On Wednesday, Mayor Wilson announced plans for new bus lanes on Denny Way to help improve reliability for Route 8. “This is workhorse route. This is one of our highest ridership routes, and it has long struggled with reliability,” Wilson said. This announcement follows the Mayor’s first executive order for SDOT to “design and install at least one dedicated bus lane on Denny Way, with the goal of significantly improving the reliability, speed, and performance of Route 8 and other transit services operating in the corridor.” The new bus lanes will be Mayor Wilson’s first direct addition to Seattle’s growing bus lane network.
The Denny Way Bus Reliability Project will be implemented in two phases. Phase 1 will be done in May and include a new southbound business access and transit (BAT) lane in the center lane on Queen Anne Ave N between John St and Denny Way, an eastbound curbside BAT lane on Denny Way between Queen Anne Ave N and 2nd Ave, and a bus priority signal on Denny Way at 2nd Ave.
Due to the World Cup, SDOT will pause all right-of-way construction between June 8 – July 9. After this pause, SDOT will continue with Phase 2 in August. The highlight of Phase 2 is an eastbound BAT lane between 5th Ave and Fairview Ave. In addition, the Yale Ave slip lane will be closed and the existing bus lane between Fairview and Steward St will be moved to the curb lane. Drivers traveling from Denny to I-5 will now use Boren Ave and Howell St. A few more turn restrictions will be installed along Denny Way.
Route 8’s reliability along Denny Way has long been a concern for transit riders and advocates. In 2023, the Fix The L8 campaign started an organized effort to raise awareness about the “L8” and push SDOT to paint bus lanes. Fix The L8 co-lead Jason Li wrote a 3-part series on Route 8’s reliability last year: Route 8 Bus Lanes, Redesigning Denny Way, and Long W8s. Last summer, hundreds of people Raced the L8 by walking, jump roping, and dancing between Dexter Ave and Steward St.
Metro is planning on increasing Route 8’s frequency from every 15min to every 12min in August. This improved frequency and the new bus lane should make Route 8 trips much faster and more reliable. This Fall, the L8 will become the Gr8!
I wonder if improved reliability will allow even faster frequencies, like 8-10 minutes. Route 8 is a prototype of a Seattle Center – SLU – Link line so I bet ridership would jump significantly
The Urbanist published a metro memo that noted it was decreasing the headways from 15 minutes to 12 minutes, so that’s a good sign.
*increasing not decreasing
sorry for the grammar nazi btw
I think DM is actually correct. The headway is going from 15 minutes to 12 minutes. That is a decrease. This is good. This also means that buses are more frequent. This is the same thing. You can even consider frequency to be increasing, since they will be going from four buses an hour to five buses an hour (4 to 5 is an increase). Thus the frequency is increasing while the headways are decreasing.
Note: I usually use the word “improve” for just this reason.
It’s decreasing the headway time from 15 minutes to 12 minutes. You would increase frequency by decreasing headway since headway refers to the amount of time and frequency refers to the volume of buses.
I would still use increase just in case, decrease sounds negative.
I won’t because it’s factually incorrect.
Ok you do you.
Headway is just a transit wonk term for wait time (or “W8” time, in this case). “Increased headways” does not sound better than “decreased headways”, unless you conflate headways and frequency. It’d be weird to conflate headways and frequency, though, because both of those terms aren’t common outside of transit nerd circles.
Normal transit riders just want to know how often the bus comes (every 10 minutes? every 30 minutes? every hour?) and everyone understands that decreasing that number is good. This is why we suggest STB writers refer to headways instead of frequencies.
Ross’ suggestion to using “improve” rather than decrease/increase is quite helpful. I wish I thought of that when I was talking to my customers when I worked in transit.
“This is why we suggest STB writers refer to headways instead of frequencies.”
