Widespread bus restructures begin today (September 14) on King County Metro, Sound Transit, and Community Transit around the new Lynnwood Link extension and RapidRide G line. On Monday the long-awaited bus ramps on highway 520 open in Montlake. Pierce Transit and Everett Transit had minor changes earlier this month.
September 14, 11am – 3pm: King County Metro is hosting a RapidRide G opening day celebration on 19th Avenue between Madison & Pine. “Enjoy refreshments & entertainment, grab swag, & sign up for an ORCA card.”
September 14, 5pm – 7:30pm: The Urbanist is hosting an opening day celebration for the RapidRide G Line.
More below the fold.
Bus Restructures
South Seattle Metro Changes
Along with those mentioned above, Metro is making other changes. For a full list and detailed description, see the Metro Service Change page. Here are some routes not mentioned above:
- Route 101 will no longer travel on Pike St or Union St instead serve Olive Way and Stewart St
- Route 102 will no longer travel on Pike St or Union St instead serve Olive Way and Stewart St
- Route 125 has maintains 30 minute weekday service and increased to 30 minute Sunday frequency
- Route 131 & 132 have mildly adjusted trip times maintaining somewhat 15 minute frequency when interlined
- Route 150 will no longer travel on Pike St or Union St instead serve Olive Way and Stewart St
Other Agency Changes
Pierce Transit had some minor schedule changes on September 1st with added trips to Route 3, Route 41, and Route 100.
Everett Transit had some minor schedule changes on September 8th.
520 Ramps
WSDOT announced starting Monday, September 16 new direct access ramps will open for transit and HOV 3+, along with new turn lanes and an all-way stop on the Montlake lid. King County Metro might use the new transit off/on ramp while the bus stops on Montlake lid are not ready and will be used at a later date.
Route 255 from Kirkland to UW as well as Route 271 from Bellevue to UW could utilize the new HOV/transit ramps to avoid the freeway off and on ramp traffic
Are you riding new or changed routes today? What is your experience? This is an open thread.
I rode the RR G at 6 am. this morning. Of course there were very few people up and around to use the bus. There were a number of Metro employees out and about troubleshooting some opening day glitches like bus and stop signage. It will probably be a few days before bunching and weaving etiquette confusion gets cleared up. But it is already a great bus product. All of the Metro folks were upbeat and excited to get the route rolling. It turned an hour trip to buy groceries to a 27 minutes including shopping time. Congrats Metro!
A sad day for many Bus20 users who will now not have adequate or safe bus service. SaveBus20Service.com
As I’ve written many times, the best solution is to get SDOT to allow buses to run on 56th (https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/03/20/improve-buses-on-the-east-side-of-green-lake/). Then the 62 would be faster and cover more of Tangletown. This is something that Metro would welcome! I can’t emphasize this enough. Plans to “save the 20” have gone nowhere because they ultimately would hurt some other neighborhood. But if you actually got SDOT and Metro to cooperate and build what Metro wanted in the first place, it would be cheaperfor Metro, and thus benefit everyone.
Look, I get it. I understand why people are upset. But the folks there are ignoring the way to fix it.
Yes, diverting Bus62 to Latona at 56th Stree would help but it still leaves hundreds stranded or without safe bus service, as we’ve documented. Many North Seattle College students will now have 90 minutes of daily commute to/from school, including unsafe long walks in the dark at night, versus 30 minutes of daily commute with Bus20. UW students in East Wallingford will have long, unsafe walks in the dark to commute to/from school. Many K-12 and preschool students & teachers will now have inadequate bus service. Many Seniors and disabled persons will now have long or impossible walks to bus stops to access shopping, health care and light rail. We need both Bus62 and Bus20 service.
@James W Little,
Moving the #62 over to Latona/56th doesn’t really solve the problem. All it really does is move the transit desert from Latona over to Kirkwood/Meridian. And it reduces service to Greenwood Elementary in the process.
And it doesn’t solve the key problems created by deleting the #20. The #20 provides direct access to Link at U-Dist Station, and it provides a one seat ride between the UW and North Seattle College. People depend on those two things. Playing games with the #62 route does nothing to solve either of those problems.
People build their lives around access to transit. Metro shouldn’t be so cavalier about upending their lives. I in particular feel bad for the young woman in that video. She was finally getting a taste of freedom of mobility, and now she has none.
Jarrett Walker’s #1 key transit attribute is coverage. Deleting the #20 violates his key principle, and for no good reason.
Transit shouldn’t be an us vs them game. Transit isn’t a zero sum game. Metro currently has a plethora of underperforming routes. Adjusting frequency slightly on these routes would free up more than enough resources to maintain coverage throughout this city.
Metro needs to do it. Because what they are doing now simply isn’t working.
Metro should listen to Jarrett Walker.
“Jarrett Walker’s #1 key transit attribute is coverage.”
No, his #1 attribute is frequent corridors. He just says communities should think about coverage too and dedicate some portion of the budget to it. A coverage-first network is not very useful. That’s what King County had in the 1980s. People find that even if they have infrequent routes they can’t really use them because they don’t go when they’re ready to travel. If the entire city is like that, then the entire transit network is low transit ridership and it doesn’t meet people’s needs, like many American cities or Pierce Transit.
Before I get into the particulars, let me say that I think you are missing the big picture here. Nothing will happen in the area unless the 62 is moved to 56th/Latona. Why? Because it saves Metro money. Once Metro does that then it is possible they will make other changes that would benefit TangleTown as well. At a minimum I see them extending the 79 to East Green Lake Way, to backfill service. There is an old layover there (used by the 26 I believe). So it would be something like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/qGyUFVaARCi3BtuK6. But it is also possible they resurrect the rest of the plan. Specifically the 23, which is basically nothing more than an extension of the 79. Again, I’m not saying that is likely, but it is possible, and pretty much the only way that Tangletown gets as much coverage as they had yesterday.
As to your particular points:
Yes, diverting Bus62 to Latona at 56th Stree would help but it still leaves hundreds stranded or without safe bus service, as we’ve documented.
An altered 62 would run through the heart of the area, leaving very few people with a long walk to a bus. If you are on Latona and close to 45th, you walk south (to catch the 44). Further north and you walk north (to catch the 62). The same is true for the other corner (you walk south or east to catch the new 62). For the most part, there are very few people who are effected, especially if they extend the 79 as mentioned above.
Many North Seattle College students will now have 90 minutes of daily commute to/from school, including unsafe long walks in the dark at night, versus 30 minutes of daily commute with Bus20.
I don’t know what you are talking about. Can you give an example?
