Early Assessment of RapidRide G and Restructure

53 Replies to “Early Assessment of RapidRide G and Restructure”

1. You wrote that transit ridership went down YoY. What is the data source for that? I heard that KCM grew 14% last year, the second fastest growth for any major transit agency in the US, behind only WMATA (in DC). That’s data from the American Public Transit Association (you can search for their “2024 Transit Wrapped”)

   1. As far as I can tell transit ridership went up YoY. NTD data shows that October through December have ~11% more ridership in 2024 compared to 2023 (adding up bus and trolleybus). On Metro’s dashboard you can hover over the December 2024 bar to see a 10.8% growth over December 2023.

      https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/data-product/monthly-module-adjusted-data-release

   2. You wrote that transit ridership went down YoY. What is the data source for that?

      The source is the Metro Dashboard I linked to. Thus this is Metro numbers (not ST or other agencies). Here what I did:

      Select “System Dashboard”. Also select “Tables”. For each month they list current ridership as well as the ridership for the same month the previous year. For example in December 2024 they list 277,976 for the current ridership and 324,809 for the ridership last year. They also list the difference (-46,834) and the difference in percentage (-14.4%).

      Basically overall ridership *compared to the previous year* started going down in May. Post-pandemic ridership peaked in April of this year.

      It is worth noting that these don’t match the numbers for APTA (at least in their quarterly reports). They are significantly lower for this year as well as last year. Thus they show an increase (but mainly because they showed very low numbers for 2023). I don’t know what to make of that. This post is based on the Dashboard (since the bus ridership numbers are also based on the dashboard).

      1. The ridership totals for each month included Link up until April 2024. The decreased ridership from May onwards is due to Link being removed.
         If you select the System Dashboard and Charts options it shows a separate bar for Link that stops being recorded in May 2024.
         For December 2023, it shows 73, 932 average daily boardings on Link, and 250, 877 on All Other Services. The December 2024 total is only for All Other Services.

      2. When I go to that dashboard, you can hover over every single bar on the bar graph, and each one shows year-over-year increases in ridership. I’m not sure how it shows decreases for the whole year, but I suspect it has something to do with including link sometimes and not others, as the post above mine indicates. It’s a weird dashboard. But I think your conclusion was incorrect.

      3. @Micheal — Yeah, I think you are right. I’ll make a correction. Damn.

         They stopped counting Link (which accounts for the ridership drop). It is odd they counted Link in the first place (it made the recovery look better than it actually was). I generally ignore the “Charts” view (with the bar graph) because the “Tables” view is easier to read and lists more months. (It is also much easier to screen scrape, which is how I gathered the data for the individual routes.) But I should have paid more attention to the notice that some of the months are “incomplete”. I figured they were missing a route or two — not Link.

   3. Why was Link included in the first place? This was all of Link ridership? Or something about Capitol Hill Station before or after Lynnwood Link?

      1. For some reason Metro decided to include Link ridership in their dashboard. There is some logic to that. Link has likely taken some of Metro’s ridership. But since this is unlinked trips it probably hasn’t taken that much of it. Someone in Lake City trying to get downtown still takes a bus — they just take Link as well. In any event in May they decided not to list Link ridership. That is a weird switch as well. By now they should know the ridership of Link for May (it is on the ST dashboard). ST has ridership for Link all the way through December. I can see changing it in October (with Lynnwood Link) but I don’t get why they switched it in May.

         In any event the “Tables” view is inaccurate (which threw me). I should have doubled checked using the other view (or used other sources).

2. I thank you for reporting this, Ross!

   I get how the research should include some routes and not others. It’s hard to decide where the edges should be in extracting data from an intertwined urban transit system. Perhaps Capitol Hill Link boardings, FHSC, Route 8 and the First Hill commuter routes would however be interesting side notes.

   I would also suggest that speed and frequency are equally important factors in travel. At the shorter distances here, I don’t think speed matters as much. It’s probably going to take looking at stop data to assess whether its speed or frequency that affects ridership more in this case.

