Some transit promotional videos.

King County Metro ad: “Metro Go”:

Travel Community Transit with Rick Steves. This four-part series was published for Lynnwood Link’s opening.

More videos below the fold.

Bus Doggy Dogg:

Eclipse, the Dogg, had her first solo bus ride in 2015. In 2022 she passed away at age 10. NPR obituary. Washington Post obituary ($, paywalled).

Four videos from Berlin. BVG operates the city’s U-Bahn, trams, buses, and ferries.

  1. A short:

2. “Berlin ist Gelb” (Berlin is Yellow), a book about the history of Berlin’s transit in divided Germany and reunified Germany:

“Alles gut” (everything is good) may remind you of “Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?“.

3. Job recruitment video:

4. A COVID-era ad. “Wir fahren allein allein” — “We travel alone alone” … but soon we will be together again:

That might remind you of Counterpart, the TV series with a parallel world in the basement of a Berlin office building, a world that had a flu pandemic.

If those don’t float your boat, West End Girls has a few clips of a London train station and double-decker buses.

This is an open thread.

104 Replies to “Movie Special: Transit Ads”

  1. I get the value of catchy jingles and happy music like the lead KCM video to generally promote transit, but I feel like there needs to be basic ā€œhow toā€ instructions embedded in ands like this. Many non-riders I meet donā€™t ride partly because they never learned how!

    Here is a video I found online. Itā€™s not awesome but itā€™s the general messaging that Iā€™m advocating for. Are there others?

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wNeVpgwuykU

    There are plenty of instructional videos on how to ride transit. But are any worthy and short enough (with a clever jingle) to be a broadcast ad? I remember having the ā€œRide the waveā€ commercials for ST several years ago but I donā€™t remember the content.

    Things like parades, sporting events, festivals and concerts are strategic times to have some introductory commercials aired. Maybe online ticket sites need a direct hyperlink to riding education. How cool it would be for a sports or entertainment star promoting transit to see them!

    It would be hard to whittle down all the instructions in a single ad. It would probably need to be several short ads explaining different aspects of transit travel ā€” buying a fare or pass, locating a transit route or schedule, boarding and leaving a vehicle (including riding etiquette), and maybe one on rider safety practices.

    2. “Many non-riders I meet donā€™t ride partly because they never learned how!”

      If a large number of non-public transit riders were asked why they don’t take public transit, virtually no one would respond because they never learned how, or they don’t know how.

      1. I think a significant part of non-riderā€™s discomfort considering public transit is due to unfamiliarity and not knowing how riding the bus works. I know people who ride the train because they are afraid of missing their stop or unexpected detours on the bus, only because theyā€™re unfamiliar with what itā€™s like riding the bus. Maybe thatā€™s different from not knowing ā€œhowā€ to ride the bus, but I think the difference is similar between knowing ā€œhowā€ to drive and actually being comfortable driving. Popular culture encourages children to learn to drive and be comfortable with it; thereā€™s a similar process required to become comfortable with transit.

      2. Quality — and the perception of quality — has the biggest impact on ridership. People assume the train will be fast and frequent. Sometimes it isn’t, but that is still a pretty good assumption. With the bus it varies. For some routes it is fast and frequent. For others it isn’t. The biggest reason a city like Vancouver has over twice as many transit riders (each day) is not because of some big public-information campaign explaining how to ride transit. It is because the system is really good.

        It is worth noting that some of our highest quality bus routes have been eliminated as Link has expanded. When I told my kid they were expanding light rail to the UW he said “Why? A trip from downtown to the UW is the one place where the buses are really good.”

        But the biggest reason that ridership is so low — or why some people only take the train — is because our bus system has been hammered by cutbacks and poor routing decisions. It is an odd situation. The train now covers way more neighborhoods — Northgate Link was huge — but the bus system is worse. In contrast, the buses got a lot better when Link finally made it to edge of the the UW. Some of it was a shift in service. Bus riders lost their fast express from the U-District to downtown but they got way more frequent trips to the UW (and other places as well). But that wasn’t the only source of extra service. Seattle passed a levy which increased funding. This meant that buses across Seattle became a lot more frequent.

        Now it is the opposite. The bus system isn’t nearly as good as it should be. It is easy to get excited about Link ridership as it takes an increasing share of the ridership. But that is largely because the bus system isn’t that good. Even with the increase, Link ridership still isn’t that high. Link now cuts through the heart of city from the far north to the south. Hell, it even goes to the edges of the county — and beyond. A line like that should easily get 250,000 — but it doesn’t because of poor stop placement. But ridership is also down (on Link) because the buses aren’t that good. It is frustrating to have to take a three-seat ride from Lake City to First Hill. But the three-seat ride isn’t nearly as good as it should be. The 522 inexplicably skips various stops along Lake City Way. Transit to First Hill from Capitol Hill is a mishmash of uncoordinated buses. Thus you have situations like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/5mTW2KDyqemkFKqu6. Here it is, 10:00 AM and a transit trip from the south end of Lake City to First Hill takes over an hour. If you drive it takes 18 minutes. This isn’t an education problem — it is a quality problem.

        It is too late to serve First Hill from Link. But we can improve the buses. To do so means spending more money but also building a better network. I’ve lost faith in the Metro planners. The last two restructures were poor and at times nonsensical, violating their own guidelines. I think we should have Jarrett Walker (or a similar third-party group) do a complete restructure of our system.

        Once people have a good system they will figure out how to use it.

      3. Seattle has had a large migration of people who were raised in areas with poor transit or no transit. Those people are the ones that are not trained to ride transit. I was surprised when I had to show an adult from small town Pennsylvania or small town Ohio how to use our transit system (read a schedule; buy a fare from the machine; etc). I suspect that most locals have ridden transit enough as youth that itā€™s not a foreign experience.

      4. Most people in Seattle are not from Seattle, and likely not from any place that has decent transit (since very little of America does).

        This isn’t new. I studied where people in Seattle were from back in the 90s and maybe a 3rd were actually born here. I suspect it’s similar today.

        I think there are many reasons for the decline in bus ridership.
        – COVID got people in the habit of avoiding crowds, and it’s hard to reverse.
        – Our housing problem has caused a substantial spike in homelessness, and that has led to more difficult and uncomfortable situations in transit, and homeless folks seek shelter in our transportation system.
        – Buses have gotten worse, and they were never great. Poorer frequency, often confusing apps and signage, and more and more reliance on transfers, which people absolutely hate.

        I have ridden a lot of buses in my life, but even with all that experience, any time a try a new route, it is a coin-flip whether some unwritten nuance makes my trip longer or less pleasant than it should be. Things like poor signage and stop placement taking me on a detour to Renton instead of Burien. No stops in White Center, so I ride ride past my destination and have to walk 10 blocks. And that shouldn’t happen. For the less dedicated, only 1 experience like that, and they go buy a car.

      5. The question is, what type of public transit ad campaign would get people to try riding the bus, or to ride it more often? What should the overall message be? … How to ride the bus? Riding the bus saves money? Riding the bus helps the environment? Riding the bus is safer than driving a car? An ad campaign that de-stigmatizes riding the bus? Riding the bus gets you to Link? Something else? What type of ad do you think would produce the best results?

      6. I don’t think any Ad campaign would be effective. Period.

        Maybe a campaign where you bribe current transit users to show a friend a bus route you are familiar with how to make a successful ride, even with the gauntlet of bad transit to navigate.