@Mike Orr,
Frequency is meaningless if there is no bus. Just ask the people along Latona who are now in a transit desert.
The 62 is frequent. It’s an example of one of those frequent corridors.
Moving the #62 over to Latona/56th doesn’t really solve the problem. All it really does is move the transit desert from Latona over to Kirkwood/Meridian.
The bus would continue to serve the Kirkwood/Meridian intersection. Some folks would have to walk farther, but even that could be backfilled by extending the 79 (as I wrote). Again, the key point here is that won’t happen unless the 62 is altered. The 62 is wasting service hours with the current pathway. It is especially expensive because it is (relatively) frequent. Thus by having the frequent bus take a faster route, you can save a little service money which can be put into other routes, like extending an infrequent route (such as the 79) a little bit. If you want I can do the math but I figure it is obvious.
And it reduces service to Greenwood Elementary in the process.
Greenwood Elementary is at 80th & Greenwood. Did you mean McDonald Elementary? It looks like it would actually be closer! The 62 turns on Kirkwood and thus the closest stop is the one at 56th & Kestone. This means the walk is like so right now: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Gj69tZdATpiroM246. If the 62 was moved they would add another stop on 56th, either on Latona or 1st. Both of which would mean a shorter walk (https://maps.app.goo.gl/dv8ixeQJcQW7nVt96 or https://maps.app.goo.gl/nCyQuC7e4SnpndkQ8).
The #20 provides direct access to Link at U-Dist Station, and it provides a one seat ride between the UW and North Seattle College.
Right. If only there was a good way to get from North Seattle College to the UW. Like maybe a train. Oh wait, there already is one. Why in the world would you take an infrequent bus like the 62 between there when you have the fast and frequent Link? This is part of the reason the bus suffers. For various trips it just doesn’t make sense. For example if you are going from northeast Green Lake to Link (or the UW) it makes way more sense to catch the 45.
So that basically leaves TangleTown to the UW. Of course it would be great if this was a one-seat ride. But we can only afford so much service, and there just aren’t that many people in TangleTown. Besides, a lot of the time it didn’t make sense to catch the 20. Riders were better off catching the 62 and then the 44. For example consider someone at 56th & 1st in Tangletown. The rider would be roughly midway between the 20 and the 62. Now imagine they are trying to get to the U-District at noon. Take the 20 right? Wrong. (https://maps.app.goo.gl/enAcqpYLKtBB1wKv5). The 20 was faster. It was a shorter walk. But the 62 meant a lot less waiting, which means you would get there quite a bit sooner if you took it (and then transferred to the 44).
Transit isn’t a zero sum game.
Yet it is. You mention Jarrett Walker, but you don’t seem to understand the basics. The more you put in one area, the less you have somewhere else. This is why there is a ridership/coverage trade-off: https://humantransit.org/2018/02/basics-the-ridership-coverage-tradeoff.html.
There are exceptions. Once in a while you can increase both ridership and coverage. This is one of those times! You can increase ridership — specifically you can reduce the maximum distance that people have to walk for service — and increase ridership by moving the 62. At that point any additional coverage has to compete with coverage needs all over the city. Good luck with that. If I was focused on increasing coverage I wouldn’t start there. I would probably make the 17, 37 and 57 all-day routes.
The case for the 20 is weak. It is like a bunch of areas in the city (and dozens outside it) where a relatively number of riders now have to walk farther to catch a bus. The only thing that makes it interesting is that there is a simple way to dramatically increase coverage and ridership at the same time (while saving service hours): move the 62.
I guess one could argue it is “coverage” of frequent routes. https://humantransit.org/2023/11/miami-the-better-bus-network-is-here.html
there’s even a statistic of how many people are covered in each scenario of frequent or less frequent buses
Green Lake School is on the north side of NE 65th Street a few blocks east of the current Route 62 pathway on Woodlawn-Meridian. (This could be served by the RossB suggested Route 79 that would lay in the former Route 26 spot).
Greenwood School is at the northeast corner of NW 80th Street and 3rd Avenue NW.
McDonald School is on Latona Avenue NE a bit south of NE 56th Street.
Route 62 uses Meridian and Kirkwood where they are only 25 feet wide; parallel parking is allowed on one side; wide vehicles (buses and trucks) must yield to one another. so, when Route 62 buses approach one another, the southbound bus much be pulled into the stop to avoid mirror strikes. (The narrow street issue is also an issue on 22nd Avenue West in Magnolia for routes 31 and 33; SDOT and Transit should find a better pathway).
Green Lake School is on the north side of NE 65th Street a few blocks east of the current Route 62 pathway on Woodlawn-Meridian.
Oh, that makes sense. Lazarus just wrote “Greenwood” instead of “Green Lake”. Yeah, the best solution there is to just extend the 79 a little bit. It is worth noting that it is also not that far from Latona (https://maps.app.goo.gl/m5g8LVTLHcyUTZt88). That is only about a minute longer than the current walk (https://maps.app.goo.gl/eVfc6kc2xjPyQ7fS9). In contrast those at McDonald Elementary would have a bus stop that is a lot closer than they have now (https://maps.app.goo.gl/ReKwP1H8JQEEnMpW7).
Thus just by moving the 62 you give one elementary school something it hasn’t had in a long time (if ever) — a short walk to a frequent bus. Meanwhile, the other elementary school has a walk to the bus which is only one minute longer. If you extended the 79 then Green Lake elementary has both a three minute walk to the frequent bus, and a two minute walk to an infrequent bus. No matter how you slice it, the thing to do is move the 62.
Ross, extending the 79 doesn’t help the area just east of Green Lake in the heart of Tangletown. It’s a long way from the curve on Woodlawn to 55th and Meridian.
It would need to extend at least to 56th and Keystone and run the existing route to get there.
How that happens and where it might go from there (46th and Fremont via 50th and Meridian and EGL Way?) remains to be seen.
But just running it to 4th and the old 26 terminal is pretty worthless.
Ross, extending the 79 doesn’t help the area just east of Green Lake in the heart of Tangletown.
The extension of the 79 would only happen after the 62 got moved. I can’t emphasize this enough. Step One: Move the 62.
After we move the 62 there is really only one significant service hole (and even that isn’t that big). It gets covered if you extend the 79. I suggested turning on Sunnyside, but for maximum coverage you would turn on Woodlawn (which is the street the 62 currently uses)*.
The cost would be minimal. That is why it is realistic. From a pure coverage standpoint, there is a much stronger case for running an all-day bus on the coverage part of 17 or 37. But doing so would not be cheap or easy. Extending the 79 would. It is likely that the savings from altering the 62 would pay for the tiny extension. Thus you have a faster 62 and much better coverage in the area.