   Finally — and I’m sure you get that a system redesign can force more transfers that can simply increase boardings without attracting new riders — I appreciate the more nuanced summary about the impacts.

   1. I thought about listing the Capitol Hill Station (CHS) data but decided against it. Link expanded and while I don’t think there are a ton of new riders coming from Lynnwood Link it probably had a few. I believe the First Hill commuter routes changed considerably. I’ll take a look but they were probably influenced more by their own changes than by RapidRide G and the related restructure. I should have included the 8.

      I was about to write that the streetcars aren’t part of the dashboard but they are. They are just in the middle of the dropdown box.

      I wrote a little program that goes out to the dashboard and grabs the ridership for each particular month. This makes the process a little less tedious. I’ll run the numbers for the streetcar and the 8. At some point I’ll also look at the First Hill commuter buses. I’ll manually grab the numbers for CHS. I probably won’t update the post but add a comment here.

      1. OK, here are some numbers for the streetcar and 8:

         Route 8:

         5,728 — Oct 2023 ****** 6,645 — Oct 2024
         6,132 — Nov 2023 ****** 6,330 — Nov 2024
         5,276 — Dec 2023 ****** 5,863 — Dec 2024

         First Hill Streetcar:

         3,993 — Oct 2023 ****** 4,234 — Oct 2024
         3,898 — Nov 2023 ****** 3,990 — Nov 2024
         3,372 — Dec 2023 ****** 3,789 — Dec 2024

         So the 8 saw an increase every month and at times some really big increases. Ridership also increased on the streetcar but by a smaller amount.

         With CHS they don’t have the numbers for November for some reason. So:

         7,777 — Oct 2023 ****** 10,014 — Oct 2024
         6,810 — Dec 2023 ****** 7,189 — Dec 2024

         So October saw a huge increase over last year and December saw a smaller one. One possibility: Folks taking the train from Lynnwood Link flocked to Capitol Hill after the opening. This seems quite reasonable to me. One of the first things my wife said when Link got to Northgate was “it will make getting to Capitol Hill so much easier”. My thoughts exactly. But December isn’t a great time to make such a trip. I also remember October being fairly nice this year.

         As far as the First Hill commuter routes are concerned I think basically it doesn’t matter. The 630 more than doubled but it still only has about 50 riders a day. I believe the 302 used to go to First Hill and it ended its run with about 250 riders. The 303 is down a little bit (to around 215). The 322 is up a similar amount to 400. I think the First Hill express buses are a little more efficient but I’m not sure.

      2. I appreciate the research. Ross.

         I too was frustrated that November 3024 data wasn’t in the table. I however did find that the data is there in the bar graphs for November. If you set the pulldown menus to average weekday boardings and the station to Capitol Hill, it says there about 9.8K (about 9800) average weekday boardings for November 2024. November 2923 data is in the table and it was 7563.

   2. The longer a trip, the more speed matters relative to frequency. This is best illustrated when thinking in extremes. For very long trips, one can look to airlines. Given the choice a less frequent nonstop flight and a more frequent connecting flight, almost everyone will go for the less frequent nonstop flight, unless the connecting option is significantly cheaper. Then, you have the very short trips, where walking, and it’s 3 mph top speed, easily outcompetes any form of transit, simply by not having to wait.

      Most trips in the Cap Hill area are short enough that frequency matters a lot, so it’s not surprising that riders act accordingly. For instance, much of the 10’s route, if not nearly all of it, waiting for a half hourly bus seems not worth it(*), given the alternative of walking to Link, walking to downtown, or catching a more frequent bus.

      (*) Absent a special reason, such as a disability, or when Link is replaced by shuttle buses.

      1. The longer a trip, the more speed matters relative to frequency.

         Yes, and the data shows this as well. For example better headways on commuter rail does increase ridership. But it doesn’t increase ridership as much as it does on a regular bus.

         But there are limits when it comes to speed for most travel. Trips between cities occur way less often than trips within a city. For trips within a city speed matters, but mostly as a way to avoid going really slow. The New York Subway system is extremely popular and the trains average 17 MPH. If they averaged 20 MPH or even 30 MPH it probably wouldn’t make that much difference. Avoiding long waits (and outages) is more important. But it is also important that they don’t go 10 MPH (the speed of some buses and some streetcars). For most trips that is the key: run fast *enough* and avoid waiting. The G does this (or at least it is supposed to — I don’t know if all of the really slow sections have been fixed).