      7. These days, everyone points to a smart phone app. Pointing a potential rider to one of the arrival apps with a real-time navigation feature is what I think would have usefulness.

        The apps probably need to have an AI assistant to navigate bus riding like driving apps do. Some may already do this and Iā€™m not aware of them. The real time arrival info is great ā€” but the next gen needs to automatically announce things like ā€œthe next Route ?? bus will arrive at your stop in 2 minutesā€ so you can sprint to catch it (rather than stop and check your phone ā€” and miss the bus)!

        Then the ad can show someone using a navigation app and catching their bus on time! ā€œGet the bus navigation app today!ā€

      8. I was afraid to take Metro in 7th grade because I’d never ridden a public transit bus before, and I’d never been on a school bus route. The only thing I knew about buses were Sesame Street clips from years earlier. I was afraid I couldn’t reach the stop cord pr get it to work, and paying was complicated. I walked to elementary school, but for junior high I chose a small school on the other side of Bellevue. The first several months my parents drove me to school. Then finally one day I took Metro home, and then I became a regular Metro rider and commuted to school on it and took it to Seattle or wherever I was going. If there had been videos about how to ride and what it’s like, I would have started taking it to school in the first place.

      9. “I know people who ride the train because they are afraid of missing their stop”

        That’s me in other cities. Subway map is straightforward. There are a limited number of lines and stations. You can count the stations to your destination, listen for an announcement/look for a station sign resembling “Columbia City” or “Earl’s Court” or “Graf-Adolf-Strasse” or “Š“Š¾ŃŃ‚ŠøŠ½Ń‹Š¹ Š”Š²Š¾Ń€”, and it’s hard to get lost. Buses and regional rail don’t have a convenient network map like that so I’m apprehensive of getting lost.

        In Russia I almost always rode the metro first, streetcars second. The only time I had to take a bus was to an outlying WWII cemetery not on the metro. I avoided regional trains (elektrichka) unless I went with somebody. When I went with some people to Podol’sk (an hour outside Moscow) and came back alone, I kept asking fellow passengers at several stations, “Eto Moskovskii vokzal?” (Is this Moscow train station?) because I was afraid I might not understand the announcement.

      10. “When I told my kid they were expanding light rail to the UW he said ā€œWhy? A trip from downtown to the UW is the one place where the buses are really good.ā€”

        They must not do that regularly. The buses were melting down with overcrowding and unreliability and traffic congestion.

      11. “Seattle has had a large migration of people who were raised in areas with poor transit or no transit.”

        Native Seattlites were raised with poor transit. Seattle hasn’t had an intuitive sense of transit since it voted down the Bogue Subway in 1912 and ripped out the streetcars in the 1920s. It only started to get it again with the DSTT in the 1980s, Link in the 1990s, and RapidRide and frequent-corridor consolidations in the 2000s. The suburbs emerged from rural ares with little sense of transit. I don’t think newcomers from Ohio or Arizona made it worse; they just reinforced existing bad trends.

        We also have a large migration of people from Asia, Europe, and Latin America that grew up with good transit.

      12. Which bus routes have the highest ridership? I’m fairly confident that most of the UW routes have high ridership. The bus network there (along with the free UPASS, and the general lousiness of driving in the U District) are doing a good job convincing college students the value of transit, which they will hopefully maintain as adults, even if they move out of Seattle. How do we replicate that in other neighborhoods, let alone more suburban cities in the region, that have lower ridership? I think we need to focus on making transit convenient and at least somewhat competitive with driving.

        I went from Lake City to Alderwood Mall yesterday. No car, so I was a captive transit audience. But even with Lynnwood Link, a 55-minute 3-seat ride that included 15+ minutes of walking hardly felt competitive with a 25 minute drive and free parking.

      13. “Which bus routes have the highest ridership?”

        Somebody can give you a definitive list, but the top 10 include the E, D, and 7. The 40, C, and 36 might be there too. I’m not sure how close the 44 and 70 get.

      14. “I went from Lake City to Alderwood Mall yesterday…. But even with Lynnwood Link, a 55-minute 3-seat ride that included 15+ minutes of walking”

        Did you take advantage of Swift Orange or the CT Zip shuttle? Where was the 15 minutes of walking?

        Did you take the 65 from Lake City to Shoreline South station? If so, what did you think of that segment? When I rode it I felt it was a rather long ride. Or did you take the 61 or 75 to Northgate station?

        Somebody linked earlier to a video of walking from Lynnwood station to Alderwood Mall. It was thirty minutes of walking through soul-destroying nothingness, so they didn’t like it at all.

      15. @Larry

        Route / Average Weekday Boardings 2024 Oct
        E Line, 13568
        7, 11314
        A Line, 9618
        D Line, 9309
        H Line, 8636
        40, 8539
        C Line, 7488
        62, 7126
        36, 7059
        44, 6663
        8, 6645
        …..
        70, 5101

        The UW routes have less, but some do through-run.
        45 6127
        75 4518

        67 4276
        65 4153

      16. From Appendix G of the 2024 System Performance Evaluation (https://kingcounty.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=13447054&GUID=F0FFA9DE-D4FF-41F7-A86D-480E498FC7CB), here are the top 5 routes (average weekday rides September 2023 to March 2024):

        1. E Line: 12,291 (37.25 rides per operating hour [rph]*)
        2. Route 7: 9,928 (35.21 rph)
        3. D Line: 9,192 (37.98 rph)
        4. A Line: 8,353 (39.40 rph)
        5. Route 40: 7,910 (29.41 rph)

        Ridership on a selection of routes serving UW:
        Route 43: 380 (15.2 rph)
        Route 44: 5,799 (33.72 rph)
        Route 45: 5,036 (34.26 rph)
        Route 49: 2,824 (22.41 rph)
        Route 67: 3,688 (34.47 rph)
        Route 70: 4,429 (24.61 rph)
        Route 255: 2,789 (15.85 rph)
        Route 271: 2,891 (14.53 rph)

        *RPH calculated by dividing ridership by platform hours, as an estimate of productivity.

    1. This is a reminder to not read the cesspool of comments over there.

      I just fear this will somehow magically slow all improvements not related to cars, but we will see. I hope I’m wrong.

      1. With so many non-car improvements now between 5 and 20 years ago, a growing number of people I talk to are increasing asking ā€œWhere is the utilization?ā€

        I see the Councilā€™s reaction as a reaction to that. The philosophy of ā€œbuild it and they comeā€ is noble but at some point it gives way to ā€œwe built it and they donā€™t come.ā€

        Where is the strategy to make the new facilities be used more (as opposed to merely creating more facilities )?

      2. ā€œWhere is the utilization?ā€

        In the numbers. Transit is increasing year by year, and bicycling probably too. There was a huge unanticipated drop due to the pandemic and work from home, that is only slowly being filled. Metro and ST Express can’t keep all the buses on the road due to driver and maintenance shortages, so those gaps in the service level discourage passengers. Link’s almost daily outages and reductions have a similar effect. People don’t know if they can rely on them or if they’ll have to wait an extra half hour or hour today.

        The only way to become a high-ridership city is to have transit like a high-ridership city. That means core bus routes running every 10 minutes full time reliably, Link outages being rare, robust transit-priority lanes so buses don’t get caught in congestion, connect the gaps in the cycletracks, etc. Yes, Metro has a driver shortage and funding limitations, but another city would make a real plan to solve them and take steps that are visible. Not just give up because mode share is still disappointing.