That doesn’t mean every nook and cranny has coverage, but that was never the case. But the modification of the 62 is quite effective because it works with the geography. Consider greater Tangletown, which I’ll define as Aurora to the east, 65th to the north, I-5 to the east and 45th to the south. It is very wide to the south, but narrow to the north. A modified 62 takes advantage of that. South of 50th it is too wide to cover with one bus. Fortunately, riders there just walk to the 44. As you go north it is too far to walk to the 44. So at about 55th the bus runs east-west (through the heart of Tangletown). Thus everything south of roughly 60th has coverage. Now that the neighborhood is not so wide, it can then go north-south. Ideally the bus would go on First NE, but for obvious reasons it will go on Latona instead. Since it goes on Latona it is ever so slightly a bit skewed to the east at the northern section.
This is where the 79 comes in. It deals with that northern section, so that riders don’t have to walk that far. But even without the 79 there are a very tiny number of people who have to walk a long ways to a bus. There are various places around the city where a lot more people have to walk a lot farther to catch a bus. The main reason you extend the 79 is to cover Heartstone and the area around it. The fact that you essentially cover all of greater Tangletown comes as a bonus.
* Note: I’m not actually sure where the old 16 laid over there or how it turned around. I just know that it did and the 79 could too.
Horrible!! Why would they do this to a huge amount of people who rely on the bus? They keep pandering to the upper middle class in the Eastside who already have enough service. We are stretching our transit system to unmanageable levels, yet reducing existing service that everyday folks rely on.
Hey troll, the 20 belongs in West Seattle.
Rynerson probably guilt tripped after my meltdown at Roosevelt Station, unrelated to said glitch.
Your relatives in White Center would remember Roxhill for the Seattle School District strike of 1986.
Not too many people out this morning. Look forward to the 11am street fair.
Slower than I thought… a lot of unnecessary waiting at traffic lights, where the hll is signal priority?!? Buses seem to have a hard time on Spring Street from bottoming out at 1st (also 2nd and 3rd) and go very slow and careful at intersections !!!!
I’ll be going out after 11. The festival on 19th may be subdued given the weather.
My general plan is G from 5th & Madison (to see both sides of the one-way loop) to the eastern end, back to 19th, the festival and lunch. 12 or 10 to downtown. 5 to Greenwood. 61 to Lake City. 65 to Shoreline South station.
Then I’m not sure, most likely 345/365 to Meridian and maybe Greenwood to Northgate station, and Link to Shoreline North.
From Shoreline North, Swift Blue to a thrift shop north of 196th my friend in north Lynnwood wants to show me. Swift Orange to Larch Way. Explore Martha Lake or at least look at the entrance.
At 19th now, and happy to report that it is not at all subdued – the drum corps is helping with that, but it’s a genuine crowd here, too.
Yes, much busier now.
I rode the whole loop this morning, which didn’t take very long, despite making a couple stops for coffee and breakfast pastries to bring home. It was good to see the system running after all these years of construction chaos! And it really is wonderful barely having to wait for the next bus.
The infrastructure looks great, though bits of it remain unfinished. I’m sure it will all be graffiti-trashed soon enough, but for today, it was nice to enjoy the clean new surfaces.
I’ll head over to the 19th Street event shortly; perhaps I’ll see some of you there.
Yeah anything in or near Capitol Hill will look trashed in short order (saying that as a Capitol Hill resident). I’m amazed Capitol Hill Station remained nice for several years after opening, now it’s practically as aged/worn/damaged as the Downtown stations that are 4 times as old (and still receive their share of abuse). Although crazy now in 2024 to recall that the five Downtown Transit Tunnel stations were only open 6am-7pm Monday-Friday their first 14 or so years, so very little abuse.
Granted its only the first day but I’m seeing some major bus bunching, wondering if a downtown partial layover may be needed… kind of a hybrid layover/live loop where they just hold on the live loop until the next scheduled time to maintain the 6 minute pulse.
Link southbound is full with people in UW gear going to the stadiums for something. My friend in north Lynnwood got on at Lynnwood and could barely get a seat. She off at UW because of somebody’s strong perfume and drunken college students/alum. She was going to take the 48 but Montlake is closed (doubtless preparing for the ramp opening Monday), so she’s going to take the 49 to meet me on Capitol Hill.
Just a little Apple Cup at Lumen Field. I’m guessing some did not get the memo that it isn’t at Husky Stadium.
She assumed everybody would get off at UW but they didn’t. But she was driven off the train by obnoxious smell and boorish behavior.
I’m suspecting Snohomish County will have higher ongoing ridership than we’re used to from the suburbs. We may have to think of a special category for Snohomish/Shoreline, “not an ordinary suburb”.
Exurban area
It’s the opposite. Exurban areas have lower rigership than inner-ring suburbs. But Snohomish/Shoreline are bucking the trend.
South ound 6:20pm from Shoreline South to Capitol Hill. Standing room only, standing the whole way, although it’s not really crowded as of Northgate.
Coming from the long skinny north end does feel like New York. I’m thinking of calling Lynnwood The Bronx.
The bunching is really bad for a weekend. I’ve been waiting nearly 15 minutes at 17th. The station departure board seems disconnected from reality.
Still the same. I’ve been waiting over 20 minutes inbound at that stop. Zero buses westbound, so far 7 have gone by eastbound.
I do find it a little odd to put the RRG celebration event on 19th Avenue. I would have thought it would have been better Downtown or closer to Broadway / 12th — or even in Madison Valley.
I imagine that there is a backstory why it’s here. I suspect it wasn’t the first choice of the event site.
It’s surprising, but there’s a somewhat famous African American church there, where the street segment is now named after the late pastor. The area also underwent months of Madison Street closures that rerouted the 11 and 12 and made the 12 harder to use, so it’s a relief that’s over. And there’s some kind of 19th Avenue privilege so Metro may be patting itself on the back for keeping a modified 12 rather than deleting it. And that street segment may be a “festival street” now, designed to be closed for events like this.
I don’t dispute that the street block isn’t significant. I’m just observing that I would have suggested looking at other blocks easier to reach instead like these:
– Pike between 14th and 13th
– 12th between Pike and Madison
– 10th between Union and Madison
– Boylston between Madison and Marion
– 15th between Pine and Madison
7th between Madison and Spring
It’s always tricky to pick a block because of building parking basements often having just one exit.
I actually wonder if the unstated intent is to keep the festival from attracting too many goers that they considerable as “undesirable”.