3. Okay, I can’t resist to pounce on you Ross… but “the region’s first BRT Line?” Sorry : ) But Community Transit came out with the state’s first BRT line in 2009. With stop-spacing at a mile or more in some places and mostly running in a BAT lane, Swift is the only route in the region that has the most resemblance to a true BRT model.

   But thank you for the preliminary data, Ross. I didn’t know Metro had a dashboard and I’ll be looking at it more often. I really wanna see the stop data for these routes soon.

   1. Will the real brt please stand up?

      Jk jk but on a more serious note I assume Ross meant the first center running brt.

      1. +1

   2. I wrote “arguably” so yeah, let’s argue :)

      It is a judgement call. It is like arguing whether a creek is a river. But with six minute all-day frequency, lots of exclusive right-of-way and a very urban corridor I would consider it quite a bit above every RapidRide or Swift line. That was my point (not to argue about the BRT definition).

      Swift Blue has very wide stop spacing but that makes it more of a limited-stop express. You can be both, of course, but beyond a half mile wider stop spacing doesn’t make a line more BRT-ish. You can certainly be a BRT line with quarter mile stop spacing as well — it depends a lot on the corridor. In the case of Swift I think the big stop spacing made sense. Swift (like RapidRide) has off-board payment and pretty good frequency (better than some RapidRide). Thus I would put Swift Blue ahead of several RapidRide lines if I were ranking BRT-ness.

      Ultimately labels don’t really matter. It is like this post comparing “light rail” versus “streetcar” (https://humantransit.org/2010/03/streetcars-vs-light-rail-is-there-a-difference.html). It is a spectrum. So are colors and that doesn’t stop people from calling something “green”. But the word “green” might not translate to the same thing in a different language (it may be more greenish-blue). Making matters more confusing is that you have multiple spectrums to consider. There are a number of factors that could be considered. ITDP considers several factors in their assessment (https://itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/the-bus-rapid-transit-standard/about-the-brt-standard/) and weighs each one accordingly. But both the assessment as well as the weighting is debatable.

      It is probably more useful to have an assessment like this one. Who cares if Swift doesn’t qualify as “BRT” if it resulted in an increase in ridership or lots of riders saved a lot of time. Such assessments should include the cost of the improvements (just like with rail) to see if it was worth it. That takes a lot more work (and I have no idea if that is done for our trains, let alone our buses) but that is the sort of thing that really matters. You can also look at the overall network and make general judgements. I think it is very hard to argue that Swift Blue wasn’t worth it. With some of the other Swift lines it is easier.

   3. I rather agree with you, Jordan. I don’t find the most features of RapidRide G unique.

      Had the line be en built with lots of grade separations, with stops mostly at 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile and with the absence of lots of intersections with crosswalks it would be really uniquely BRT! But its street design isn’t even as “rapid” as the SODO busway. It’s like calling a streetcar “rapid rail”.

      The four main unique features that I see are:
      – left-door buses
      – median bus lanes
      – island platforms
      – interior bicycle storage

      But those things don’t automatically make a bus the first “BRT” as interesting as they are.

      1. It is more the exclusive right-of-way, the frequency and the urban nature of the line that is special. These go together. You could add exclusive lanes for transit anywhere but that doesn’t mean you need them. In this particular area you definitely need them. Likewise six minute headways just wouldn’t benefit a bus like the 101 as much as it does this bus (even though it would be appreciated). A bus traveling through the middle of an urban area like this can better take advantage of it. Probably the closest thing to the G is just all of the buses on Third Avenue. In some of the stops they even have off-board payment. But a spine isn’t really the same thing as a single bus carrying all the riders on the corridor, making the G different.