        Although Seattle hasn’t given up: we just passed a transportation levy which will probably continue the incremental improvements. It’s just far less than we need, and too car-deferential. King County has done nothing meaningful: it says it wants Metro Connects but then doesn’t do anything about it.

        ā€œwe built it and they donā€™t come.ā€

        The thing is, we don’t build it. We build these small random disconnected things that don’t connect everybody, then we operate them below their optimal level, and then wonder why so many people drive.

      3. @ Mike:

        The people I talk to arenā€™t concerned about transit investments.

        It is the significant expansion of protected bicycle lanes where I hear the concerns. The big demand increase that Iā€™ve seen with them has been with electric scooter use. Then again, many electric scooter users that I know have had at least one solo incident where theyā€™ve been injured.

        But even transit has had some drops in usage as Link stations opened. Wisely, Seattle hasnā€™t expanded bus lane mileage in corridors that would see a shift away from buses and into Link.

      4. I hear the exact opposite. “I hear if there were a safe place to ride, I’d ride more.” There has been a significant slowing in expansion of bike facilities.

        In any case, neither you nor I should succumb to anecdote and elite projection.

      5. “Wisely, Seattle hasnā€™t expanded bus lane mileage in corridors that would see a shift away from buses and into Link.”

        It’s not a zero-sum game. With the right service support, both Link and bus ridership would increase. Link is feasible for certain trip pairs, while Metro is a better or the only option for other trip pairs. The problem is this latent ridership is being left on the table due to lackluster or unreliable service. Land-use changes and population increase also affect it. If we really had excellent transit service, it would be so popular we’d have to keep building just to keep crowding from overtaking it, like other cities have.

      6. With so many non-car improvements now between 5 and 20 years ago, a growing number of people I talk to are increasing asking ā€œWhere is the utilization?ā€

        I’ve never heard anyone say that. People like the improvements they just want more of them. They say we should spend more money on bike lanes, sidewalks, safety improvement and yes, bus lanes. This explains why the levy passed easily. They are *not* concerned about how many people use the sidewalks, or bike, or even ride transit. Give the Seattle voters some credit. They know spending money on non-car improvements — just like spending money on the schools or public housing — is worth it, even if we aren’t going to use it.

        This is just a simple power grab. Rob Saka has already clashed with SDOT and the city over a special project that he wants (https://publicola.com/2023/11/17/councilmember-elect-saka-compared-8-inch-road-divider-to-trumps-border-wall/). Strauss probably wants credit for steering a project to his district.

      7. Wisely, Seattle hasnā€™t expanded bus lane mileage in corridors that would see a shift away from buses and into Link.

        The city didn’t manage those corridors though — the state did. The big shift from buses to Link occurred in the north end as Metro truncated all the buses. You can’t take an express bus from the Northgate or the U-District to downtown even if you wanted to. There really aren’t roads (operated by SDOT) that will see a shift away from buses onto Link except West Seattle. But with West Seattle you are likely talking about quite a bit of money (to add ramps). I really don’t see the city investing in them either way. You are much better off adding bus lanes (like they did for the 4) which are fairly cheap.

        It really makes more sense for ST to build the ramps. It would be cheaper — and a lot more useful — than West Seattle Link. While it would cost a small fraction of West Seattle Link it still wouldn’t be cheap.

      8. Bike lanes aren’t just about people on bikes. It’s also about safety and comfort for all road users. Excessively wide roads to save drivers 30 seconds during rush hour leads to rampant speeding during off hours. Also, as a pedestrian on the sidewalk, I highly welcome the extra few of separation between me and the cars that a bike lane provides.

        And, for bikes, it’s about basic safety and the right to get places without getting run over. Yes, there are other forms of transportation, but driving is much more expensive, and transit, often, much more time-consuming.

    2. Sounds like a power struggle between the mayor and the city council. That is kind of funny considering a lot of the board was hand-picked by the mayor. He got the kind of council he wanted but it turns out they want to micromanage things. That is part of the problem with focusing on agreement instead of competence. Even if you aren’t thrilled with SDOT you should know this is a really bad idea. It will add layers of bureaucracy — and ultimately cost — to the system.

      1. This also gets into the general left-right dilemma. In general, the people most supportive of bike lanes tend to be progressive, but they lost to moderates due to issues such as crime and homelessness, which have nothing to do with bike lanes. We need more people to run for office on a platform to *both* support transit and bike lanes *and* remove tents and drug addicts from the streets. You shouldn’t have to pick one or the other.

      2. That is like saying Republicans shouldn’t have to pick between Reagan-style candidates (who want to defund the federal government) and Trump-style nationalists. Except the two go together. We know now the Reagan style approach doesn’t work. But (mostly white) people who are ignorant of public policy love it and are ready to adopt other failed policies.

        The same is true in Canada. Look who is leading the war against bike lanes: Doug Ford, a law-and-order conservative. Of course there are exceptions. The so-called “thinking man conservative” but traditional conservatism (a go-slow approach) has basically died out, replaced with reactionaries and nationalists. In neither case are their policies rooted in previous success (anywhere in the world) or good science.

        Which brings us back to “crime and homelessness”. The people in charge have have hinted that they were going to do something about it, but they haven’t. The biggest cause of homelessness is the housing shortage. The best thing to do — the thing that would get us the most bang for the buck — would be to radically change the zoning laws. Of course it isn’t the only thing we spend money on. We still need everything else, it is just that our dollars go way farther if there is a lot more privately built housing. The science is clear on this. But that doesn’t stop candidates from ignoring it, and making unfounded accusations about the previous board.

        The same is true with crime. We know how to reduce it. It requires more money to prevent crime as well as making the police department more efficient. Cops shouldn’t be controlling traffic or dealing with guys who went off their meds and are making a mess of themselves (unless they are violent). The cops are being asked to do much and that is stupid, given how much money they make and how hard it is to hire police (and you thought hiring bus drivers was hard). But candidates blamed the old council for the shortage of police — ignoring the fact that the police department was dysfunctional as well as inefficient. The council never defunded the police (although maybe they should have — Camden was fairly successful) but that didn’t stop the rhetoric based on ignorance.

    1. Exactly! That’s what I’ve been concerned about ever since this electrification push started maybe six years ago. It vacuums resources that could go to more bus service or expanding the trolley network. We need a battery-bus reset. Will we get it? When? Just having buses, any kind of buses, reduces carbon emissions and improves the economy’s connectivity, regardless of how the buses are powered. So let the current buses reach their end of life and then replace them one by one, rather than replacing all of them now.

      1. These Proterra buses are all retired despite the oldest being 8 years old and a big expansion of this fleet in the late 2010s. They all cost a huge amount more than standard buses. The Eastgate charger is unused. Insanity.

        Then there’s the plan to develop over the SODO bus bases a county campus in addition to the stupid Civic Center concept. SF Muni tried this mixed use bus base concept and its billions of dollars given the enormous complexity, now we are looking to repeat it while sabotaging our transit operations. Dow can’t get out of office fast enough.

    2. Yeah, we’ve been arguing that (on the blog) for a while now. It is good to set goals, but ultimately you want to get the best bang for your buck when it comes to electrification. You don’t want to sacrifice service just to putting a relatively small amount of carbon in the area. Doing so would probably be worse the environment, as more people drive.

      You want to get the low hanging fruit. In our case it means expanding the trolley bus system. Hybrid wire/battery technology has really improved the last few years. This is a much better value than fully electric and will probably remain so for a while. If we do like they do in Europe — drive on wire then off wire on a regular basis — then it changes the dynamic. Construction outages basically go away. Route changes on wired routes — or even new electrified routes — can be made with very little work.

