpleasant and dangerous it divides the city between east of Third and West of Third because no one wants to cross Third on foot.

    1. I read the article but I don’t really understand why they really want the northbound lane, the parking is still remaining. To the south you can literally only be coming from one block because it ends. 2nd avenue is already southbound

       https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/transit-program/3rd-ave-s-and-s-main-st-bus-stop

    2. So you are saying that businesses along First Avenue now oppose the streetcar because it will make First Avenue like Third Avenue (which is somehow ruined by transit)? I don’t buy that at all. I think they keep pushing for the streetcar, even though it is really a poor plan (for various reasons). In terms of the effect on the street, running buses down first would be similar to the streetcar (they would be under wire). In terms of cost it is much cheaper. Not only in capital, but in service (since buses would simply be diverted from Third).

       The only realistic option for changing Third is to make it part of couplet. Run buses on Second and Third or Third and Fourth. Then you could widen Third, which is the main issue there. Oh, and add bike lanes. There are buses on Second, Third and Fourth but bike lanes only on Second and Fourth. If Third is slower recovering then the key is obviously to add bike lanes.

       1. I live on Second. I lived here during the pandemic when Covid and a dead downtown led many to leave. I pay a special LID tax for the waterfront park. For the first time in 4 years I am starting to see some green shoots west of Second, although the loss of the office worker has hurt. But we are cut off from east of 3rd by 3rd. That makes for us a very small usable downtown from 2nd to the waterfront.

          If cost is the ultimate issue have tourists and others use 3rd. Frequency on Third between Yesler and Pike is excellent. There is also Link with station entrances on 2nd. The additional cost? Zero. Don’t blame those of us who live west of Third and never use Third that Third is a wasteland.

          If the goal is to provide transportation to tourists and waterfront users then I think the “shuttle” itself needs to be a tourist attraction too. That isn’t a standard Metro bus. Ugly overhead wires make no difference to the impact on the street.

          I would rather see no shuttle than regular Metro buses routed to First. Tourists have the money to afford Uber for such a short ride or can walk. Transit riders have Link and Third.

          What I don’t want is for SDOT and Metro to ruin 1st (or Pioneer Square) like they did Third. ST buses were supposed to be gone from 2nd five years ago when East Link opened and those buses were removed to 2nd. People on this blog are worried about their trip THROUGH downtown Seattle but we live here.

          Keep buses on 3rd. Hurry up and open East Link to get those buses off 2nd. Eliminate downtown buses, certainly on avenues other than Third, don’t add more. If tourists need a shuttle then find a tourist shuttle. Or skip a shuttle altogether. But don’t call a Metro bus a tourist “shuttle” and stick in on 1st that already has terrible congestion.

          Don’t force me to pay a LID tax because the waterfront park is suppose to increase the value of my condo and then try to solve the problems on 3rd by moving buses to 1st or claiming a Metro bus with ugly overhead buses is a tourist shuttle.

          We had a waterfront trolley. It was popular. So we know what one should look like and how it should operate and what tourists like. Or save the money and have tourists and residents alike use Third even if Harrell knows Third is a turn-off for tourists.

          I’ve got maybe two usable blocks downtown from 2nd to the waterfront because 3rd is my backyard. Please don’t ruin this small area with the only vibrancy downtown trying to “save” Third. Third can’t be saved so focus on what can be saved. My LID tax isn’t for a Metro bus on 1st.

       2. > Metro bus with ugly overhead buses is a tourist shuttle.

          King county metro just uses the standard buses the rest of north america uses. beyond that it’s just paint, I’m just kinda confused that you find them that unattractive and the tourist shuttle somehow exceedingly beautiful when it’s also just a regular airport/hotel shuttle bus.

       3. A few things:

          1) Transit service on First or Alaskan has basically nothing to do with Third. If they ran a streetcar on First then the buses on Third wouldn’t change at all. If they extended the 106 they wouldn’t change. If they diverted the 1/14 then things would change on Third, but very little.

          2) In general they aren’t trying to move buses from Third. They are thinking about various options to make Third wider (which would require moving buses) but it really isn’t the number of buses on Third that makes it difficult to widen the sidewalk, it is the amount of space. Moving a handful of buses to other streets wouldn’t help at all.

          3) There is no evidence to suggest that transit hurts a street. What little evidence there is suggests the opposite, but mode doesn’t matter that much (https://www.governing.com/archive/transit-oriented-development-doesnt-need-transit.html).