A unique aspect of today is that we get a new transit vehicle design/ type! This is the first time the local public rides on a bus with doors on both sides — and the first time the local public has a median bus stop island. The last time we got a radical new vehicle design was the FHSC or Link itself.
So I think it would be great to get first impressions about this! Any comments on the vehicle or the median stops?
South Park is having its 16 de Septiebre parade today. Vive 15-minute headway all day on route 60 on weekends (once the major re-route for the parade is over), and 12-minute headway all day on weekdays (but keep an eye on pass-ups still likely to happen before opening bell and after final bell).
I will take the 60 up to ride the G Line when I get a day off.
The Shoreline stations finally get bus service, and a lot of it!
That said, it is mostly half-hourly coverage routes except for route 65 now reaching South Shoreline, and routes 348 and the Swift Blue Line, now serving North Shoreline.
Happy Bus Day, Shoreline!
Route 333 will run 15 minute frequency and will be the main bus connecting Shoreline to the link stations.
Tried to take the G but just missed four a minute apart and the next one wasn’t for 20 minutes (19 minutes delay). I walked two stations to the 1st avenue turnaround and oba said 5 minutes so we waited (otherwise we would have gone to the ferry bridge to see the water view). Waited 15 more minutes but no bus showed up so I gave up. I didn’t want to go to 28th & Madison and maybe be stuck there. Other people are experiencing bunching and delays on the G too. So it’s not a smooth rollout. I hope it’s just today and not every day; otherwise Metro will have to come up with a new plan.
on a facebook group about transit they said the 6402 was having problems as it couldn’t start.
Someone already rode the G Line, took a video of the experience, and posted it. At around the 5 min mark they give their review.
https://youtu.be/4ovL0FOd6Ck
Does someone know what the monitor on the bus is all about? It’s on the left above the ORCA reader.
It’s unfortunate that Metro showcased the G line on a Saturday, when base headways are no better than any other barely-frequent bus in Seattle. Worse than that, things fell apart very quickly – we took our first trip just after 8AM, when trips were already close to 10 minutes delayed so we ended up waiting over 20 minutes after just missing the previous trip. Fortunately we didn’t try riding later in the day when buses were badly bunched with close to 1 hour delays.
For a route that’s 13 minutes end-to-end with 6-minute weekday headways and lots of infrastructure that should keep things moving, hopefully Metro and SDOT actually figure out how to make things work well once the real 6-minute service starts, especially considering the millions of dollars, years of delay, and sapping of other routes to make this happen.
Also, AFAICT there’s no signal priority for the entire route, with a couple intersections that have anti-transit priority. We got to wait at on Spring for a few blocks of car drivers to make a right turn from the left lane in front of the bus while we were 10+ minutes delayed, before we finally got a signal letting us go straight. I thought this was supposed to be actual “BRT” but I guess not…
According to somebody at the tail end of the Urbanist meetup, several buses had testing issues. He said they never had end to end testing on the entire route until today. Apparently things weren’t fully finished by opening day not just on the streetpost front but also on the bus front. I can’t confirm this but that’s what he said.
This was the worst opening I remember experiencing. I’m not lambasting Metro; it’s just a fact. As a former roommate would say, “Room for improvement.”
My friend in north Lynnwood thought there should have been staff at the 1st Avenue station helping people and explaining the problem. Maybe there were staff on First Hill or 19th somewhere but not at 1st.
I’ll have to take my first G ride next week.
I rode the G line between 2 and 5 pm today end-to-end with a few stops in between, and I’m sad to say that overall, it was a massive disappointment.
Bus bunching was a major problem, leaving huge gaps in service in the opposite direction. The real-time arrival screens showed zero accurate information. On my return trip from Madison Valley, the bus driver stopped to let two empty buses heading back to base pass before departing, alluding to multiple “breakdowns”. The frustrated driver then announced a 3-minutes wait at the next stop, presumably to try to alleviate the bunching problem. At this time, it had started raining, and the bus struggled mightily to get traction heading up the hill to the point where we were crawling, which elicited a few snarky comments from a passenger about how Metro might not be able to run the route once the rainy season starts for real.
It didn’t even seem that the new bus stops were truly finished. There were still some construction barriers at a few locations, a beg button to cross the street from one of the center bus islands didn’t work, and none of the shelters had any glass installed, but who knows, maybe Metro doesn’t actually plan to install any glass to prevent the inevitable vandalism.
I understand that it’s opening day, and some of the operational details will improve over time. What’s more disturbing is that during both of my end-to-end trips, my bus got stuck at a red light at every single intersection to the point where it felt absurd. The lights along Madison are horribly synchronized, and there doesn’t appear to be much in the form of transit signal priority. For as much as this project cost and for as long as construction has been ongoing, one would think that synchronized traffic lights and signal priority for transit would be the most important details to get right. As it is now, this line is not rapid at all.
I definitely agree that it seemed like the bus drivers were still learning the route. I took three different trips today (12th Ave to 1st Ave, 1st Ave to MLK and MLK to 17th Ave) and it seemed like the bus drivers really decelerated when going into the bus islands and were fairly cautious when in the center running bus lanes. It seemed like they might have been trying to line up the buses exactly with the new platforms when stopping to pick up and drop off passengers. Drivers seemed to be the most comfortable east of 17th Ave and were accelerating more often.
I saw one staff member hanging out at the stop on 12th Ave and I’m sure there were some at the celebration on 19th but otherwise I didn’t see any staff members at other stops. I was riding the route between 11:30am and 12:30pm and only observed a couple of buses that were bunching.
Is there supposed to be a bus only lane on 1st Ave? I didn’t see one and based on the project plans at https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/transit-program/transit-plus-multimodal-corridor-program/madison-rapidride-g-line, I can’t tell if there is supposed to be one there.
Overall, I had a good experience and I think the route has lots of potential once Metro resolves the issues everyone encountered today.
“I understand that it’s opening day, and some of the operational details will improve over time.” I disagree. What we saw Saturday was the G Line at peak performance. Metro knew all eyes would be on it for opening day, so they undoubtedly put their best foot forward. So, if on a day when everyone was watching, including the media, they couldn’t ‘t be bothered with headway control, for example, they’ll only care less as time goes on. It’s not going to get better from here. Quite the opposite. They’ll never care more about G Line service than they did yesterday.
@Sam,
I did not ride RRG yesterday, but I do find it a bit hard to believe that it really went as badly as everyone is saying. It’s not like this is the first time Metro has opened a new bus route. They should be able to do a reasonably OK job of it by now.
That said, what is the recovery plan? Design change? Routing change? Or just live with it?
@ Ike Orr,
“…. they never had end to end testing on the entire route until today”
Is that even possible? Does the FTA even allow an operator to open something like this without ever doing end to end testing?