      1. Yeah, from the Seattle transit perspective, battery/trolley wire hybrid is the low hanging fruit, and can be even be done using the extended range trolley buses that Metro already has.

        However, as the existing trolley network covers only a small portion of King County, the percentage of all service hours that could actually be electrified this way for a reasonable price is probably small (but, definitely not zero). For instance, I can’t imagine establishing new trolley infrastructure in South King being cost effective.

      2. the percentage of all service hours that could actually be electrified this way for a reasonable price is probably small

        From a space perspective it is small but from a service perspective it is big. The bulk of the ridership of Metro comes from Seattle. Service follows suit. It is also an evolving technology. I could easily see more and more routes being added to the system as the range improves. For example I could see adding wire on the SoDo Busway. Now add wire in Renton. The 101 then becomes a trolley bus. It travels without wire from Renton to the SoDo Busway where it is then recharged. But that would be too far for the 150 — now. But ten years from now, who knows?

        The point being that we tend to view wire as all or nothing. Either a bus is under wire the whole time or never. That really isn’t the case any more and it should change the way we view our trolleys. We should make routing decisions without freaking out about moving the wire. Moving the wire essentially becomes a “todo” item. If they have to make some other change, then move it to then. Meanwhile, new routes become electrified by only adding charging in a handful of places (typically the beginning and end). There are going to be places where running wire won’t be worth it, but those places will make up an increasing small portion of our system.

        We also tend to make bets on emerging technologies and we shouldn’t. It is highly likely that trolley bus technology is here to stay. European cities have invested quite a bit of money into the system. Not only to run them, but to build new buses. At worst we become one the last US cities with a major investment in trolleys. But chances are we will still have plenty of company in Europe (if not Canada).

        It is possible that battery-electric will someday replace them, but that isn’t clear. Betting on that reminds me of people who were certain that hydrogen fuel-cells where the wave of the future. Now it looks like the opposite. Also consider Liquefied Natural Gas or biodiesel. These are all niche technologies that have basically come and gone. I’m not saying that battery-electric will do the same, but it is quite likely that future battery-electric systems look very much like our trolley systems. The buses don’t get charged up at big stations. They get their charge from wires up above.

      3. Can trolleybuses really run off-wire all the way from Fremont to Sand Point and back, or SODO to Renton?

      4. Can trolleybuses really run off-wire all the way from Fremont to Sand Point and back, or SODO to Renton?

        It varies. It is common to see the phrase “up to”, like “up to 150km” with TransLink’s new buses (https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/translink-trolley-bus-test-in-motion-charging-battery). But like battery-electric buses that is in ideal conditions. If it is really hot or cold you lose about 60%. You also lose battery capability as it ages. So maybe you are down to 40% which would work out to about 40 miles. That is on the high end. Metro added battery packs to their existing fleet and now it can go “over 7 miles” (https://kiepe-group.com/en/news/article/king-county-metro-in-seattle-orders-major-battery-upgrade-from-kiepe-for-enhanced-in-motion-charging-capability-on-electric-trolley-buses). From Renton to SoDo would be stretching it, but if you ran wire from Renton to the Boeing Access Road I think the 101 could easily make it to SoDo.

        But there are other factors, like how long a bus is off-wire and how often you connect and disconnect. Ideally you have wire when the bus lays over. That way the bus recharges to full battery power each time it makes a trip. It also means you only have one disconnect and one connect. Charging in the middle could easily work but you get less out of it (and it requires another connect and disconnect).

    3. Battery buses have been doing well in Europe and Asia, but have been falling way behind in the United States. The problem is, because U.S. transit systems are chronically underfunded, the market for transit buses in general here is very tiny, so there’s only enough room for two bus manufacturers here, which isn’t enough to create real competition, and, of course, our national government imposes high tariffs to keep the foreign competition out. Without competition, the result is high prices and limited innovation.

      This is a problem for all buses, but it’s especially acute for battery buses, where the companies have figured out that the most profitable strategy is to make a tiny number of battery buses for agencies with zero-emission mandates and sell them for exorbitant prices, while selling traditional diesel buses to everybody else. In a competitive market, the cost difference between an electric bus vs. a diesel bus would be, at most, the cost of the battery, which is, these days, around $100/kWh, or $30k for 200 miles of range, assuming a battery bus gets efficiency similar to a Tesla Semi. In actually, the cost difference between battery vs. diesel is at least 10X higher than this, in spite of the fact that you’re removing the diesel engine and keeping everything else about the bus the same. The only explanations are either lack of economies or scale driving costs up, monopolistic companies overcharging agencies with zero emission mandates because they can, or some combination of both.

      1. The problem is the buy america provision. There are good battery electric buses but they are made in Europe or Asia (china).

        It’s the inherent problem with trying to use transit federal dollars for other initiatives. If one does it for electrification for environmental reasons that’s fine, or for protectionism for american jobs it’s alright as well. but combining the two requirements means very expensive and poor buses.

      2. Another issue is that with battery-electric you have to make a big investment. You need a way to charge them. Thus you spend a lot on charging stations as well as the buses. In contrast hybrid (gasoline/electric) buses are just regular buses that happen to be more efficient. So agencies buy them over time without having to make a separate investment.

        Some European countries manufacture their own buses. For a smaller country this is a big deal. For example Rotterdam bought a lot of electric buses made by companies in the Netherlands. It might have been cheaper to just continue to use diesel buses but adding jobs in the country is one more reason for Rotterdam to do that. This is less likely to happen in the US.

      4. > BYD completely failed to deliver in ABQ for the ART

        I’m pretty sure it’s because those were constructed in america as well. It’s the same thing that happened with the BYD trainsets that had issues. They were made in America.

        I’m not sure what is going on, but the BYD american factories just aren’t really that good compared to their chinese counterparts.

      5. > Battery buses have been doing well in Europe and Asia, but have been falling way behind in the United States.

        Fyi to clarify also the battery buses in Europe and Asia are not always the same the ones being installed in USA.

        In Europe and Asia some of those buses use flashing charging.

        > A flash-charging station is installed at every fourth or fifth stop depending on the bus route.

        This means the bus max range isn’t as crucial as they are recharging every couple bus stops. However, this is very very capital expensive for low or even medium ridership bus routes.

        https://www.urban-transport-magazine.com/en/hess-liefert-e-gelenkwagen-mit-flash-ladetechnik-nach-vicenza/
        https://www.hitachienergy.com/us/en/news-and-events/customer-success-stories/tosa-flash-charging-e-bus-geneva-switzerland

      7. Ryan made a good point: Electrification is not as important as expanding bus services. At the same time, I’m excited about another European manufacturer entering the U.S. market. I rode the Solaris buses in Berlin and they are great. Solaris also produces trolley buses, even double articulated ones (as does Hess, see WL’s link) https://www.solarisbus.com/en/vehicles/metrostyle/metrostyle
        I agree, now that Metro installed bigger batteries, we should use them to expand trolley services where there are wire gaps (48 etc) like some European cities already do. Later we can expand BEBs for less frequent routes, hopefully batteries will be more powerful then so that we don’t lose operating hours waiting for recharges.

      9. Iā€™ve ridden some of the Solaris battery buses that were being demonstrated in Berlin in 2016. The ones I rode were pretty nice. Among other things, the battery power source allows them to be 100% low floor and have a rear window.