          4) First Avenue service is less about tourists than regular transit users. While streetcar proponents definitely mentioned the tourist benefit from the streetcar, they were quick to point out that it was more about transit for regular users (who don’t want to go up to Third). Pairing buses like the 1/14 would essentially cost nothing, but provide for a better transit network. The routing would be fairly straight — every possible stop-to-stop combination is plausible. In contrast the streetcar path up to First Hill would be short and squiggly, which we know is bad.

          5) From a service standpoint, a bus route on First would cost nothing. You are simply detouring buses that would otherwise run on Third. There is some capital cost, but it is relatively small (moving wire isn’t that expensive) assuming that we can build bus stops with only curbside doors. Adding buses with center-running buses would cost more, but still a lot less than the planned streetcar.

          6) In contrast, running buses on the waterfront would likely cost a substantial amount because it is unlikely that a through routing bus (like the 1/14) would be diverted. Even if it was the added congestion would be a very big problem.

          First and Alaskan are really two different issues. First is more general transit (and largely because we promise the neighborhood that) and Alaskan is more about tourism. The issues do influence each other since reasonably frequent service on First would cut into the ridership of a waterfront bus even more.

       4. You’re conflating buses on 3rd with sketchy people on 3rd. They’re two independent issues. Moving the buses away from 3rd wouldn’t necessarily move the sketchy people, so 3rd would still be a wasteland you don’t want to cross. And that’s your decision not to cross it, not that you can’t.

          The increase in sketchy people on 3rd in 2020 was due to pandemic disruptions and the increasing availablility of fentanyl, and “entrepreneurs” discovering a market for stolen goods. None of that has anything to do with buses.

          The direct argument against buses is that a wall of buses is “unaesthetic”. But unaesthetic buses and sketchy people are two different things. I find a wall of buses aesthetic, like the streetcar corridors in the early 20th century, and it warms my heart that so many buses gives me so many choices where to go right now. Of course the buses themselves could be prettier and less polluting and quieter, but that’s an argument to improve the buses, not eliminate them.

       5. “People on this blog are worried about their trip THROUGH downtown Seattle but we live here. ”

          I live two blocks from downtown, if downtown ends at I-5. Much of my shopping and restaurants are downtown. When the waterfront renovation is finished, more of my recreation might be there too. (P.S. That doesn’t make me a “tourist”.) We’re thinking of both the experience living downtown, going to downtown, and going through downtown.

       6. “But don’t call a Metro bus a tourist “shuttle” and stick in on 1st that already has terrible congestion.”

          A “tourist shuttle” would be on Alaskan Way. A bus on 1st would be a regular bus. The impacts aren’t that big:

          1. One shuttle concept would be one van every 20 minutes. That wouldn’t make any difference in congestion.

          2. A 1/14 bus route would be one bus every 15 minutes. That wouldn’t make any difference in congestion either. In 13 out of 15 minutes, you wouldn’t even see a bus.

          There’s no proposal to move several routes to 1st, or a lot of routes to 1st. In the 1980s until around 2011, all the Ballard and West Seattle routes were on 1st. That was around a half dozen routes. There hasn’t been a proposal to recreate something like that.

       7. “ugly overhead” probably means trolley wire. Some people object to that. Or the unclear wording may just be an editing mistake.

       8. “they aren’t trying to move buses from Third.”

          SDOT and Metro aren’t. The Downtown Seattle Association’s concepts would like to move some buses from Third to other downtown streets.

          The overall Third Avenue transit plan involves consolidating routes into more RapidRide lines, fewer other routes, and restructures that would eliminate some one-seat rides to downtown. The net result would be fewer buses that are more full on Third.

          However, the inadequate Move Seattle and the pandemic disruptions have left the proposed RapidRide conversions in doubt (e.g., 7, 40, 62), and Metro has pulled back on some proposed restructures (2, 3/4-Yesler, 8-Madison, 49), so it’s unclear how much appetite is left for consolidation and restructures.

    3. To get from the north end of the waterfront to any bus stop, it’s 5 blocks: cross Western, Elliot, 1st and 2nd. In my experience, Elliot isn’t even possible to cross on foot because no auto drivers on it will stop for pedestrians at the crosswalks. I’m a visitor to that area, I find the experience quite miserable, and there’s no way I’m wasting $50 on Uber to go somewhere there should be transit service.

       Every single one of those buildings has workers, sometimes residents, and visitors beyond tourists. All of them are people who might need to get somewhere without driving.

       Believe it or not, the vast majority of those on the buses are just people just like you trying to get somewhere.

    4. Continuing in open thread 50, with a link to the Seattle Times article.

19. I think we should wait a few years after the completion of the waterfront to discuss this. There are many E-W connectors going in and that may solve any issue. Also, based on how busy the waterfront is already, I’m not sure we need to cater to tourists but perhaps something for the locals?