I use “frequencies” instead of “headways” because the latter is non-understandable to readers who aren’t familiar with transit-agency-insider vocabulary. I don’t see any reason to use “headways” except when quoting agencies, and even then it may have to be explained. Readers shouldn’t be forced to constantly calculate in their heads whether headway is the same or opposite of frequency, and thus whether a lower headway is better or worse. And worse than that, they may misunderstand the statement. Everybody understands “frequency” immediately.
I meant in reference to actual numbers. Again, most people only really care about the wait time between each bus, but they don’t know that is called “headway”. On the other hand, people have an intuitive understanding of frequency as a concept, but have a hard time intuitively converting frequency to wait time (aka headways).
So, quantitative discussions of bus service improvements should talk about reductions in wait time (e.g. every 5 mins vs every 10 mins), but qualitative discussions might find it better refer to frequency if it’s important to match “improve” to “increase” and “degrade” to “decrease” in the tone of the article.
“most people only really care about the wait time between each bus, but they don’t know that is called “headway”. On the other hand, people have an intuitive understanding of frequency as a concept, but have a hard time intuitively converting frequency to wait time (aka headways).
So, quantitative discussions of bus service improvements should talk about reductions in wait time (e.g. every 5 mins vs every 10 mins)”
Frequency is wait time. If a train runs every 10 minutes, then if you just miss one your maximum wait should be 10 minutes theoretically.
The confusion is frequency gets higher when the wait gets shorter, while headways get lower. The solution is to throw out the confusing term headway, which is a transit-agency bureaucratic term, like calling bus/train drivers “operators” instead of drivers.
Metro has performance metrics and reports showing which corridors are underserved. My interpretation is that when a route is 20 minutes, it means Metro thinks it should be 15 minutes but it doesn’t have the resources now for that, but as soon as it does it will make the jump. And when a route is 12 minutes, it means Metro thinks it should be 10 minutes, and it will do so as soon as it can.
In the 2016 restructure, the 8 got 20 minute evening service. Metro said at the time it wanted to make it 15 minutes, but it didn’t have enough service hours to do that and address needs on other routes.
This 12-minute boost is funded by the Seattle Transit Measure, so it isn’t even Metro’s resources. Without the STM, Seattle bus frequency overall would be significantly less than it is: we’d be back to 30-minute service in corridors that should have 15 minutes like it was in 2010 or 2000.commercial.
Getting Metro more resources for service hours and to alleviate the driver shortage faster is the responsibility of the King County Council. It hasn’t prioritized it enough. It has left a countywide Metro levy languish for ten years without putting it on the ballot. Seattle has stepped up, but the 2020 levy renewal was less than the 2014 one had been. That’s why there aren’t enough service hours for 10-minute service on the 8 right now.
My guess is this year’s STM will be significant, given the mayor’s priority to have robust transit improvements as well as Seattle’s general appetite to pass transit related measures to the tune of a margin in the 70s to 80s.
Hopefully. We won’t know until it’s proposed and passes.
The elephant in the room, besides traffic congestion on Denny, as to why frequency improvements on the 8 are so difficult, is that the high-ridership route on Denny is yoked to what is essentially a suburban coverage route down MLK. This tail not only makes frequency improvements to the 8 expensive, it also drags down the 8’s overall performance stats, causing it to not rank high enough to merit the level of service that the Queen Anne->SLU->Capitol Hill corridor really needs.
The problem is, how to split it without the pitchforks coming out due to people in lower ridership areas losing their one-seat rides. In fantasy world, I would like to see the portion of the 8 from Queen Anne to at least 15th or 23rd run every 6 minutes, all day, matching the G-line. But, I don’t see how that can ever be fiscally possible unless the route is split and people along MLK are made to transfer to get to it.
Before splitting the 8, it’s probably best to see what happens to ridership on the south end with the Link connection. That might take a couple years at least. A pretty significant area got new connections to the east side. Some of them may currently avoid the 8 due to reliability once it gets that far down.
Before splitting the 8, it’s probably best to see what happens to ridership on the south end with the Link connection. That might take a couple years at least. A pretty significant area got new connections to the east side.