      10. BYD’s debut in Denver seems to work out just fine. It has been 10 years now and they are still running. The only problem BYD has is probably that it sometimes tries too hard to get sale close.

        Order from ABQ ART was just risky business that no other manufacturers would want to go after because of the weather there.

    4. Interesting video on bus trolleys versus battery-electric buses (BEBs). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P9S_ZTXseM. Like all decisions the short answer is: it depends. If Seattle had no electric trolleys at all then I would favor BEBs. But we do. I think the solution for this city is to expand the trolley network bit by bit. This means investing in the infrastructure so that more buses can use it. Over time we have fewer and fewer diesel buses. That doesn’t necessarily mean we never buy another diesel bus or invest in BEBs (and the infrastructure) but I wouldn’t spend big bucks doing that. Better to stretch the limits of the system we have.

    5. Totally Agreed.
      It seems like now industries that electrifying transit fleet is falling behind. It just doesn’t make sense for a local transit agency to spend extra money to make their electrification promise that was based on an expired expectation. Transit agencies in Seattle area have been top of the curve by mostly ordering Diesel-Electric hybrid fleets on these days.

      I’ve seen agencies investing in hybrid buses in the early 2010s but recently started ordering Diesel or CNG buses again due to unsuccessful experience with hybrid transit vehicles.

      With pandemic and other factors that compromises projected funding, I think electrification goal should be the first thing to be revisited rather than service cut.

  5. What could be the next trolleybus corridors? Not just filling in small gaps in the wire for the 7, 12, and 48, but entire routes that currently have no wire?

    1. Well, with In-Motion Charging, you don’t need to electrify even last section of a route, just the bits that allow you to be most efficient with the Battery.

      So, I’ve mentioned Rapidride D. But also the 8.

      1. I agree.

        I think we need to think of it from a network perspective, not a route perspective (for the reason you mentioned). If you only need to run wire on part of the route, what is the minimum amount you need to electrify a bunch of routes? Where would that wire go?

        We should take advantage of what exists now and then build on it, serving more and more buses. The D and 8 you mentioned is a good example. There is already wire downtown and in Uptown. This means the D would probably only need wire in Ballard. Likewise the 8 would be charged up in three places: Uptown, Capitol Hill (taking advantage of the 43 wire) and Rainier Avenue. It is quite possible it wouldn’t need any new wire at all.

        But you also want to take advantage of areas where buses converge. Go back to the D again. Imagine they extend the wire in Uptown a bit north and west along Mercer and Elliot. Now you don’t need as much wire in Ballard. But it also opens up the possibility of electrifying the Magnolia buses. It is hard to justify (because they are infrequent) but you wouldn’t need that much wire in Magnolia. I’m not saying that is the best value, but it is the way we should be thinking.

    2. The obvious candidates would be routes in north Seattle, central district, or SE Seattle, as they could benefit from existing wire, at least through downtown or the U-district. There could also be some potential cost savings if new trolley routes only need wire partway. For example, if the 62 were electrified, maybe new trolley wire just from Belltown to the south end of the Fremont bridge would be good enough, and the bus could run on batteries the rest of the way, between Fremont and Sand Point.

      I would also like to see a modernization of some of the existing trolley routes to reflect the fact that downtown is not the only place worth taking a bus to anymore. The 13, in particular, really needs to extend across the Fremont bridge. Not sure if it should go east, west, or north afterward, or what ripple effects this would have on other routes, but there really should be a one-seat ride from all of Queen Anne at least to Fremont, ideally, far enough north to connect to the #44 bus.

      1. I would also like to see a modernization of some of the existing trolley routes to reflect the fact that downtown is not the only place worth taking a bus to anymore. The 13, in particular, really needs to extend across the Fremont bridge.

        Yes. I’m not sure if it should be the 3, 4 or 13 but one of the buses should go across the Fremont Bridge. The problem is there is no layover space there. So it basically has to be combined with another route. I think the best option would be to combine a bus with the 28. The 28 doesn’t get a ton of people taking the “express” from Fremont to downtown. Connecting it to another route would save service time (and allow the bus to run every fifteen minutes with any luck).

        But this would be too long if the buses continued to serve the Central Area. I probably wouldn’t mess with the 3/4. But I could see separating the 2 and 13. Have every 2 run from Madrona to Queen Anne (7th Ave W & W Raye St). This is also easier to understand for riders. The 13 would run from the south end of downtown to Queen Anne, Fremont and Ballard. It makes sense to do this when all the buses in the area are running every fifteen minutes (if not better).

        Then there is the wire. You would have to add some wire north of the canal. It is possible the bus could run from the current end of the wire (SPU) all the way until it reached Holman Road. That would mean adding wire just at the terminus of the route, which also happens to be the current terminus of the D.

      2. ” Iā€™m not sure if it should be the 3, 4 or 13 but one of the buses should go across the Fremont Bridge.”

        The 13 makes the most sense since it goes through the entire upper Queen Anne village, the dense counterbalance area, and Uptown. The 3 is gone from Queen Anne (they were renumbered to 4 in September’s restructure). so the only other alternative is the 4.

        It could go to Fremont and then continue north up steep Fremont Ave N to transfer to the 44, and to 50th and layover in the zoo’s parking lot. The zoo is owned by the city, so the city could choose to do that. And the south gate is now app-only, so it’s apparently not used as much as the west gate.

      3. Has anyone talked of a new additional drawbridge over the ship canal like at 3rd Ave, 1st Ave/QueenAnne Ave or Phinney Ave/Warren Ave?

        This bridge could be transit-only for a # 13 extension to Fremont (plus some other buses like 31/32) AND with a high quality bicycle pathway (given that the Fremont Bridge isn’t great for bikes anyway). Would think this could be quite a modest bridge being bus/bike/ped only (no stacking/turn lanes, minimal width and drawbridge would enable it to be very low).

      4. “Has anyone talked of a new additional drawbridge over the ship canal like at 3rd Ave, 1st Ave/QueenAnne Ave or Phinney Ave/Warren Ave?”

        The city has talked about building a new automobile bridge around 3rd Ave NW and making the Fremont Bridge non-car, but it hasn’t pursued it.

      5. > Has anyone talked of a new additional drawbridge over the ship canal like at 3rd Ave, 1st Ave/QueenAnne Ave or Phinney Ave/Warren Ave?

        There were ideas for a drawbridge at 3rd and Phinney Avenue for a streetcar/ light rail on westlake avenue extension to ballard idea.

        https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/About/DocumentLibrary/Reports/B2D_FinalReport%2005-16-14.pdf (2014)

        I don’t think there’s been consideration of a transit only bridge for buses. Ironically there might not be enough traffic to really push for it considering there’s the sr 99 bridge above.

        But I think it’d still be useful, if it could be built cheaply enough a transit/bike bridge like Portland’s would be nice.

      6. Completely agree. A mini Tillikum Crossing drawbridge would be fantastic. The Ballard Bridge is horrendous for bikes, and Fremont, though reconfigured to no longer be incredibly dangerous, is still not ideal.

        Close the EastLake section of the SLUT, and reroute it up Westlake to actually hit some population and business centers. A much better alignment than the wasteland that Link is slated to go through in interbay. And probably a tenth of the price.

    3. I think this also goes back into Metro’s new “equity” focus, with a pivot towards prioritization of South King. Because the existing trolley network is in Seattle, all of the low-hanging fruit options for trolley bus expansion are going to be in Seattle. But, for “equity” reasons, Metro wants to electrify the South King buses first, and doing Seattle first, even if it makes more sense, would mean going out of order, hence it’s a nonstarter.