    1. The waterfront will be substantially complete later this year with finishing touches through early 2025. Service changes like these generally take at least year to plan and implement through the County’s budgeting process, so now is the time to participate in the plan development process.

20. I think the rise of large apartments in Belltown and associated business of retail, restaurants, and bars along 1st and 2nd avenues there, would make frequent trolleybus service along 1st pretty popular. Wire is only missing from 8 blocks between Lenora and Broad (see King County GIS map of trolley wires, here: https://hub.arcgis.com/datasets/89711c92d7b0423ca910c12871587c72_399/explore?location=47.599883%2C-122.331484%2C17.97).

    In PSQ, curb lane restrictions on 1st could be mitigated by building bus station curb bulbs with lightweight plastic platforms; the restrictions get a bit harder to avoid along Jackson due to the streetcar terminal station taking the center lanes. In that case, there will have to be some cost/benefit comparison between shoring the curb lane around the streetcar station so buses can get around it and erecting trolley wire on Yesler between 3rd and 1st. If trolley wire is brought back to Yesler, the northbound station at Yesler and 1st could reactivate the historic streetcar station there, which would be neat.

    Due to the constant interruption of the railroad crossing, congestion around the cruise terminal, and narrowness of the servable corridor, it seems unwise to subject a fixed route to Alaskan Way. A public-private waterfront shuttle seems like a much better investment. Do cruise passengers get ORCA cards with their tickets like Climate Pledge event attendees? The Port of Seattle boasted nearly a million cruise passengers passing through Seattle last year (https://www.portseattle.org/news/port-seattle-completes-record-setting-2023-cruise-season), so a small fee on cruise tickets landing in Seattle could fund a Waterfront Shuttle between Pier 91, North Belltown/Space Needle, Alaskan Way and PSQ/King Street Station.

    1. I agree. I said as much up above. Regular trolley buses on First (in the center lanes) and a tourist bus for the waterfront.

       You’ve dug into details and mentioned some things that make the case even stronger. It wouldn’t cost much to add wire on First (while being free from a service standpoint). Service along the waterfront will be very congested and unreliable, even before you get to the railroad crossing. There are no plans for bus/BAT lanes north of Columbia (from what I can tell). This makes it well suited for tourist buses (where reliability is less of an issue).

       My big question is how practical it is to run curbside buses on First (in this manner). I would assume that is not the plan for the streetcar (since the streetcar has doors on both sides). But I also don’t see it as being especially difficult on First (unlike Madison). Madison has short triangular blocks as it gets past Broadway. In contrast First is pretty simple. The one exception is close to Pine and Stewart, but you would probably have buses to the south of Pine (close to Pike Place) and north of Stewart.

       Good point about Jackson west of Third as well as the option of using Yesler as an alternative. This is another advantage to using buses (they are more flexible). One of things that is great about this approach is that improvements can be added later. As I wrote up above, ideally you would run buses on Jackson in the middle of the street as well. Likewise if you added bus lanes along Alaskan (north of Columbia) then you could run more consistent, frequent buses there (assuming you figure out how to deal with the railroad tracks). Even the streetcar is a future possibility. I don’t think Seattle will ever need streetcars along the existing pathway but you never know. Maybe in fifty years the demand for surface transit is so big that you need big streetcars (much bigger than what we have now) running every five minutes. That would take extra work, but at least the wire would be there (and some history of transit along the corridor).

    2. The Ballard and West Seattle buses were on 1st Avenue until around 2011. That’s the ancestors of the (Ballard) D, 40, (West Seattle) C, H, 21, 125, (West Seattle express) 37, 55, 56, (Ballard express) 15X. All these combined gave frequent service on Belltown and lower downtown. They were all diesel so they didn’t need trolley wire. The trolley wire was north of Broad Street for the 1, 2, and 13. So we could do something like that again.

21. For the railroad crossing problem, I was wondering about using Elliot Ave (southbound) and Western Ave (northbound) instead of Alaskan Way north of Pike place market.

    I guess the main drawback is that while Elliot Ave isn’t too far from the waterfront Western Ave is a bit farther for those wanting to heat north. But generally besides that using the new bridge and couplet seems to work fine.

    1. Or another more outlandish idea is a roundabout right before the railroad tracks and let the buses turnaround there lolol

       1. You mean Broad & Alaskan? That would be weird since it isn’t really an intersection. I mean it is, but not for cars. You could add one at Alaskan & Clay, but don’t think there is enough room. It does look like you could turn around at Pier 69 (https://maps.app.goo.gl/JPdUVtQuBxyYFtWX7) but you would have to get permission (and make sure the road can handle a bus every 15 minutes). You would also need to add a light so that the bus could turn left there (maybe triggered by the bus). I like the Elliott/Western idea better.