But the 48 essentially provides the same service. That is the problem. You have a strong, straightforward route — the 48 — which goes north-south. Then you have the 8, which makes a 90-degree turn and parallels the 48 only a few blocks away. In fact, it overlaps the bus for several blocks. Just get rid of that part of the 8 and run the 48 more often.
At most there should be a coverage bus on that part of MLK. But coverage buses should run infrequently. The only reason it runs often now is because they run that section as often as the far more important east-west section. Once they drop the frequency to match the nature of the route it won’t be able to compete with the nearby 48. It becomes like the old 73 in Maple Leaf. Very few people took the infrequent coverage bus (the 73) when they started running the 67 more frequently. Eventually Metro just got rid of it.
But if we insisted on covering that corridor than I would branch the 27. Have one branch follow the current route and the other one go on MLK to Madison Valley. Riders would at least get a one-seat ride to downtown (something the 8 and 48 don’t offer).
This tail not only makes frequency improvements to the 8 expensive, it also drags down the 8’s overall performance stats
Yet despite that it is one of the highest performing routes. Once they make it faster it may end up being the best by a significant margin.
The problem is, how to split it without the pitchforks coming out due to people in lower ridership areas losing their one-seat rides.
I see a few options:
1) Get rid of the MLK tail but increase frequency on the 48. This doesn’t solve the problem but it mitigates it.
2) Send the 11 to Uptown and time it with the 8. I forget who came up with this idea but I can see the appeal. Run the 8 and 11 every fifteen minutes. Now the east-west part of the 8 (from Madison Valley to Uptown) has 7.5 minute headways.
3) Serve MLK with a different bus. As I suggested below, one option would be to branch the 27. Thus riders along the corridor get a one-seat ride to downtown while you improve frequency on the core section of the 27 (along Yesler).
4) Turn back some of the buses at Madison Valley. This would also be a good approach if you combined the 11 with the 8 (otherwise you are running too many buses to Madison Park).
Per schedule 8 would arrive Judkins Park at exactly same time as 48 on both direction if it was on time, which makes its Link Connection at Judkins Park less valuable.
48 can make its own case that it can run every 12 minutes, so I wouldn’t worry 8’s role at Judkins Park too much.
“why frequency improvements on the 8 are so difficult, is that the high-ridership route on Denny is yoked to what is essentially a suburban coverage route down MLK. This tail not only makes frequency improvements to the 8 expensive, it also drags down the 8’s overall performance stats, causing it to not rank high enough to merit the level of service that the Queen Anne->SLU->Capitol Hill corridor really needs.”
That’s just speculation. We don’t know that the cost of the MLK tail is significant, or that it’s a significant factor in Metro’s decisions on increasing the 8’s frequency. Metro says the 11 needs more service, but that would seem to be for the western half, yet Metro doesn’t seem concerned about increasing the entire route when it can.
Now that Judkins Park station is in the middle of the MLK segment, it’s no longer a coverage segment, and Metro will be loth to split the 8 until ridership patterns at Judkins Park bus bays become clear.
There’s a basic fact that the MLK tail lowers the 8’s performance on paper, but there’s no evidence that that’s holding Metro back from making it more frequent. It’s still a very high performing route, and that alone justifies more frequency. MLK is the lucky beneficiary of that, like the 11’s eastern half, the 62’s eastern half, and the 24/33’s western half. That’s partly a strategic decision by Metro, to save those segments from having even worse frequency and to generate more ridership on them. Metro has a limited number of service hours to distribute, but one MLK tail on one route is just one tiny factor in the overall Seattle service-hour distribution.
6-minute service on the 8’s Denny/John portion would be a wonderful goal, but first we need to get it up to 10 minutes, and other routes need to get up to 10 minutes. You could implement ultra-frequent service in that segment by having short route 8 runs, without having to split the route.
If the Queen Anne Avenue North lane is in the center, it will not be BAT. The right side lane on Denny Way should be BAT.