      1. It’s hard to see an equity argument for electrifying South King County first. Replacing buses 1:1 doesn’t give access to more jobs or destinations. In fact, it hinders them, as it’s holding back RapidRide 150, 164, and 181, and whatever else Metro might do with the money. There’s an idea: electrify those routes when they become RapidRide.

        The only argument I could see is that they eliminate diesel fumes in neighborhoods. But I’d guess that the bus share of air pollution is lower in South King County than in Seattle, since buses have a lower vehicle share and fewer people are in the neighborhood.

        So any equity argument would seem to be purely political: to show it’s not neglecting South King County as governments have done before.

        There could be a practical reason though: South King County has the most space and compatible (industrial) land uses for bus base expansions.

    4. I feel like BEBs just aren’t quite ready for primetime.

      But they will likely be soon, right? There is clearly a market, and multiple manufacturers trying to work out the kinks. At some point in the next few years, this has to have the effect of driving down prices and making them cost competitive, as we have seen with cars.

      It seems like building a whole bunch of new catenary is an impatient over-reaction to market forces still working themselves out.

      1. Itā€™s a simple question of physics, though. If the route is static, itā€™s simply much more efficient to deliver power to a vehicle externally than to force the vehicle to carry all the energy capacity all day. Sure, thereā€™s a up-front capital cost and maintenance, but itā€™s lower-impact on roads (via reduced vehicle weight), and doesnā€™t need charging layover time. Thereā€™s no capacity reduction due to battery size, no runtime reduction due to charging needs.

      2. “Itā€™s a simple question of physics, though. If the route is static, itā€™s simply much more efficient to deliver power to a vehicle externally than to force the vehicle to carry all the energy capacity all day.”

        Technically, that’s true. But, the actual amount of energy saved by the reduce weight is actually pretty minor. The biggest issue with batteries is not so much weight, but cost. Overhead wire electrification is expensive per-mile, but is cheap per bus. Thus, if a route is short enough and frequent enough, at some point, overhead wire becomes cheaper than batteries. This is especially true if you have a system as KCM does with lots of legacy overhead wire to work with, avoiding the need to build a trolley system from scratch.

        One thing I would like to see bus manufacturers do is offer agencies the option to put in additional batteries at the rear of the bus, exchange for a drop in passenger capacity. The agency can then choose how much passenger capacity vs. battery capacity to order based on what’s necessary to operate the route optimally. A loss in passenger capacity per bus can be mitigated (within reason) by simply running the bus more often. But, insufficient battery capacity forces the agency to spend service hours in ways that don’t help passengers, for example, sitting at layover points longer to allow the batteries to charge, or driving empty buses to and from the base midday, solely to swap a bus with depleted batteries for a bus with fresh batteries. If going electric really needs to require more service hours for the same passenger capacity, I’d rather it be done in way that reduces passenger wait time vs. paying drivers for more time manning buses that are out of service. The problem is, no bus company, to my knowledge, currently offers this.

      3. There is quite a lot of energy loss just in the battery charge and discharge. Buses powered by overhead wire need about 25% less energy total due to those inefficiencies.

      4. Good thing we’ve made pledges, commitments, promises to only buy these not-ready-for-primetime buses going forward.

        I think I’m most bitter that the state has all this money available with grants to buy these crappy overpriced short shelflife battery vehicles but not for increased transit service which would actually address their sustainability and equity goals and drive transit ridership. They are doing this to Washington State Ferries too with battery powered ferry boats, those will be shortest lived boats, cut up for scrap in 10 years… but hey we’re so green!

      5. There is also existing infrastructure. We already have a fleet of trolley buses, as well as plenty of existing wire. Running battery-electric buses (BEB) would require charging stations. I get why a city starting from scratch would do that, but Metro would be much better off just leveraging what we have and letting the technology take us as far as it can go. Eventually we might end up buying BEBs, but it is also possible that we add overhead wire in a bunch of different places (and those become the charging stations).

      6. “I think Iā€™m most bitter that the state has all this money available with grants to buy these crappy overpriced short shelflife battery vehicles but not for increased transit service which would actually address their sustainability and equity goals and drive transit ridership.”

        The state doesn’t understand transit or sustainability. It’s the same problem with Sound Transit, Seattle politicians, and suburban politicians. So they go after these political goals their activists demand, when their activists don’t understand transit either. They may ride transit but they don’t understand frequency is king, universal free parking has externalities, trolleybuses are more efficient and can climb hills better, automated trains are more cost-effective, stations really need to be in the center of walkable villages, etc.

        You get exceptions like a good SDOT director, but they’re not the majority of the council or the mayor so they can only do so much.

      7. Level 2 charging of an electric car has about a 10% energy loss, so I would expect bus charging to be similar. And maybe the weight of the battery increases energy consumption by another 10%.

        Still, a 20% or even 25% difference in needed electricity is a trivial cost for Metro in the grand scheme of things. Even with diesel buses, which are much less efficient than this, fuel is still only minor component of Metro’s operating costs. The big costs that really matter in running bus system are capital and labor.

      8. They also have to buy like 30-40% more battery buses over diesel/hybrid/trolley because of all the charging needed. So many bases are pressed for space as is. The whole thing is ridiculous, if the big focus is climate and equity, frequent transit service where people can rely on buses for their needs will do it. Not disposable overpriced buses.

      9. “The whole thing is ridiculous, if the big focus is climate and equity, frequent transit service where people can rely on buses for their needs will do it.”

        There’s a large overlap between the people pushing for battery buses, battery cars, autonomous cars, shuttle-taxi zones, and replacing most transit with Uber. They think batteries are the bomb, Musk is a hero, everybody really wants to drive an SOV and that’s the only civilized thing to do, so we can solve every problem with battery cars first and battery buses second. A lot of this thinking is contrafactual, but they have clout with the politicians or have convinced them.

    5. Super Low Hanging: 2, 12.

      Low Hanging: G, 8, 11, 48, 70/J to Northgate, Queen Anne Hill to Fremont extensions. Maybe D, 5, 40, 45, 62

      G, when they can procure articulated electric trolleys with 5 doors perhaps with 7/R Rapid Ride for a larger order (the new existing G buses can be shifted elsewhere).

    6. Looking at the costs for trolleybus vs diesel bus:
      https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2023/00001.pdf

      It seems pretty clear to me the trolley buses are cheaper to operate. They are somewhat more expensive per mile but the average trolleybus spends a lot more time stuck in traffic than the average diesel bus. There are remote diesel bus routes, such as Vashon Island and Maple Valley, that tip the miles per hour towards the diesel buses.

      Thus, it seems to me the best place to add trolleybus wire is where there is frequent enough service that the maintenance of the infrastructure will pay for itself with the cheaper operating costs per hour.

      The problem with short extensions is they are really expensive per mile, because trolleybus hardware isnā€™t made that often in the USA. It would be good to try to coordinate with other cities, so that Ohio Brass (the only place that makes this stuff here) can run a large batch of parts.

      If this canā€™t be done, it makes more sense to do something like the E, where the operating hours per bus could make a significant impact in overall operating costs, and the route length is long enough for the custom parts required to be made in an economic fashion.

      Letā€™s do a little math?