    2. I mentioned doing this Elliott/Western routing above. I like the idea of considering it.

       If the north end was a non-layover loop the uphill issue to get to Western goes away. Elliott would be just a few hundred feet from north Alaskan Way with just a modest slope.

       I had the idea of turning the route at Clay Street to skip the Broad Street cross traffic. Maybe it could even lay over on Clay right above Elliott (sacrificing some parking spaces).

       1. > If the north end was a non-layover loop the uphill issue to get to Western goes away. Elliott would be just a few hundred feet from north Alaskan Way with just a modest slope

          Another idea I had was just adding a contraflow northbound bus lane to Elliot Ave. Then the northbound direction could also be close to alaskan way.

       2. I wouldn’t do contraflow on Elliott there. The signals are timed in one direction. A bus going in the other direction would keep hitting red lights. Then the bus may need a place to turn around there as well.

          The beauty of the couplet routing is that it can set up a looping operation.

          The situation could be enhanced by running a bus vehicle with left handed doors. It’s partly why I suggested RapidRude G vehicles. Certainly there could be other novelty bus vehicles used with left door boarding capability.

       3. Good point. Both the shuttle and 106 extensions show the bus ending at Western & Broad. If it was a shuttle then it could easily do a live-loop through there. The bus would layover down by Pioneer Square somewhere. At the north end of Alaskan Way it is fairly shallow from the water to the Elliot Avenue, then very steep to Western (https://maps.app.goo.gl/cLrDF5r2bp43GSFa6). If riders didn’t want to deal with the hill they could just wait for the bus to loop around. As you head a bit south it gets steeper, but there are pedestrian crossings over the railroad tracks. This also has the benefit of getting riders a bit closer (and/or roughly on the same level) as Pike Place Market. As you get close to the split it is basically flat. Thus you could add stops there on Elliot (by the hill climb) and it would still be close to the aquarium.

          Even if the shuttle went farther up to the Seattle Center (like it does now) there would be riders who ride the bus round the loop to avoid the hill. Either way it sounds much better than running across the tracks. Speaking of which, it is kind of bizarre how shuttle doesn’t do that. It uses the Elliot Way branch and then turn south on Wall to get back to Alaskan Way (so that it can stop in front of the trains). I get that there are destinations there, but they aren’t major and the walk up to Elliot is pretty minimal. You could dramatically simplify the route AND avoid dealing with the trains by skipping all that. I know this is a tourist bus, but still.

          Wait, now that I look at it, this may not be the final map. They say that the route has not been published for 2024 (this is 2023). So maybe this is the plan all along, in which case, kudos to them. It does seem like the best routing.

          The only sticky problem remains congestion. Join the club.

       4. @WL — I was thinking that too. A contraflow lane could be an option, but for a bus like this I don’t think it is terrible to just tolerate a live loop. Those that are in a hurry will just walk the block between Elliot and Western (even if it steep). Those that aren’t will just loop around (even if it means looping around to the Seattle Center).

          The main advantage of contraflow is avoiding congestion, but in this case you aren’t avoiding very much (only a small section) and it isn’t clear this is the most congested part. Even though it isn’t a major project it isn’t a trivial one either, which means it is probably not worth it (not for one bus that as of now only runs in the summer).

22. Nathan history piece: Route 99 was shifted from Alaskan Way due to the SDOT seawall construction project, not AWV demolition. Routes 16 and 66 also lost their layovers on southbound Alaskan Way south of Madison Street.

    The 2018 report was very weak. It included errors. It could have been divided into two potential futures, with and without the CCC Streetcar. If we are to build new ETB overhead, I hope it is used by more service. Service concepts should recognize SDOT turn restrictions and the impact of BNSFRR trains on Broad Street reliability. It would be best to shift already funded routes to 1st Avenue from 3rd Avenue. Extended routes or new routes take new hours and operators; both are scarce.

    1. Thanks for the history on the Route 99 construction specifics – I’d forgotten about the seawall work being the first of the major waterfront construction projects.

       >It could have been divided into two potential futures, with and without the CCC Streetcar.

       Although I wasn’t paying as much attention back then, it certainly seems like the City was very bullish on the streetcar until the cost estimates exploded in 2018, so it’s not surprising that the 2018 report (likely mostly written in 2016-17) didn’t consider a future lacking the CCC.

       Agreed that any new ETB overhead should have very frequent service.