         It is worth noting that BAT lanes are great and are often sufficient. But they can also result in a bus being bogged down. A bus like the E has plenty of BAT lanes but it also has plenty of areas where there are no special lanes at all. Same goes for Swift Blue. I don’t think there are a lot of BAT lanes for the A either (but I could be wrong).

         Of course you can also argue that while the G has BRT potential, it isn’t quite there yet. It is fine on First and Capitol Hill but they need to fix the downtown section (so that it can avoid congestion there). Likewise I don’t know if the traffic-light situation has improved.

      2. The transit-exclusive center lanes and 6-minute all-day service make this a model for RapidRide and Swift, and is the closest to “BRT” the state has ever had.

         It’s not worth bothering whether it is or isn’t BRT because there are a lot of factors and tradeoffs and visions for that. The point is it has some aspects of high-quality transit, and this is hopefully the first of several lines like this.

         It’s like when Link’s initial segment opened: people had never experienced light rail here and couldn’t fully predict how they’d relate to it, but once it’s running on the ground and over the first few months and years people see as the months and years go on people see how they could make trips the couldn’t before or it’s easier, then they want more of it. That’s how you go step by step to a high-quality, high-ridership transit network.

      3. Sometimes the difference is so obvious though, it doesn’t need long term thought.

         CTran’s The Vine was so much better than the prior route 4 ridership increased by 45% and operating costs decreased by 21%.

         https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/jan/09/c-tran-vine-1-year-old-going-strong/

         That’s really the measure of success for these things: does it increase ridership / decrease expenses / both?

      4. “It is more the exclusive right-of-way, the frequency and the urban nature of the line that is special.”

         It is special! It’s just not BRT. As long as the signals and crosswalks and stop spacing are what they are, it cannot be designed for rapidity.

         I guess I would call it high capacity transit or HCT instead.

         As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Metro isn’t shoeing a significant time improvement from what was operating in Madison before. It is lonely mainly attributable to the fact that the line has about 30 signals to go through in each direction on its relatively short length. And each signal has to allow time for pedestrians to get across.

      5. > It is special! It’s just not BRT. As long as the signals and crosswalks and stop spacing are what they are, it cannot be designed for rapidity.

         We can and should call it BRT. It has center median brt lanes and is faster than what was before.

      6. @ WL:

         Every RapidRide is faster than what was there before. So should we call every RapidRide BRT? What’s in and what’s out?

         Center running lanes is not de facto BRT. Center running lanes is just center running lanes. They exist in places around the US like on Market Street in San Francisco — and no one calls the F line rapid. It’s painfully slow! .

         And comparing todays published RR-G schedules is what was there before isn’t really faster. The original baseline was 16.3 minutes eastbound and 12.1 minutes westbound between First and 23rd. I just checked a timetable and Metro today is saying it’s 13 minutes eastbound and 12 westbound. So it’s not any faster westbound and only 3 minutes faster eastbound.

         Before source:
         (https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/TransitProgram/RapidRide/Madison/MadisonBRTNovOpenHousePresentation11.16.15.pdf)

         RapidRide G is mostly just a rubber tired streetcar! It’s only called BRT to convince people that it’s some sort of amazing thing to get funding and support. Those that believe that it’s actually BRT drunk the kool-aid.

         If you want to see real BRT, look at LA Metro’s G Line. That’s rapid!

      7. @Al

         That’s taking the “it’s not real brt” too far. Do you not consider the east bay brt or Richmond’s brt either?

         Also if you read the slide right above that one it talks about how from 6th to 13th Ave would sometimes take 7 minutes to cross which is now down to 1~2 minutes

      8. “It’s only called BRT to convince people that it’s some sort of amazing thing to get funding and support.”

         Metro stopped calling RapidRide BRT back during the initial batch of six lines, because of all the controversy that it wasn’t like Swift as it had first been described.

      9. As long as the signals and crosswalks and stop spacing are what they are, it cannot be designed for rapidity.

         First of all the stop spacing is just fine. It is urban stop spacing in a steep area. As it gets to the top of the hill (and becomes less urban) the distance between the stops increase. East of Broadway (which is still fairly urban) there is over 500 meters between stops. This is normal for a subway line (e. g. Paris, New York) let alone a short line in an urban environment.