For Light Rail there is a an entire testing suite that the system has to go through before it can carry its first revenue passenger, including several months of simulated service. Obviously a bus is not a train, and the standards will be a bit more relaxed, but certainly there must be some level of testing required. Right?
But it does appear that the opening of RRG was rushed.
The next-arrival display at 5th & Madison (southbound only) was still in pre-opening mode, saying service would start this fall.
The display at 1st listed times but they were completely different from what One Bus Away was saying. It was unclear which one was more accurate since both of them gave times that didn’t happen. OBA said one bus was coming and then that it left 2 minutes ago, a phenomenon we sometimes call “ghost buses”.
“bus struggled mightily to get traction heading up the hill to the point where we were crawling”
Metro might have to replace them with trolleybuses to get up the hill.
Don’t ask me. I think the whole thing was a bad idea. The routing is bad. The dual-side door buses, and island stops. Frequency overkill. Corridor a poor candidate for RapidRide service.
If I could wave a magic wand and fix one thing, it would be to try to adhere to headway, but for a variety of different reasons, I think that’s impossible. The line is going to be frequently plagued by bus bunching. I think there are so many structural problems with the line, we/they are just going to have to live with it.
“It seemed like they might have been trying to line up the buses exactly with the new platforms when stopping to pick up and drop off passengers.”
The 17th westbound platform at least has a large wheelchair symbol at one point, so they may be lining up with that.
“Is there supposed to be a bus only lane on 1st Ave?”
I didn’t look closely enough. We had enough trouble finding the station because a building scaffold was blocking the view that we didn’t look at the street much. It was one of those multistory sacaffolds around the sidewalk putting a roof over pedestrians. I don’t remember seeing a full red lane but maybe a short segment before the stop zone.
I guess that’s the beauty and curse of bus projects… you don’t need 9 months of testing like a rail project.
“you don’t need 9 months of testing like a rail project.”
When the guy said there hadn’t been full simulation testing my first thought was, “That’s not allowed with Link extensions.” But then the street has long been commissioned, and anyone can drive their clunker car badly on it without simulation testing, so I guess that’s that.
“I do find it a bit hard to believe that it really went as badly as everyone is saying.”
Ironic that this is coming from Lazarus about a Metro route. :)
I was a first-hand eyewitness, as well as six other people at the 1st Avenue stop. OBA said four buses had come a minute apart, and there was a 20-minute gap until the next batch of four buses also a minute apart. Others said the delays started at 15 minutes late morning and reached 1 hour by the late afternoon.
Hopefully Metro can remedy this by Monday’s commute. Maybe this is one case where headway management is necessary: hold back buses to ensure a 6-minute frequency after gaps. Or maybe the drivers could use their radios to tell each other when a late bus is full, so that a second bus can swoop in immediately and pick up the remaining passengers, but hold back buses that would be empty until the 6-minute mark.
“That said, what is the recovery plan? Design change? Routing change? Or just live with it?”
We don’t know what exactly the problems are. If buses are broken or need adjustments, then do that. If the signal timing is blocking buses at every block, fix that. It’s unclear whether the signal issue is a fundamental problem or a cascading effect of unoptimized buses being slower than usual.
Nobody has mentioned ridership or crowding. How full were the buses?
The live loop is a big part of the problem which the former 12 and Pike/Pine buses certainly know well… they often start their outbound journeys way behind schedule in Downtown after accumulating delays on the inbound, then gain more.
I’m sure hoping some signal priority gets implemented ASAP… I found Boren, 12th, the 15th lane transition, and all of Downtown to be particularly bad trouble spots with unnecessary signal delays.
I think there’s a lot of folks who see a single stuck or late bus and let it ruin their entire day.
With that being said, I saw at least one photo of bus stuck trying to make the turn from 1st to Spring, apparently because the XDE60’s have slightly less clearance than other 60-articulated buses and the driver didn’t take the turn as wide as they were supposed to. With the other comment indicating Metro didn’t/couldn’t test full-frequency pre-revenue service, Saturday was when all the kinks and wrinkles were going to get worked out.
Well, a corollary of SDOT spearheading the project is that SDOT really doesn’t want G buses delayed, so maybe it will fix the signal timings even if it inconveniences surrounding cars.
Of course, it might inconvenience north-south routes like the 60 or the First Hill streetcar. If so, this indicates the timings weren’t well modeled beforehand, to determine if it’s feasible to have priority on both Madison and Broadway and 3rd Avenue without interfering with each other.
I’m particularly concerned about would-be G passengers who weren’t just touring around but actually had places to go, things to do, people to see. If they were counting on the 11 because the 12 isn’t there anymore and there’s no other route on Madison downtown, that’s a problem.
The 2 could be a lifesaver. Did anybody notice how punctual the 2 was and how busy it was yesterday? Anyone who normally took the 12 pre-restructure surely knows the 2 is two blocks away.
@poncho,
“ you don’t need 9 months of testing like a rail project.”
After 10 years of planning and 100 million or so dollars spent, maybe it would have been prudent to have included a little more for better testing.
@Mike Orr,
“ Metro might have to replace them with trolleybuses to get up the hill.”
Ah, no. Metro is not going to force a RRG to RRG bus transfer because their new buses can’t make it up the hill in the rain. No way, and certainly not with the headway management issues we saw yesterday.
A better option would be to add a “rain route”, sort of like a “snow route”. If it is raining, the bus goes somewhere else. Perfect for Seattle!
And I certainly hope Metro tested these new buses in the rain and in the dry. And I hope they did it both empty and at max load.
Testing only full would be a huge mistake (I’m using my “polite” words).
@lazarus
True, the curse of being a bus project is not needing to test for 9 months but for a week or two wouldn’t have hurt.
520 HOV ramps at Montlake open tomorrow morning, there won’t be any testing there.
@Nathan Dickey
So they ordered custom articulated buses with worse under bus clearance for an extremely hilly route, when they normally avoid using any articulateds on hilly routes anyway (with a couple exceptions), hence why the 12 never ran articulateds nor 3/4 to CD, nor Queen Anne Hill routes, nor the super busy 1-California in SF.
“I’m sure hoping some signal priority gets implemented ASAP… I found Boren, 12th, the 15th lane transition, and all of Downtown to be particularly bad trouble spots with unnecessary signal delays.”
Most of the signals cycle through pretty quickly. That’s because no street is so wide so that pedestrians need lots of extra time to get cross. Boren seems to have the most phases and width. Many signals have just two phases so that the wait is not very long — unlike Aurora or Pac Highway.