    2. There was no backup plan if the CCC didn’t pan out, because of course it would be completed. SDOT did agree to make the center transit lanes bus-compatible to leave the option open for future bus routes, but it was doubtful there would be any routes or what those routes might be. The closest was an unofficial concept of a 1st Avenue route from Seattle Center to SODO. That would connect Seattle Center, Belltown, Midtown, Pioneer Square, the stadiums, and some SODO jobs.

23. My gosh I randomly checked the website tonight and the topic is my old beef about lack of public transit along the waterfront. After living in the area from 1997-2022 and then moving to Winslow I still deeply care and miss the Benson trolley.
    I believe a tourist related small and frequent bus is needed. Alaskan Way now no longer goes the length of the waterfront and kind of dead ends at the Aquarium. Some posters don’t seem to know that.
    People who used the free transit provided in the past also usually had baby strollers and tended to be in family groups. They rode short distances. They were having a good time and it was not the same vibe as on a metro bus.
    Travel time was not that important. So you are stuck in traffic, the point is to see things and riding the bus provided a good opportunity to look around. Its the journey as well as the destination.

    1. “Alaskan Way now no longer goes the length of the waterfront and kind of dead ends at the Aquarium. Some posters don’t seem to know that.”

       It goes to Broad Street like it always did. The wide boulevard turns away from the waterfront at the aquarium, but that’s no longer Alaskan Way; it’s in the viaduct right of way. The part we’re talking about is the northern waterfront where the Port building, the Edgewater Hotel, and Pier 70 are. They still have entrances on Alaskan Way and still have a street.

       The northern waterfront is phase 3 of the waterfront redevelopment project, which hasn’t started yet.

       1. “The northern waterfront is phase 3 of the waterfront redevelopment project, which hasn’t started yet.”

          That’s a point. We don’t know what the northern waterfront will be turned into, but whatever it is will probably have construction closures for years. So we may have to delay a waterfront route until that’s done, or it will get caught in construction unreliability.

24. Is there any real reason for the C to go all the way to Eastlake?

    I was wondering if maybe that could do something like Roy – 5th – Broad – Western – Alaska, with layover space somewhere near the south end of Alaskan. .

    It would be kind of a tangle, but it wouldn’t break any existing connections and almost give a loop set of connections to transit in all directions. The waterfront would be connected to Seattle Center, which would be good for tourists.

    1. So basically this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RMhCVDq4D5tX5BKZ7. Is that right?

       If so then it does seem to break some connections. Aurora buses (E, 5, 28), 62, 40, 70, SLUS, various routes coming from Capitol Hill that wouldn’t go quite far enough west (10, 11, 49) and of course, Link. The 1/14 makes a lot of these connections (but not all of them) because it crosses in the south. Thus north to south transfers (e. g. northwest to southeast) happen down there. Greater downtown is basically a trapezoid — a rectangle with the northern section pushed west. Buses like the 7, 36 and 14 can easily cross all the northern buses without detouring, whereas buses from the north are bound to miss some connections or double back on themselves (like the 8 as asdf2 suggested).

       From a connection standpoint First is better. You will still miss some connections, but not by as much. For example a 1/14 shifted to First Avenue misses the Pike/Pine buses. But not by much. If they add center lanes for First Avenue and a southbound bus stop on First between Pike and Pine the buses could connect seamlessly (same stop transfer). Same goes for the RapidRide G (which is what they had in mind with the streetcar). That isn’t perfect, but what remains is relatively rare, and the distance a person has to walk for a transfer is not as big with a bus running on First instead of Third.

       You would also have to do a lot of right-of-way work on the waterfront (otherwise you make the C unreliable). I think there is a lot of value in having the C run up Third to South Lake Union. It combines with the 40, which as of now only runs every 15 minutes. I would like to see it eventually get to ten minutes and then combine with the C (which runs every 10) for 5 minute headways along there. Until then, the C is the more frequent option. In contrast 5th has the 3/4, which is more frequent than the C (running every 7.5 minutes). You wouldn’t gain that much from the additional service along 5th. You create some new trips, but you also lose some.

       In general I would say the biggest transit problem we have in this city is that the buses run infrequently. There are three reasons for that:

       1) Not enough money spent on service.
       2) Poor routing.
       3) Not enough right-of-way.

       If a bus can avoid traffic it can run a lot faster, which in turn means it can run more frequently. It is clear that we can have that on First Avenue (that is the plan with the streetcar). It isn’t clear we can have that on the waterfront. Thus sending the 1/14 to First is essentially free from a service standpoint and takes advantage of right-of-way that we have mostly paid for. It is right to focus on the fact that buses can’t run curbside. But what that implies is that they can run in the middle of the street. They tore up the street to enable this. We should take advantage of it.