         The signals are a different matter. But there are only a handful of places in North America with dedicated busways and no traffic signals. I think the system in Hartford is the only one (it follows an old railway that has overpasses and underpasses). The Orange Line in L. A. wouldn’t qualify even though it runs in an exclusive busway (https://maps.app.goo.gl/kwUGpLjULHFNXa6M8). Neither would the Van Ness BRT. It would mean that signal priority — a factor that ITDP considers when they rank systems — would be meaningless. If Link somehow got converted to a bus (that ran through the various tunnels and up on the elevated structures) then it would not be BRT according to that definition (it would just be a regular bus). Sorry but that is way too exclusive.

         I quibble with ITDP on some things. For example I think branding is meaningless. But I think they get the basics right (https://itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/the-bus-rapid-transit-standard/what-is-brt/) and clearly RapidRide G is above every other RapidRide/Swift line in the region in that respect. In terms of speed it really isn’t about overall speed, it is speed relative to alternatives. If there is a cab right there how much time would it typically save you to take it. The short answer is “not much”. The wait for a bus isn’t long and the bus will get you there just about as quickly (and sometimes quicker) than the cab.

         The center-running works and is considerably faster than the old buses. There is probably work they could do to make it even faster but I think it already qualifies as “BRT” (in ways that no other bus in the region does).

         Ultimately it doesn’t matter. The 99 B-Line is an amazing bus (with the highest ridership of any bus in North America). Whether it is considered “BRT” or “has BRT elements” is basically meaningless. It is one hell of a bus line and if it remained a bus line then anything they could do to make it better would be justified. (It will be replaced by a subway line instead.)

      10. stop. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? BRT and LRT are both continuum of service and capital. That is why they discuss standards (e.g., gold, silver, etc.). All the RR lines are real; they are along the continuum with faster fare collection, frequency, and some priority through traffic.

          Let’s also wait a year and compare fall 2024 and fall 2023 and look at rides, rides per platform hour, lateness, and headway adherence. The G Line has design weaknesses; the execution will improve. The changes to routes 10, 11, 12, and 49 were weak. (I bet the Metro network around Lynnwood Link will be disappointing).

          Will the service level be maintained through the year with the limited boutique fleet?

          Strategically, is the G Line an investment in improved radial service, oriented to/from downtown Seattle, when better crosstown service is the more important need? The July 2018 decision for hybrid buses really bothers me when both agencies were supposed to be focused on global warming and electric trolleybus.

4. Thanks for the information. For Routes 10 and 12, it looks like they should be semi consolidated. the pike/pine is split into too many routes. Perhaps it could be a loop with the combined 10/12 heading northbound on 15th ave and then heading southbound on 19th ave

   1. For Routes 10 and 12, it looks like they should be semi consolidated.

      Yes, I agree. I don’t think a live loop would work though because the bus already does a live loop downtown. If it could layover down there then yes, that would ideal. Assuming we can’t do that I see several options:

      1) Just get rid of the 12. This is what is shown here: https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/08/30/high-frequency-network-surrounding-rapidride-g/. This is simple (which is why I chose it) but not ideal.

      2) Follow the (new) 10 route up to Thomas and branch there. This would be a good compromise as it wouldn’t require adding wire or new bus stops. It also matches a lot of the ridership. The most popular stop on 15th (by far) is the one close to John/Thomas (and the hospital). The drawback is that the first shared stop is further south (at Denny). Thus without adding a bus stop you lose some of the advantage of combining frequency there. I would try to add a bus stop on 15th (southbound) between Thomas and John. Northbound it wouldn’t matter (the stops could be after the branch).

      3) Follow the 10 up to Aloha and then branch.

      4) Have the 10 dogleg to 19th at Aloha. Since 15th skirts the park this effectively covers the area without a branch. Riders don’t have to walk that far to get to a bus (and it is very nice neighborhood to walk through).

      5) Have the 10 dogleg up to 19th at Aloha and then follow Galer around to 15th and end there. The stops on Galer get a surprising number of riders. About 100 for 19th and 140 for 15th. Might as well serve them both.