If the Queen Anne Avenue North lane is in the center, it will not be BAT.
Correct. It will be a bus lane. The far left lane is for general purpose vehicles turning left. The far right lane is for general purpose vehicles turning right. The middle lane will be for buses turning left (only). It is a nice improvement.
I think the long term solution is to turn Queen Anne Avenue and First Avenue North into a contraflow pair. Run buses (and only buses) north on Queen Anne Avenue and south on First Avenue North (between Mercer and Denny). You would have to move things around and change the traffic lights but it wouldn’t be that difficult. This would eliminate the post-event congestion that is so common. The bus would travel in bus-lanes, not BAT lanes.
Maybe it is BAT lane.
Given left-turn bus volume is high, they could give a transit signal phase to avoid all the conflicts. Turning from right lane give 60-ft bus more radius so they can make the turn faster.
It is like 40’s left turn from right at Westlake & 9th
Good changes at Yale Avenue.
Now, Seattle should ask Metro to shift more service to Denny Way. Short waits would make the crosstown service sing.
I agree but it is not that easy.
Most downtown routes are primarily going north-South. Some of the diagonal routes better off staying on their current corridors. Some of the better candidates are routes on Pike-Pine, but Pike-Pine corridor also has good demand and a transfer point to Link, which Denny Way doesn’t have yet.
Things could change Ballard Link is in place because some of the service from northwest and northeast don’t have to go all the way to 3rd Ave Downtown to make transfer to light rail. NW routes can through-routing with NE routes via Denny Way.
Seriously, why not move route 11 to Denny? It has a Link connection at Capitol Hill station, becomes an East-West route to make a better grid pattern, and we can just backfill more service on the other Pike/Pine routes which need more frequency anyway.
Then match the frequency of the 8 and 11 to get combined 6 minute or 7.5 minute headways between LQA and Capitol Hill.
“Seriously, why not move route 11 to Denny”
Because the pitchforks wuld come out when Madison Park loses its one seat ride to downtown.
Yeah 11 seems like best candidate among existing routes.
Really, is a bus lane gonna solve the L8ness of the 8? I say further split it in two, we really need two way bus lanes on Denny if we want the L8 to not be L8 and we also need 10 minute headways not 12.
The primary issue is eastbound cars queuing up for blocks for the I-5 southbound entrance. Solve this, and the majority of Denny Way’s congestion problems go away, and it will become an ordinary congested street (like Stewart Street, 2nd Ave, 4th Ave) instead of an extraordinarily gridlocked one (like Denny Way). Ordinary congestion is a problem for bus routes, but it’s not as critical as the extraordinary bottlenecks that make buses half an hour late almost every day.
You can see them from the eastbound stop at 9th & Denny at Whole Foods. Look left, and you’ll see a bus 1-3 blocks away that just sits there for minutes, and takes five or ten minutes to make the few blocks to your stop. That’s what causes the 8 to be L8. When eastbound buses are late, that throws westbound buses off-schedule too.
Everywhere, freeway entrances are the biggest source of congestion on arterials. Exits aren’t as big a deal because the long line of cars is behind the first traffic light, so it’s on the freeway exit ramp.
I suppose we could ask the legislature to just cancel “Revive I-5” and blow it up?
BOOM BOOM!!!
Revive I-5 is a DISASTER!!! DO AWAY WITH IT!!! IT’S NOT DOING ANYTHING BUT MAKE TRAFFIC WORSE!!!
Revive I-5 is more of a preservation project rather than doing any capacity adding or operation improvement
Yes, I hope that someday I5 is removed.
There are two things I really like about the proposal. The first is the timeline. We will have changes next month. The second phase will start in August — of this year. This is happening much sooner than other improvements that have been made in the past (especially the RapidRide projects but this is even faster than improvements for the 7 and 40). One obvious reason is that it isn’t bundled with other improvements. Not only is it transit-only, but there is one goal: make the bus faster. They aren’t worried about the bus stops, fancy “stations” or what color the bus is. This allows them to make the changes much sooner.