       1. Not quite like that, I don’t think. Maybe my browser isn’t showing the map correctly.

          I suggest sort of a q shaped route. The C would do everything it currently does, only as it heads north on Eastlake it would turn left before it gets to the current end of the route. The only spot deleted would be the very north tip, which it shares with the SLUS. It winds up being only two or three stops that would be dropped. It then goes west, then south back to the waterfront, and terminates there.

          Rather than lose connections, you gain a few. Eg: D, 24, 32 and 33 riders gain an east-west route somewhat further north than the 8 that connects LQA and SLU. Belltown and north waterfront get connections to everything going north that’s west of Eastlake.

          One confusing part for people would be that it would serve Alaskan twice, in two discrete sections,

       2. “It is clear that we can have [priority right of way] on First Avenue (that is the plan with the streetcar).”

          Only if the streetcar is built. The center lanes are part of the streetcar plan for the streetcar, so if the streetcar isn’t built, that plan goes away too. It would be a harder task to get transit lanes approved for buses. This is not the 3rd Avenue transit mall nor a peak-express corridor (like on 2nd/4th/5th); it would be taking lanes from cars for one or a few a few regular bus routes.

          “It isn’t clear we can have that on the waterfront.”

          We can’t. The center transit lanes don’t have bus stops or space for them. They’re for the West Seattle buses to express to downtown. The only stops are at Jackson Street and on Columbia Street. The roadway was designed for a waterfront bus in the outer lanes in mixed traffic. Making those transit-priority would violate the state’s mandate for four GP lanes and one ferry-queue lane, and there’s no space to add two more lanes without encroaching on the bioswales and ped/bike lanes.

       3. There’s also a desire to shrink the 7-lane segment of Alaskan Way. The street is designed to be shrinkable, but that would be if the transit lanes go away when WS/Ballard Link starts. Those are the only two lanes that aren’t state-mandated.

       4. Only if the streetcar is built. The center lanes are part of the streetcar plan for the streetcar, so if the streetcar isn’t built, that plan goes away too.

          But it is the same basic thing. It is pretty easy to adjust the plans, just as it is to move bus routes around. A lot of the hard work has already been done. They tore up the street (replaced the plumbing) and now the middle of the street would be OK for transit, regardless of the type. You would still need to run wire (either way) but it is much easier to run buses than adding rail at this point. They could even apply to switch the grant the same way that Providence did.

          The only tricky part is the bus stops themselves. Can we do the weave (https://i0.wp.com/seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/segment1_busway-1.png?w=986&ssl=1) or do we need to have bus stops in the middle of the street (as was the plan for the streetcar)? I see no reason why we can’t do the weave. But even if the stops are in the middle of the street it still works, it just costs more money. We would need to buy a bunch more buses. But as I mentioned up above, this could be combined with replacing the RapidRide G buses as well (thus generating a big enough order for them to actually make the buses). This would mean electrifying Madison and running transit along First in much the same way you promised in the first place, which means the prospect for grant money (to pay for the buses) seems highly likely (as long as a Democrat is President and Murray is still a Senator). Call it BRT if you want to (and add off-board payment). Even without all that it should work.

       5. There’s also a desire to shrink the 7-lane segment of Alaskan Way.

          I don’t see that happening. I know this bugs the hell out of some urbanists but the lanes are essential for the ferries. The lanes aren’t there for through-traffic; they are there as an extension of the ferry parking lot. The only way they shrink the street is if the car ferries get moved (north and/or south) in which case the state would get involved. At that point shrinking the street (but retaining the BAT lanes) would be possible. I would love to see that but I don’t think it will happen anytime soon.

    2. “Is there any real reason for the C to go all the way to Eastlake?”

       The C was extended to Eastlake when the city realized one streetcar wasn’t enough for all the highrises growing in SLU. Both the city and the transit agencies and transit fans missed it. The C and D were initially through-routed due to the limited RapidRide budget, with a downtown alignment like the C. They were split to restore direct Ballard service to lower downtown and Pioneer Square, which was lost when the C/D were created. The SLU crisis was recognized at the same time, so the C was extended to it.

       But it doesn’t have to be the C. The advantage of the C is a one-seat ride and good travel time from West Seattle to SLU, so that’s one less transit problem to worry about. But downtown-SLU could be served another way, and most other areas don’t have a one-seat ride to SLU.