Plus the stops aren’t spaced that far apart. Signal priority needs a bus to be leaving its last stop before becoming really useful for the signals to the next one. So maybe a maximum of three downstream signals can be better timed to give priority — but two will be more common.
So I don’t see additional signal priority able to help that much with travel speeds. To me, there just doesn’t look like there are many ways to program the system to gain that much more green time on Madison for RRG.
Metro always tests out its routes with buses first. That is how some ideas are basically shot down. But there is a difference between testing the route to see if it is OK and having drivers run it. It is easy to say that “rail is held to a different standard” but remember the Point Defiance Amtrak Disaster? It was a horrible crash caused by an inexperienced driver. Obviously the feds had verified that everything was in working order and the bypass would work fine as long as the driver did what he was supposed to do. But he didn’t.
This is similar (although obviously not as horrible). These drivers had little to no experience on this route or with this bus. Some nailed it, no problem. Others proceeded cautiously. Others failed miserably (apparently) and didn’t get the memo about the turn onto First. I don’t want to blame the drivers — this is a systemic problem. There should have been more training on the route. But my guess is most of the drivers will get the hang of it pretty quickly.
I think most of these problems get fixed fairly quickly. Bus bunching really shouldn’t be an issue for a route like this. It is short and has off-board payment. I get why some buses are delayed at traffic lights (and some aren’t) but that shouldn’t be enough to cause bunching.
But the traffic lights could still be a problem. Delay should be minimized. SDOT should be able to address it. There are a lot of cross streets, but a lot of them are minor. The light cycle should favor Madison heavily on those intersection (in the way that crossing Aurora can often take a long time). Not necessarily to that level, but similar. This also helps with signal priority (it is much easier to delay a phase a few seconds for the bus if it wasn’t that common to begin with). The phase for crossing should be long enough for pedestrians to cross, but no longer. There are a surprising number of streets like this: Terry, Minor, Summit, Boylston and 11th at a minimum. Things get really messy around Madison/Union, but I would de-prioritize the crossing at 17th, 18th, 20th and 22nd as well.
It would be nice to have the stop light timed, but that is difficult since the bus stops. But there are still sections where it would make sense. For example Boren is a major crossing. It is likely the bus will have to stop there quite often. But when the light is green for Madison at that intersection it should be green at Minor, Summit, Boylston and Terry as well. This means that if a bus passes through Boren it will make it to the bus stop (without stopping).
There are other improvements that can (and should) be made. The good news is these aren’t horribly expensive. Since the day Link opened we’ve had to deal with a less-than-ideal surface section in both SoDo and Rainier Valley. Fixing it would likely cost a lot of money. Just improving it is fairly expensive. Most of the improvements on this route shouldn’t cost nearly as much.
Frequency overkill. Corridor a poor candidate for RapidRide service.
I disagree completely. This is a key corridor, with a huge amount of density. There are skyscrapers from First to Broadway (with more on the way). East of Broadway there are fewer gigantic buildings, but it still has the kind of density that is rare in this city. It runs very close to the cultural hub of the entire region. At 23rd it then intersects the main north-south corridor through the Central Area. It sets up obvious transfers (and for transfers frequency is essential). It could (and should) completely change the routing in the area, leading to other improvements.
It is clearly a good candidate for RapidRide (or any form of BRT). It is probably the best candidate we’ve considered in a very long time. It has everything you want in BRT — basically what I mentioned in the first paragraph. With BRT you have short dwell times. That means you can have urban stop spacing (which they have) for the entire route, since the route is clearly urban. Every stop combination works. Every stop combination is bound to have a lot of riders. This is what BRT (or a good metro) should have.
Have they pulled it off, and lived up to the potential of this corridor? Time will tell. If these sorts of problems are common a year from now, then clearly no. But it is also quite possible that these problems will be fixed and the bus will become a key piece of transit for this area.
“Metro is not going to force a RRG to RRG bus transfer because their new buses can’t make it up the hill in the rain”
I’m not talking about a transfer; I’m taking about replacing the new buses with the left-door trolleybuses Metro didn’t get. It would have to lose whatever feature Metro insisted on (bicycle capacity?), but it would do the job. Bicycle riders can go up Pike-Pine as I’ve said: even non-athletic riders can do that, and if they have a bike that presumably means they intend to ride it part of the time.
“… buses Metro didn’t get. It would have to lose whatever feature Metro insisted on (bicycle capacity?), but it would do the job.”
IIRC it was possible to purchase left and right hand doors on an ET bus but not an articulated (“bendy”) ET bus.
That said, I surely hope that SDOT and Metro were wise enough to load up an articulated battery electric bus with staff and drive it up and down the hill before ordering a fleet.
If they didn’t and it becomes a problem, management heads should roll. Who buys a fleet without testing one model out first?
IIRC it was possible to purchase left and right hand doors on an ET bus but not an articulated (“bendy”) ET bus.
Sort of. Basically they would sell us diesel-electric buses with doors on both sides. They would sell us big trolleys. But they weren’t willing to sell us big trolleys with doors on both sides unless we bought a lot of them. Since we only needed a few, we went with diesel electric buses (which is less than ideal).
At some point they should just try and make a bigger purchase, and use them for regular routes. Just because a bus has doors on both sides doesn’t mean it has to use them. Likewise, if they did buy a bunch of trolley buses with doors on both sides they could just reuse the diesel electric buses on the RapidRide route.
Getting back to center running trolleys, one consideration is Jackson. The streetcar uses center platforms, but the buses use stops on the side. As a result, it lacks right-of-way. As part of the Move Seattle RapidRide+ projects, there was this idea:
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 and Japantown, Chinatown, and Little Saigon center-platform stations
Basically center running on Jackson. You could accomplish this by moving the platforms (so they stagger ) which would mean curb side boarding. But that would mean moving the tracks of the streetcar, which gets expensive. By switching the buses, you ultimately save money. At a minimum, that would likely include having the 7, 14 and 36 use the existing center platform. These are all trolleys. I figure that would be a big enough purchase to get trolleys with doors on both sides.
I’ve actually thought Route 7 would be more suitable for these vehicles than RapidRide G — because there are long stretches of two way left turn lanes where median stations could go. Jackson is part of that route.
I’ve even made the pitch to extend RR G to turn south and become a rapid version of Route 7. However, given the spacing problems reported in this post, it may be very unreliable.
Anyway, I think Metro could find practical uses for these vehicles so they wanted to order more and assign them elsewhere. And I think that the current fleet could be mixed in with other buses on other major routes if they have to pull them off Madison (an unlikely worst case scenario).