      I think my first choice would be the last one. It wouldn’t add much in terms of additional time and would simplify things. My second choice would be the branch at Aloha. I think the least disruptive change would be the branch at Thomas (the second option) and would still be a significant improvement.

5. > While the RapidRide G has not come anywhere near the future ridership expectations of the route

   While I understand the bus has been kind of a consolation for the lack of a first hill station, it has still felt like a missed opportunity that the first center running brt didn’t run on a more popular route.

   It has been great to use though and 4000 more daily active riders is actually better than I expected, I thought after accounting for the decrease elsewhere it would have been a lot more milder.

   1. it has still felt like a missed opportunity that the first center running brt didn’t run on a more popular route.

      In terms of ridership per mile it is probably the most popular route. A route like the E gets a lot more riders but that is because it covers a much longer distance and makes a lot more stops.

6. Given that ridership projections were made pre-pandemic, and Urbanist has reported that system-wide ridership in spring ‘24 was 64% of spring ‘19, a correction to the projection of 12000 to 7680 could be used to compare to current ridership. Still not near the projection but it’s still early days, given how rocky the rollout was.

   I wouldn’t be surprised if it reaches the corrected projection after some settling in time and the full 2 line is up and running.

   1. I agree. I think it takes a while for people to adjust to the route. I also think that the publicity about the poor start may have discouraged some riders. There are issues that are likely to be resolved over time making it more popular as well.

7. Great analysis Ross. While 4300 daily riders on the G Line is lower than expected, I wonder how it compares to other RR routes in terms of rides per platform hour. It’s one of the shortest routes in Metro’s network so its total ridership will likely stay less than the total ridership for other RR routes.

   Also, if I understand the 3/4 restructure correctly, the Summit loop has about 600 riders per day. Route 4 gained all of Route 3’s Queen Anne ridership (avg 3392) while Route 3 lost that same ridership but gained the Summit loop ridership, resulting in a net decrease (avg -2780). Assuming 3/4 ridership hasn’t changed significantly for other reasons, the difference is from the Summit neighborhood.

   1. The RapidRide G is probably the best route in the system in terms of ridership per mile. Part of the reason for the high ridership is the high frequency. High frequency is actually a negative when it comes to ridership per service hour. So it isn’t obvious that it has the highest ridership per service hour.

      Allow me to do a little napkin math here. I believe the A has the highest ridership per service hour. It gets about 9,000 per month. It runs every ten minutes most of the day while the G runs ever six. At noon a one way ride on the A (end to end) takes 44 minutes. With the G it takes 16 minutes. If my math is right that means the G should have 5,000 riders if it matched the A in terms of ridership per hour of service. It is a bit short of that now, but it is certainly in the ballpark.

      That sounds about right, too. I think it is one of the best in terms of ridership per hour of service but it probably isn’t the best (yet).

   2. The 3/4 situation is confusing but yes, I think you have it right. That is the short version.

      Here is the long version. The old routing (prior to the restructure) was like this (frequency is midday weekday):

      3 — Ran from Garfield High School to SPU every fifteen minutes. Every half hour it would run from Madrona to downtown.

      4 — Ran from Judkins Park to Downtown every half hour.

      Thus in the overlapped section (from Garfield to downtown) it would run every 7.5 minutes. To Queen Anne (SPU) it would run every fifteen minutes. To Judkins Park and Madrona it would run every half hour. The new routing is like this:

      3 — Every half hour from Summit to Madrona.

      4 — Runs every half hour from Judkins Park to downtown. Runs every fifteen minutes from Garfield to SPU.

      From a service standpoint it is very similar. You still have 7.5 minute service along the shared section as well as fifteen minutes to SPU and half hour service to both Judkins Park and Madrona. The only difference from a service standpoint is the extension to Summit (every half hour).

      But from a route-ridership standpoint things have changed. It used to be that on the shared section (Garfield to downtown) every half hour you would see three route 3 buses and one route 4 bus. Now it is the other way around. The other change is the one you mentioned. Now it is the 4 that goes to SPU (every fifteen minutes). These changes account for the shift in ridership (from the 3 to the 4).