       (Downtown-SLU also has the 40, 62, and 70. The 70 is being upgraded to RapidRide J, so SLU will have two RapidRides. There’s no reason the H couldn’t be extended to it. You could say the J is the most “natural” RapidRide line for SLU, since it’s the middle of the route rather than an extension. That wasn’t possible in the 2010s when the J didn’t exist and the 70 wasn’t as frequent as it is now. But handing over SLU from the C to the J may be a strategic realignment.

       Well, it’s happening anyway in the long-range plans. After Ballard Link the C is likely to become a West Seattle-Burien line, with several alignment concepts floating around.

       1. The C seems much less busy north of Republican, so it seems like chopping off the last two stops or so wouldn’t be that big a problem, and in fact giving it a few stops after the left turn onto Roy / etc would better serve a few of those big new buildings.

       2. You could consolidate service to Westlake by moving the 70 but it doesn’t seem worth it to me. That would leave a pretty big gap east of there (7 blocks or roughly 700 meters). It would be less of a problem if there was no freeway (and riders could head north or east to catch a bus). The freeway really screwed up the Cascade neighborhood in a lot of ways.

          I could also see the 62 shifted to Westlake, but it has the same problem. On the one hand it really isn’t far from Westlake to Dexter. The problem is that riders along Aurora have very limited pedestrian crossings and many are not wheelchair accessible. If Aurora really does change and become more like a normal street (with normal crossings) then I could see the 62 being shifted to Westlake. It would be nice to increase the amount of vertical conveyance in the area, but that is true regardless of the buses.

       3. The C seems much less busy north of Republican, so it seems like chopping off the last two stops or so wouldn’t be that big a problem, and in fact giving it a few stops after the left turn onto Roy / etc would better serve a few of those big new buildings.

          That seems like a different routing. Hopefully I have this right: From West Seattle the bus would just follow the existing routing up Westlake to Harrison and then turn west, towards the Seattle Center. Then it would turn north on 5th to Mercer or Roy and then head west to Queen Anne Avenue and layover close to the 8. That sounds pretty good. I could definitely see that as a way of taking advantage of the Harrison transit street. You retain all of your existing connections and the vast majority of the existing trips. Riders heading north to the lake (e. g. MOHAI) would prefer taking the 40 or the streetcar, but they might just take the C and walk a few blocks. Going south the 40 diverges from the streetcar, but it is the same idea (either one works). So you don’t lose that much. Meanwhile you connect Mercer/Roy with crossing bus service. It definitely adds a lot, both in terms of one-seat and two-seat rides. For example Uptown to Fremont becomes a lot more straightforward. There is a lot to be said for it.

          It would still cost money though. In that respect it is like a bus on Boren. Great idea, but where you gonna get the money? To be fair, it wouldn’t cost as much as service on Boren and would set the stage for it in the future. The advantage of a route from Boren that crosses Harrison (and then does the same thing) is that it crosses the 70. Thus Uptown to Eastlake/UW becomes a much faster two-seat ride than today.

       4. “You could consolidate service to Westlake by moving the 70 but it doesn’t seem worth it to me… I could also see the 62 shifted to Westlake, but it has the same problem.”

          The huge transit demand is to the SLU neighborhood in general, not to Westlake Avenue in particular. The 62 and 70 pick up those people going closer to Dexter or Fairview Avenues, or taking the first bus that comes.

       5. > The C was extended to Eastlake when the city realized one streetcar wasn’t enough for all the highrises growing in SLU

          There’s multiple reasons but one moderate reason is that after the ballard split the rapidride C had to turn around somewhere as well as layovers. Near downtown is too hard to find space for the buses so they ended up going near SLU sometimes already for layovers so they decided might as well make it an official with bus stops.

          As an aside if it wasn’t for the university bridge I’d suggest they just through run the rapidride C and the rapidride J

25. See shuttle maps from the Metro report. Figure 1 shows a conceptual shuttle. This would require new service subsidy, buses, and operators; all are in short supply. Figure 2 is for a conceptual extension of Route 106. What? Is Route 106 not already long enough? This would also require new service subsidy, buses, and operators. Does Route 106 need to get stuck in event traffic on South Jackson Street or WSF traffic on Alaskan Way? How would it go westbound on South Jackson Street given the areaways? Neither the shuttle or Route 106 shows a solution to the needed turnaround loop and layover space. So, has the report provided any help?

    1. So, has the report provided any help?

       No, not really. At least not in my opinion. A lot of the ideas here seem to be occurring independent of the study. For example the idea of a waterfront bus using the new Elliott Way to Elliot Avenue/Western (all the way to Broad) solves a lot of problems. The closest thing to it is the shuttle that ran last year (not any of these proposals).