      The cost advantage is $16 per hour per trolleybus. The E requires somewhere around 16 buses during much of the day, so letā€™s say itā€™s 1,345 bus hours per week (Iā€™m rounding to 12 hours per day since Metro dieselizes these routes so much, and off peak isnā€™t every 10 minutes).

      I calculate a savings of around $1.1 million per year. (16 bus x 12 hours / day x 365.25 days / year x $16 saved per bus hour).

      Due to the lack of economy of scale, youā€™d probably wind up spending about the same to convert a shorter route, but not get the same operating savings.

  6. The ads are entertaining, but remember that the millions of dollars spent on these ads are money that’s not being spent on safety and service. In a recent review, ST, then CT, spent far and away more in this area than behemoth KC Metro, and it’s easy to tell the difference between them. KCM, for instance, had Flex, what CT recently touted as innovative (Zip) several years ago, and with a lower transit tax…possibly because of spending less on PR. Then consider who these ads are appealing to…certainly not anybody on STB, for we’re already riders of transit. It is doubtful that these ads are making any inroads on the other 95%, for there is a learning curve to riding transit (the lingo, the how-to, the payment, the lack of wayfinding signage, those yellow things on posts that don’t say what they’re for that we all take for granted) as well as an inconvenience for them in following someone else’s schedule and being without their cars during the day….

    1. “the millions of dollars spent on these ads”
      It’s more like tens of thousands than millions. These ads don’t cost a lot to make, like under $50K, if that. Local commercials generally run on the less expensive side of commercial production due to everything being local and specific to local needs.

      I get it’s easy to chide Metro for PR stuff like this, but it also ignores how budgeting works and that each part of the pie has money each year to spend on things. Things you may not consider “important” but are the costs of running a business/organization.

    2. Marketing is considered essential throughout society; we shouldn’t single out transit agencies and say they’re the only ones who can’t. They’re competing against car ads and the like. The money is a drop in the bucket, and comes out of the marketing budget that would be there anyway.

      What I don’t understand with the “Metro Go” ad is who would be convinced, who would find it non-annoying, and who will even see it? The only reason I know about it is Metro sent a press release to the media. The music in both the Metro Go ad and the German ads I’d call “airheady”, not something I’d want to listen to. Still, it fills radio stations so somebody must be listening to it. So I’d suggest Metro make another ad without teenybopper music or cheerleader vibe. And adding some practical tips for using Metro as Al S suggested would also probably do more to encourage ridership.

      Still, I don’t want to be totally negative on the Metro Go ad. It’s what inspired the rest of this article. I remembered the CT ads and Bus Doggy Dogg from our previous coverage, and Martin found the Berlin ads.

      1. Is Metro even playing the ā€œMetro Goā€ video anywhere other than YouTube? Itā€™s a cute social media video (parodying Chappell Roanā€™s ā€œHot To Goā€) but not much more than that. Similarly, CTā€™s videos with Rick Steves were probably very low-effort, and Steves probably donated his time and expertise to help make them since heā€™s a SnoCo resident. I think itā€™s silly to worry about transit agencies wasting tax dollars on these. If anything, itā€™s giving their salaried social media and communications team something fun to do between press releases, public information requests, and answering weird DMs online.

        I donā€™t really watch live TV, though, so I have no idea whatā€™s actually being put out there as paid advertising.

      2. I watch a fair amount of sports, mostly on regular TV. I tend to fast forward through the commercials, but typically watch a few I haven’t seen before. I have seen the other Metro one (geared towards youth) but not this one. My guess is they aren’t spending a lot of money on these (either to create them or to air them). It is pretty common for agencies to spend a bit of money on this sort of thing. Whether it is ever worth it not is a different matter. I agree with Jarrett Walker:

        The notion that ridership depends on network design may be new to you. Havenā€™t you heard that ridership relies on having the right marketing, the right logo, an attractive vehicle, a courteous driver, or whatever? Well, those things can help, but only if the service is useful. Those features attract people to try transit, but people only use it routinely if itā€™s a good use of their time and money, day after day. Marketing can attract customers, but only the product will keep them.

        I think marketing makes the most sense when there is a big change. For example Sound Transit should definitely market each expansion. To a certain extent these market themselves (it is news). But promoting better frequencies from downtown to the north end is something that a lot of people might not realize will happen once East Link gets here.

  7. [The top 6 highest-ridership routes are the E, 7, A, D, H, 40, and C.]

    I’ve been surprised how much ridership some of these RapidRides have gained. The E is obvious because it’s the fastest north-south route, goes to Aurora businesses, and is a gateway to Snohomish County. But I wouldn’t expect the D or H to be in the top 10, yet somehow they’ve gotten there. This is a far cry from when the 120 was hourly evenings and weekends. I’m not sure if Metro is just very good at picking RapidRide corridors, or if all core routes would have the same gains if they had that level of service.

    1. I have the 2016 ridership numbers below. The route 120 was pretty high even back then. Though I don’t know about further back. Route 41 was converted into route 75 and using link. Route 49 has collapsed in ridership though there’s now u district extension.

      I think most heavily decrease is really route 255 down to 2413 from 6800. I fear the truncation to uw really hurt it a lot more even taking out covid impacts.

      RouteName Rides2016
      E 17000
      D 14300
      40 11400
      C 11100
      7 10800
      41 10000
      A 9700
      36 9300
      120 8600
      8 8400
      44 8400
      5 8300
      372 7700
      70 7500
      62 7400
      45 7100
      150 6900
      255 6800
      49 6500

      1. When the transportation system is working as it should, the Link-255 connection actually works quite well. The problems arise when the 520 bridge is closed, the Montlake ramp is closed, the Montlake bridge is closed, or when Link is single-tracked. All of these phenomenon have been happening a lot over the past few years. On top of that, the 255 has had its evening service reduced, so it’s now cut back to every 30 minutes as early as 7:30 PM. Cut back the frequency of any route and ridership will suffer, and this is no exception.

        Still, I think the 255’s worst days are behind it. The construction at the 520/Montlake interchange is done. When the full 2 line opens in a couple of years, frequency on Link between UW and downtown doubles. Hopefully, 15 minutes evening service can someday return as well, but I’m not holding my breath.

      2. Cut back the frequency of any route and ridership will suffer, and this is no exception.

        Agreed. I also think route where a transfer are common are especially dependent on frequency. It is one thing to try and time your bus to get you to your destination. But if you are making a transfer then this becomes much worse.

    2. Iā€™m not sure if Metro is just very good at picking RapidRide corridors, or if all core routes would have the same gains if they had that level of service.

      It is a bit of both. The 120 had plenty of riders before the pandemic — the H hasn’t reach that level yet. But the extra right-of-way and service helps. I would say that in general it isn’t a case where the RapidRide buses are doing great, but a case where the other buses are really struggling. The 44 isn’t anywhere near what it was before the pandemic.

      The other thing to consider is that with some of these buses they used to run peak-only expresses. Now all of the old riders of the 15 take the D. That doesn’t really apply to the 8 or 44. But I would say that a lot of buses are nowhere near their previous levels in part because service is so poor now. Speaking of which, the 8 is just too damn slow *and* too damn infrequent. Give it a decent amount of right-of-way and frequency and it would jump towards the top.

      1. “Now all of the old riders of the 15 take the D.”

        And are frustrated by the D’s travel time. I was a 15 local rider, and left Ballard partly because the 15 express wasn’t all day or was usually going the wrong direction for me to take it. The D isn’t that much better than the 15 local: it still makes the Uptown detour, and still gets bogged down in peak traffic on 15th Ave W/Elliott Ave W.The only material improvement with the D is higher frequency and next-arrival displays, but that doesn’t help travel time.