I’ve actually thought Route 7 would be more suitable for these vehicles than RapidRide G
It is actually two different issues. You’ve got center running, and island stops. You can have center running without the island stops, using what I am calling the stagger method. Any bus can serve those stops. But Madison is a challenging street, and quite often you just can’t pull that off. It is best to share the eastbound and westbound stop. This is where the island stops come in, and with it buses with doors on both sides.
If there was no streetcar then I think the stagger method would work well for Jackson. But because we already have the streetcar island stops, it makes sense to leverage them. As for the rest of the corridor, it seems like the stagger method would be fine, but there may be places where a single center station would be better. It does offer more flexibility. If you’ve already committed to it, you might as well take advantage.
Some years back, Las Vegas decided to purchase buses directly from Europe rather than try to meet “Made in USA” requirements and try to jump through FTA funding hoops.
That may be desirable in this case.
There are exemptions to the “Made in USA” requirements if you can document not being able to get what you need from a USA manufacture. Amtrak has to go through it once in a while for a few certain pieces of platform equipment only made in Canada.
Also, with the push for electric transit, I would think such operations as Eugene’s EmX would be a candidate for a joint order and eventual conversion to trolleybus.
Also, with the push for electric transit, I would think such operations as Eugene’s EmX would be a candidate for a joint order and eventual conversion to trolleybus.
That is a good point. It doesn’t have to be just Metro. It is an unusual situation at this point, as there is no hurry. They should make the transition at some point, but it doesn’t have to be right away. The other buses aren’t old either (quite the opposite). Not only should it be a Metro “todo” item, but Metro should be in contact with other agencies that could use the same thing.
Of course one aspect of the project would be to add wire (although almost all of it is there already). It is possible that it becomes a project and they get a grant to run it under wire.
I noticed some problems with the rain in the morning too. The bus we were on fishtailed making the eastbound left turn from 9th onto Madison, which I had never experienced except in icy conditions. I wonder if there’s something wrong with the formulation of the red paint? I would hope SDOT knows the right level of grit to use but maybe not.
@Skylar,
I did not ride RRG yesterday, and I don’t really envision riding it anytime soon (if ever). It just isn’t very useful to me, and most destinations along that route I’ll just walk to anyhow.
But was the official launch of the service really that bad? Because yesterday was a Saturday with relatively mild weather, and if they had problems yesterday, then I can’t imagine the problems they will have on a normal commute day on a stormy day.
And traction issues like “fishtailing” just shouldn’t happen. Never. And certainly not in light rain. That would indicate some sort of design flaw.
I agree, it was very unexpected – weather in the morning was drizzle/very light rain, no wind, mild temperatures. It sounds like there were also some mechanical problems (maybe Metro is infected by Sound Transit’s Link problems now?) and a challenge for functioning buses to pass broken down buses. What’s especially concerning is that this was all at 40% of weekday service levels (15 minute weekend headways vs 6 minute weekday headways). What’s going to happen on Monday when there’s only a few minutes between buses, and far fewer spares?
@Skylar,
I didn’t realize that the frequency yesterday was only every 15 mins. That is sort of like running a soft opening.
But it is concerning. Frequency is often the enemy of reliability. Increased frequency means more trouble maintaining proper headways. And more resources in operation means more opportunities for mechanical breakdown and other operational issues.
Hopefully Metro spent the night trying to figure this out.
And hopefully yesterday’s issues weren’t driven by mechanical issues with the buses. Because with these special buses with left-hand boarding, it’s not like you can just swap out a normal bus from one of the other RR lines. Your only option becomes reduced frequency.
Hmm, maybe there was a problem with the posted timetables or I was accidentally looking at the Sunday schedule, but it does look like Saturdays get 6-minute headways as well, which kind of just makes the other problems worse: for instance, waiting 20 minutes for the next bus at 8AM…
In any case, hopefully these are problems that Metro can fix simply with things like training and signal timings, without needing millions of dollars in new infrastructure to augment already new infrastructure.
” What’s especially concerning is that this was all at 40% of weekday service levels (15 minute weekend headways vs 6 minute weekday headways).”
It was 6-minute headways, same as weekday. It’s 6 minutes weekdays and Saturdays; 15 minutes Sundays and after 7pm.
It was good it launched on a Saturday, or at least it would have been good if the buses were reliable, because people wouldn’t have been able to make stopovers en route if they had to work around 15-minute pulses; there would have been too much waiting overhead.
As it was, we had grand visions of one stopover at 19th, and others succeeded in doing several stopovers before service went haywire. I gave up on the 19th stopover when I realized we wouldn’t make closing time. Then I gave up on the G completely because, after waiting 35 minutes downtown, I was afraid of getting stuck similarly at the other end and not able to ride any more routes. (I didn’t think about the 8 and 11 being lifesavers there.)
“Hopefully Metro spent the night trying to figure this out.”
Hopefully Metro staff got a good sleep so they’d be able to figure this out effectively today and tomorrow.
-Mike, sleep champion
The issue with turning right onto First is another argument for extending to Western. From Second to First down Madison is quite steep. From First to Western is not. It also looks pretty good for a turn there. Just get rid of parking there (along Western, on the east side of the road) and make it a bus lane/stop. From Western it is an easy stroll to the waterfront.
If and when transit is added to First, riders can just walk between the two stops. Or add stops along Madison and Spring, which means riders would walk between them the way they do with Third. It is hard to imagine the connection to transit (streetcar or bus) on First ever being hugely important. There is the connection to the ferry (via the pedestrian bridge) but that would be similar. If stops were added on First they would access them using the bridge there (or just take a surface route via the Waterfront to the stop at Western).
Appears it could be relatively easy to put in a downtown layover on Alaskan Way in front of the Waterfront Place building by removing the on-street parking spaces allowing several articulated buses to layover on that block length. Appears to be no businesses on the ground floor there that would be obstructed by a wall of buses. It would also provide a closer connection to the ferries. The current 1st Ave stop isn’t a great place for a layover for potentially multiple buses at some times.
It’s unclear that the live loop downtown contributed to the problem. I didn’t see any especial traffic on 1st.
Just that a layover downtown would allow buses to hold and leave on schedule. The live-loop provides no recovery from delays.
Yeah, that is a good way to keep things on schedule. I doubt many riders sit through the loop. The drawback is that it adds to running time. That might cost Metro more money. It still might be worth it.
I am surprised the bus has trouble westbound (towards downtown). I thought most of the issues would be eastbound (with the two turns). Maybe it is the combination. A bus is a couple minutes late getting to First, then has trouble heading up the hill, delaying it further. By the time it is on Madison again the other bus is right behind it. This would suggest a fairly short layover period (two minutes) would fix it.