      But if you look at the routes in combination there is a net increase of 600 due to the extra service to Summit. In my opinion this is a solid improvement given the relatively small amount of service time it takes to serve Summit.

      I alluded to a potential change so here it is:

      Get rid of the half hour tails to both Judkins Park and Madrona. Run the 3 every fifteen minutes from Garfield to SPU. Run the 4 ever fifteen minutes from Garfield to Summit. This would probably save money.

      I would also send the 49 to Beacon Hill and combine it with the 60*. This would avoid overlap and thus allow for more frequent service on the 49. Riders in the neighborhood who used to take the 49 to get to Pike/Pine just walk to the 4. Riders in the neighborhood who used to take the 49 to downtown walk to the 4, 10 or Link. Riders from farther north take the (more frequent) 49 and transfer to Link or a frequent bus (or set of buses) to get downtown.

      *The 60 is too long to run from Westwood Village to the UW. So you can’t just combine the 49 and 60. One option would be to just split it at Beacon Hill Station (BHS). This would mean the 49 runs from the UW to BHS while the 60 runs from Westwood Village to BHS. Another option would be to combine the 49 with the 36. So the 49 would run from the UW to Othello (via Broadway/12th/Beacon Avenue/Myrtle) while the 60 runs from Westwood Village to downtown. Like the 3/4 it really doesn’t matter that much how you combine the corridors — the key is that you consolidate on the corridors in order to increase frequency on them.

      1. “Get rid of the half hour tails to both Judkins Park and Madrona. ”

         No service to the eastern CD (Madrona)?

      2. The 2 would still serve Madrona. So you create a relatively small coverage hole. If I had to choose one tail to keep it would be the one to Madrona (not Judkins Park). The route is basically coverage at this point and the 3 provides more coverage than the 4. But it still isn’t much.

         I should add that more than anything I don’t like the mix. I feel like it should be one or the other. Either run the buses to Madrona or Garfield all the time. Running the buses to Madrona might very well be worth it (especially if they increase density in the area) given it isn’t that far.

      3. More thoughts. If we ended up with no service on MLK (between Rainier and Madison) then I would definitely run the 3 to Madrona (as often as the rest of the route). It would be a good way to cover the are and help compensate for the loss of the 8 (in that area).

         Another alternative for service in that area is to branch the 27 at MLK. Call it the 27 and 37. The 27 is the same. The 37 runs from Madison & MLK to Yesler & MLK and then follows the same path as the 27 to downtown (via Yesler). That way you have double the frequency on Yesler and half the frequency on each branch. At that point it is harder to justify the tail of the 3.

      4. “Another option would be to combine the 49 with the 36. So the 49 would run from the UW to Othello (via Broadway/12th/Beacon Avenue/Myrtle) while the 60 runs from Westwood Village to downtown.” combining the 36/49 is a no go, if ST decides to take the 1 LINE via the new tunnel with no stops in the CID. The 36 would be the only route that would serve the Beacon Hill-CID market (the 36/49 combo might been okay if ST 1 LINE directly serves the CID station).

      5. @Warren — I’m not sure you understand my suggestion. Three buses would change (the 36, 49 and 60). The 36 would run from Othello to Jackson (as it does now). But instead of turning and heading downtown it would keeping going straight on Broadway/10th until it takes over the current 49. So more or less this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/gKsY1r55so4oxXQX7. Meanwhile the 60 would start at Westwood Village and also follow its current path to Jackson as well. But instead of going to First Hill it would turn and head towards downtown (like the 36 currently does). So the 60 becomes the Beacon Hill/CID bus.

         If you are are north of the station nothing much changed except the numbers. You can still take a bus directly downtown (via Jackson) and you can take a bus up to First Hill. The only significant change is that the bus up to First Hill is faster (following Broadway instead of going back and forth) and it continues along the corridor much further (it doesn’t end at Republican). If you are south of the station the buses just swapped destinations (First Hill for downtown).