      2. Yeah, the D is much slower than the 15. I’m just saying that the lack of express overlays likely increased the ridership of the various core routes (many of which happen to be RapidRide). This applies to the C, D, E and H (although things are a bit more complicated with the E because of Link). For example the 15 used to carry 1,500 riders a day. Some of those riders work from home. But the rest now (reluctantly) catch the D (pushing those numbers up).

        In contrast routes like the 8 and 36 never had an express version.

      3. “the 15 used to carry 1,500 riders a day”

        It would be higher if people could ride it reverse-peak or off-peak. Several times I’ve wanted to ride it but it’s going in the wrong direction.

      1. No. Neither 15th nor 24th are equity areas. There is an equity area around Northgate somewhere, but I don’t think it’s a major factor for the 40.

        The Move Seattle levy in the 2010s had a half dozen RapidRide projects, including the 40, 62, 48, G, H, J, and maybe R. The G and H were completed. SDOT ran out of money for the others and reverted them to less-than-RapidRide improvements. Metro was going to drop the J, but the city council kept planning alive, and construction starts next year. The R came back in the next RapidRide tier, along with the K. SDOT allocated money for the 40’s less-than-RapidRide improvements, and it starts construction next year too. RapidRide 40 came back and is now in Metro’s second tier of RapidRide projects (i.e., after the K and R). It’s not fully funded yet. That’s where things stand now.

        The equity areas in north Seattle are generally in Broadview, Bitter Lake, Haller Lake, Northgate, Lake City, and maybe the UW campus. So as a whole they’re in far north Seattle, furthest from downtown and the 45th corridor.

      2. Thanks for the response and the good info. What I’m getting at is that the 40 isn’t an equity area and therefore has been a low priority to move forward despite being one of the top 3 busiest bus routes in the system.

      3. > Is it ā€œequityā€ why the 40 isnā€™t Rapid Ride yet?

        It’s probably not just ‘equity’ but also whether some nearby transit exists. Since rapidride D covers ballard and rapidride E covers the aurora corridor and north fremont route 40 ended up a bit lower.

        I mean otherwise route 7 would already be a rapidride but since link covers mlk which is adjacent it was prioritized later.

        You can see the future prioritization at https://i0.wp.com/seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/image-41.png

      4. “What Iā€™m getting at is that the 40 isnā€™t an equity area and therefore has been a low priority to move forward despite being one of the top 3 busiest bus routes in the system.”

        It’s just been a lack of money. Move Seattle intended to upgrade all of its RapidRide candidates. It turned out that its budget was overoptimistic, and they didn’t make it clear that it was only partial funding. So two lines went through and the others stagnated.

        The G was chosen first because of the First Hill hospitals, highrises, growth along Madison, steep hill, unacceptable congestion hindering the 2/3/4/12, closeness to downtown, and the failure of Link or the First Hill Streetcar to fully serve First Hill.

        The H was accelerated because of equity, so in that sense it got in front of the 40.

        I’m pretty sure RapidRide 7 was in Move Seattle but I don’t have the list. The 7 and 40 were second priority probably because the 7 has nearby Link and the 106, and the 40 has the nearby D. The H has no alternative because of the steep hills on both sides of Delridge Way. The G also has little alternative because of the steep hill, and a dense area deserves closer parallel lines.

        At the time there was also concern about downtown circulation. ST issued a report saying total north-south circulation downtown would exceed capacity in a couple decades. That’s the combined capacity of Link and buses. That was one of the motivations behind DSTT2, splitting the C/D, and creating more RapidRide lines on 3rd. The C, D, E, H, 7, 40, and 62 were all going to contribute to that. The argument was that several frequent upgraded lines would have more total capacity than the existing spaghetti of routes, and would also allow some other 3rd Avenue routes to be restructured out of downtown. That was the grand vision, but only a little of it has been implemented so far.

      5. Yes, Mike has it right. The other things worth adding: The 7 got delayed because of local opposition. There were three issues there:

        1) Stop spacing (always an issue)
        2) The pairing with the 49 (especially at night). People really appreciate the ability to catch one bus from Capitol Hill to Rainier Valley when the bars close.
        3) Fare enforcement. Folks were worried about heavy-handed security.

        I think all of these issues could have been handled, but with the three of them together Metro just punted. Now they are focused on right-of-way. Personally I think this is fine, and should be the priority system-wide. It would be great if the 40 is RapidRide but the improvements they are making are better than a typical RapidRide (which involve a minimum of new BAT/bus lanes). It is also more flexible. One of the big reasons why the D hasn’t changed is because it is RapidRide.

        Like the 40, the 70 got delayed because of money. Originally they thought they had enough money to go to Northgate. This got scaled back to Roosevelt and then to the UW. One of those times (I forget which) they had already done the various studies and had to do them (and ask for grants) all over again. Some of the routes were supposed to not only be RapidRide, but RapidRide+ (similar to RapidRide G in that there would be a lot more in the way of right-of-way improvements). This not only included the 40, but the 48 as well. They also the paired in a different way — you can read all about it here: https://seattletransitblog.com/2015/12/21/rapidride-the-corridors/. But they basically ran out of money (the initial estimates were way off).

      6. “There were three issues there:

        1) Stop spacing (always an issue)
        2) The pairing with the 49 (especially at night). People really appreciate the ability to catch one bus from Capitol Hill to Rainier Valley when the bars close.
        3) Fare enforcement. Folks were worried about heavy-handed security.”

        Where did you get this from? I haven’t heard that these were why the 7 was delayed. You seem to be making up reasons and then saying it’s why Metro or SDOT prioritized one project or another. There was talk about heavy-handed fare enforcement, but I don’t see that it rose the level of affecting whether SDOT/Metro would pursue the 7 project or when or in what order.

      7. “typical RapidRide (which involve a minimum of new BAT/bus lanes)”

        Typical RapidRide is usually less than the complete improvements a real high-quality BRT line would have. Even with RapidRide’s nature of being full-stop and and all surface, SDOT/Metro stop short of a full implemtation with full BAT/transit lanes for the entire route or most of it. So if the 40 project has more improvements than a typical RapidRide conversion, that’s a low bar, and shows the faults of the other RapidRide lines more than the greatness of the 40 project.

  8. Why can’t ST communicate well? Their latest alert “1 Line service is suspended from University of Washington Station to University District Station”. In plain English, that should mean that you can get to either of those stations, but need a bus bridge between them.

    But in the body of the alert, what ST *really* meant is “Trains are still running from Angle Lake to Capitol Hill, and from University District to Lynnwood City Center.”

    Can nobody at Sound Transit see that they are sending 2 contradictory messages in a single alert? Just send an alert with the subject “University of Washington station is closed”

    1. Announcing that a station is closed usually means that riders can still ride through on a train but cannot get on or off a train there. Like right now the 130th (soon Pinehurst probably) station is not yet opened. ST closes stations when something bad happens in the station ā€” like when itā€™s a crime scene.

      But if trains on the south leg are not running in-service north of Capitol Hill the they should be saying Capitol Hill like you noted.

      The Service Alert page seems to say that things were quickly back to normal.

    2. ST’s wording was at best ambiguous and needs to be more precise. Passengers need to know exactly which station they can travel to, and which segments or stations are inaccessible. That’s more important than internal ST issues like what’s suspended or why.

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