I don’t know what this kind of layover is called. It basically allows buses to get back on schedule. If they are running fast, they wait. I would call it a “float layover” because they are dealing with float in the schedule, but I doubt that is what it is called.
The worst bus bunching I’ve ever seen was in Bellevue. Three 271’s, all eastbound on NE 8th, all within a half block of each other. But think the G Line will soon beat that. I think we’re going to see four or five G Line buses bunched up.
The live loop gets both directions close to the Seneca entrance to Symphony Station. Otherwise it would be a worse transfer westbound (to the train). SDOT marketed that.
The live loop gets both directions close to the Seneca entrance to Symphony Station.
Sure, but so would a loop that involved a pause. People in a hurry will just walk a block (https://maps.app.goo.gl/GbX1GMFFPYKrVRWeA).
The point is to not walk a block. If RapidRide is supposed to be a substitute for metro lines, then RapidRide+Link transfers are almost important as Link+Link transfers, not just put a bus stop anywhere.
The point is to not walk a block.
Then don’t. This wouldn’t be a regular layover. It is simply a pause. Riders could sit and wait if the bus is running faster than usual. If not, then nothing happens (the bus just keeps going).
“ The point is to not walk a block. ”
A block is relative. Like it’s about a block to walk from the Lynnwood platform to the Lynnwood TC where Swift Orange is (plus 65 steps down with only an elevator to help; no escalator).
I feel like every major transfer needs to be scored on the difficulty to make it — vertical distance , horizontal distance on foot, elevation change or steps, weather exposure and walk time (including where someone has to wait to cross).
A block is relative.
Right, which is why I linked to a Google Maps page showing what the walk would entail. Again, if you don’t want to walk that far, don’t. Sit on the bus. Sometimes it waits there (because the bus is too fast). Other times it keeps going.
Think about that for a second. You are in a hurry to catch Link. But the bus is stopped there for some stupid reason. Why? Because it going too fast! Anyone who is in a big hurry, and thinks they will miss the train by waiting is welcome to get off the bus, run that one block (or 400 feet according to Google) and then perform their best Parkour maneuvers through the station. The point being it really doesn’t matter. Anyone who has timed their commute like a German with OCD is going to be fine. They sit on the bus. Sometimes it waits, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way they get to their stop right on time. Someone who is late like the White Rabbit is just going to get off the bus on Madison and run (or just walk swiftly) as they will beat the bus nine times out of ten, even if it doesn’t pause there.
You all don’t seem to get the big picture here. If the bus ran consistently it would get to the stop at the same time as it would with a pause. The pause is only suggested because it sometimes runs too fast.
Every trip from the 11 westbound to Link should have a five-minute pause in the middle? Somebody should go through that every day? The people who most need the close transfer are those who can’t walk a block and a half easily. It’s one thing if there’s a long walk at the beginning or end of a trip, but another thing if it’s a transfer in the middle. The latter just makes it bad transit service.
“The routing is bad.”
There was widespread disagreement during planning on whether this was the best alignment. SDOT wanted the current route. The original project was to 23rd but the community argued to extend it to Madison Valley. There were also calls to extend it to Madison Park, and one of the U-Link proposals in 2016 had an all-Madison route from downtown to Madison Park replacing the 11 and 12 that would prefigure it. SDOT said if it did extend the G to Madison Park it wouldn’t have RapidRide improvements east of 28th. I think it finally said it couldn’t afford to extend it east of 28th at all.
Metro had completely different ideas. If there was to be a RapidRide on Madison downtown, it should turn north on Broadway to the Broadway commercial district. Another proposal in the U-Link restructure would have rerouted the 49 to Madison (a Broadway-Madison route) prefiguring this alignment.
I think a RapidRide would be most useful on Pike-Pine, like the pre-restructure 11 (Pine-Madison). But SDOT really wanted to get a RapidRide through the growing First Hill area (8th to 12th).
Since SDOT initiated the project and was doing the street improvements (and would have to permit them if Metro initiated it), SDOT chose the alignment, and basically strong-armed Metro into accepting it and operating it and restructuring around it.
What would it take to extend to Madison Park other than more of these custom buses? It’s not like signal priority is part of the equation.
Practically speaking upzoning so there’s more density and more riders
I would think that the terms of the grant are probably the biggest possible hurdle to extending it to Madison Park. Keep in mind that MLK was made the terminus before SDOT gave up on trolley wire buses so I don’t think an extension would be that opposed by locals now that it wouldn’t need overhead wires.
The next issue would be figuring out where the layover would be. Parking is tight in Madison Park so it’s not clear where to let several buses lay over at the same time.
Technically it should add at least two more special buses to the route — but adding zero or one could work with slightly less frequency. That all comes back to the grant requirements. But there are many transit lines built around the US that don’t operate at the frequency promised in their FTA capital grant.
It’s just now up and running. At least a few months of operations is needed before any capital changes can be considered. Meanwhile, I’m expecting that Metro and SDOT will have its internal staff address how to take care of little things to help with a possible bus bunching problem.
In the long term, I never felt like this project would be very transformative. The ugly truth seems to me to be that Seattle wanted to use transit money to replace the street surface and some staff wanted to try out left door buses to see if they make transit work better.
The funding genie thus granted their wish — and sometimes the wishes that genies grant don’t actually make things better operationally.
SDOT didn’t mention grant requirements as an impediment. It just said it didn’t have a large enough budget. Since the extended variation would still have the same frequency and improvements on First Hill and downtown, and it’s still shorter than most BRT lines or bus routes, I don’t see why the feds would have a problem with it. If they don’t give the grant, then First Hill and downtown wouldn’t be improved: that wouldn’t be good, and there’s no reason for the feds to force that just to prevent a Madison Park extension.
“At least a few months of operations is needed before any capital changes can be considered.”
Something will have to happen sooner if it’s wildly unreliable weekdays and commutes are infeasible, or if buses can’t make it up the hill in real rain, or if they can’t turn in rain without crashing into cars. They just yanked the 12 off Madison; there’s no alternative to the G. Unless Metro is going to encourage switching to the 2. But then that may overload the 2, and require more frequency on it. Well, they could put existing trolleybuses on it.
According to OBA, outbound G buses are delayed by 38, 35, 31, and 27 minutes. Inbound G buses are delayed by 17, 19, 23, 24, and 14 minutes. In both directions there is an occasional 20 minute gap between buses.
What’s going on with Madison?
Are those delays? Or next bus arrival times?
But either way, pretty bad. And with WFH Monday is a “lite” commute day.