8. Given how important the G Line now is to the First Hill/Capitol Hill transit network, it makes it all the more shocking that the route was flat-out canceled during last week’s light snow, while other routes were operating normally (or close to it).

   1. Other routes *in the area* were cancelled along with it. The 2 and 12 no longer went on Madison. The 3/4 were rerouted as well. I think there must have been accidents on Madison (and some of the other streets) because the buses operated fine going up to Queen Anne. Likewise the Pike/Pine buses operated fine.

      I think this is another argument (albeit a weak one) for moving the 2 to Pike/Pine. The 2 seemed to operate just fine east Broadway. It was Seneca/Spring that was the issue. If the 2 were to cut over to Pike/Pine then last week it would have ran just fine. As a result people would have had an alternative (besides the 90) for getting up to First Hill from downtown (since Pike/Pine was OK). You add some resiliency by moving the 2 to a different street.

      1. When I used to rely on Route 2 on snow day routing, I witnessed that the hill between 18th and 19th was also a big sliding problem for Route 2 buses. Several buses have slid down that block and crashed. Now that the bike lanes are along the curb, there is even less street width to operate so it’s much easier for a sliding bus to hit a parked car.

      2. That makes sense. It is steeper than I remember. It is also quite possible it isn’t a bus crashing into anything, but a car crash. When it snows all the tow trucks get swamped very quickly. It takes a while to clear the street. In the meantime the snow builds up. So you need to tow the car(s) out of there and then plow it before the buses can go back to using it. You also want to avoid churn. You don’t want to clear out a street only to have another crash mess it up again. I’m sure the folks are fairly conservative and err on the side of the snow routes.

9. The 2 is noticeably more crowded north of pike without the 3 as an alteenative. In north belltown rhe 4 seems to work out but we do miss the 3. I hope the summit loop is supporting it since the 47 was not really justified..

   1. The 3 Queen Anne runs weren’t moved or deleted — they were renumbered to 4.

10. The 2 is noticeably more crowded north of pike without the 3 as an alternative.

    I’m confused. The 3/4 hasn’t actually lost any service (at least in a while) — the numbers have just changed around. Hard to see someone switching to a different bus just because the number on the bus changed.

    I hope the summit loop is supporting it since the 47 was not really justified..

    The biggest problem with the 47 was the routing in the area. Basically you had three buses (the 10, 12 and 47) all going to the same place (downtown) pretty much the same way (via Pike/Pine). There were some subtle differences but not enough for someone in the area to pick one over the other. Then you have Link in the middle of it which is another alternative. In such a situation the buses that run frequently tend to dominate. With the 47 running infrequently it lost out.

    There are really a couple solutions in this situation:

    1) Consolidate service along a common corridor.
    2) Send one (or more) of the buses somewhere else.

    The second option is the better one in this case as I explained up above (https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/02/10/early-assessment-of-rapidride-g-and-restructure/#comment-951288). Thus you can have both good coverage and high ridership at the same time. It is a key aspect to this and similar proposals.

    As it turns out even with the competition the 47 (now rebranded as part of the 3) is doing OK (at least it appears to be). The ridership is not that high but neither is the cost.

    1. I used to live on Bellevue Ave along the 47 route. I would not have considered the 10/12 to be equivalent routes, even if they converge along the Pike/Pine segment up/down the hill. I was always surprised the 47 got cancelled – there’s quite a bit of residential density (and a tiny little retail district on Summit) that is otherwise a long walk, or a short walk on a steep hill, to other transit options. I’m glad to hear it’s back, albeit under a different number.

11. Ridership increases with frequency is not surprising, but I think it will be interesting to see next year’s system evaluation to see how ridership per hour and passenger miles traveled per bus mile responds. Will the usefulness of buses be able to counter the effect of having more buses and more capacity to make each bus of a route better used?

    Outside of the 60, the 107 is also slowly becoming a frequent bus, which is not seem prepandemic. Unfortunately 124 remains relatively infrequent on weekends, otherwise we may be able to see some network effect in Georgetown

    1. The combined Pine-Pine service is more frequent but each route is less frequent, so it’s more convenient for some trips but less convenient for others.

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