       I suppose it has helped in confirming the problems with some of the ideas. Extending the 106 would cost a lot of money and make the route unreliable. Metro doesn’t think you will get that many riders with a bus along the waterfront. The 1/14 could be sent to First if we find a way to run the buses in the middle of the street. I agree with all of that.

       In other words the study doesn’t go far enough, but it does confirm what a lot of people have talked about. If you can run down the middle of First Avenue than the service cost to send buses like the 1 and 14 through there is essentially zero. Likewise if we sent other buses there (like the 62). That only leaves the waterfront, and buses on First would steal a lot of its potential value. I think the best solution for that is to just continue the tourist shuttle bus (which comes out of a different set of money, has different livery and only runs in the summer).

    2. “Figure 2 is for a conceptual extension of Route 106. What? Is Route 106 not already long enough?”

       It also contradicts the Metro Connects concept of rerouting the 106 to Boren Avenue and SLU. Ask RossB how much a north-south route on Boren is needed. I could also use it to get from Pine Street to Little Saigon and Harborview; there’s currently no northwest-southeast bus route.

       It’s hard to take the ideas of rerouting the 106 or 125 to the waterfront seriously; it seems half-baked and inconsistent with Metro’s other reports. If the 125 is rerouted, South Seattle College no longer has a regional transfer point.

       There was already a “Monorail 2” proposal to route the Ballard-West Seattle monorail to Alaskan Way. It fizzled for the same reason the East Link Vision Line did: you can’t expect people to walk several blocks from 2nd-3rd-4th to transfer, even with an east-west peoplemover in between.

26. The waterfront streetcar was stolen from us with a lie — “temporary closure” — and should be restored. It’s the option that provides not only transit, but is itself a grand improvement to the waterfront.

    Don’t tell me it’s off the table and can’t be done. Just do it.

    1. The space for the tracks is already repurposed. The waterfront task force was against a waterfront streetcar because the tracks would eliminate space for a cycletrack or natural areas (bioswales). Those are under construction. So where would you put the tracks? You might say take a street lane, but WSDOT is adamant that it must have at least four GP lanes and a ferry-queuing lane, and the only the lanes are two bus lanes.

    2. @Doug Holland,

       The Waterfront Streetcar worked great and had fantastic economics. Its farebox recovery was second only to the monorail’s, and far higher than Metro’s. It was an asset to the waterfront.

       But Metro replaced the WFSC with a diesel bus that was painted to look like a waterfront streetcar, and nobody was fooled.

       The tourists stayed away from it because tourists almost never take the bus for reasons of perceived crime and inconvenience. And not enough locals ever used the WFSC for purely transit reasons to make it economically functional as pure transit.

       So the bus failed and was shutdown. And now somebody wants to bring it back?

       Why? Oh, why? Why can’t Seattle learn from past mistakes?

       1. “ The tourists stayed away from it because tourists almost never take the bus for reasons of perceived crime and inconvenience. ”

          There is a segment of the tourist universe that perceives all transit to be risky of crime and convenience. There is a segment that is fully comfortable using any transit – like many tourists from Europe or Asia or a big East Coast city. How a vehicle is branded won’t significantly affect the willingness of these segments of the tourist universe to use any transit service.

          There are more nuanced tourists who may feel safer or more assured for convenience on some modes but not others — like willing to use light rail but not a local bus. These people most likely won’t feel more unsafe of a tourist shuttle; I expect that they will perceive such a service as safer and more convenient than most other transit service out there. That would be aided by drivers trained to advise and interact with tourists.

          Just look at San Francisco’s cable cars. Anyone who is able but not willing to ride one because it is “transit” with safety and convenience issues will likely not ride any other transit vehicle either (unless the wait is insanely long and that is unlikely for a waterfront shuttle here).

       2. Once I stayed at Fisherman’s Wharf and attended a conference downtown, and I found that all modes — cable car, F streetcar, 8 bus, 30 bus, Van Ness bus — all took the same 20 minutes. The 8 was the closest, so that’s what I took back in the evenings.

    3. “tourists almost never take the bus for reasons of perceived crime and inconvenience”

       I can’t believe tourists think tourist-oriented bus routes are crime havens. The image of a crime bus is a run-down vehicle going through a lower-income neighborhood, and tourist-oriented buses aren’t that. The issue is more that buses are boring; it’s like being in a car but not as good, and they could do it at home or anywhere, whereas they want a special experience here. Since real streetcars and metros are so rare in the US, that makes them unusual and special where they exist.

27. If the 62 would follow its former routing by serving King Street Station and terminate in the ID, we would be in good shape.

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