The other thing that is crucial is this:
Once both phases are in place, we’ll monitor bus travel times and traffic patterns to see how the street is functioning. Based on those results, we may return to adjust the design as needed.
Excellent! This is how you do it. Make a change, see how it works, make another change. An iterative approach is the best way to improve the corridor, especially when you can make the changes so quickly. Instead of waiting three years while we debate every little piece we see improvement almost immediately.
Agreed. Singular plan, not bundled/overcomplicated, quick timeline, measure the result, adjust where needed.
This is exactly what should be done on key projects like this across the board.
I wish Sound Transit was nearly as competent at that. They probably need several months for updating a sign.
The sign will then have mistakes as well.
To be fair, most of the planning for Sound Transit involves light rail. It does not lend itself to iterative changes. Quite the opposite. It is really a “measure-twice, cut-once” thing. We really should have a long term vision of what the mass transit system should look like and should have had that before heading to SeaTac. Imagine if there was a branch — even a non-service branch — at the UW or U-District for a potential UW to Ballard line. It would be much easier to build that project.
I bet the only reason there are two phases is because of the moratorium on street work during the FIFA World Cup in June-July. Any other year, I bet we’d see the easy stuff done in May and the more substantial work done in June.
Yeah, I agree.
That is still pretty quick turnaround. I am super impressed that they plan to get something done before World Cup.
Maybe the part of improvement in Lower Queen Anne had been studied and shelved before Mayor ordered SDOT to do something with Denny Way the past February.
I don’t know whether that Boren Ave route in MetroConnect is still on the table. That seems like something that can better utilize Denny Way’s transit priority infrastructure.
This is a good point. With a bus lane reaching Boren, riders on the various Elliott routes and the Queen Anne trolleys who are headed for First Hill destinations — at least, those not directly on their own route — could transfer along Denny at a common stop and avoid downtown and the hill climb.
That raises an interesting point. If the Boren route were to ever exist, it would have to run on the same path that SDOT is routing cars queuing up onto I-5. I guess that can be a problem for another day, when and if this route ever gets created.
It wouldn’t be that hard to fix it for the buses. Northbound it really isn’t an issue (or at least it is no different than before). Southbound the bus is in the curbside lane, while the cars heading towards the freeway will be in the left lane. Thus making that curbside lane a BAT lane would be fine.
In general you need to add BAT lanes both directions for most busy streets. That is the long term trend. The tricky part is how you do it. Every time you apply it, some traffic disappears but some traffic goes to other streets. If those other streets have buses running on them and don’t have similar treatment (yet) then you could make things worse overall. In this case it seems like it won’t be much of a problem.
Metro’s commitment to the Metro Connects routes is unclear. We thought the 8-Madison, Broadway north-south, 106-Boren, and 2-Pine routes were waiting for the RapidRide G restructure or East Link restructure, but those came and went and the routes weren’t implemented. Instead there’s now a 12-Pine route that may supercede Metro’s interest in pursuing 2-Pine.
I met some Metro planners after the G restructure; I think it was at a Swift Blue reroute opening. I asked them why these routes weren’t included in the G restructure, whether that means those concepts are dead, or what is the criterion that would trigger them? They said they’re not dead, they may appear in future restructures, but they couldn’t say when that would be or what would trigger them. They just emphasized they were not selected for this restructure, and they couldn’t say more than that. So that leaves us in long-term limbo again, not knowing when/if they might be implemented.
In some cases there was a Metro Connects concept that Metro/SDOT later turned against, and it was removed from the Metro Connects maps. That happened to the 48-Rainier concept. (This would reassign the 7’s segment south of Mt Baker station to the 48.) Apparently there was significant negative feedback about it, so Metro/SDOT withdrew it. But the other concepts are still on the map, or at least some of them are. So Metro is still interested in them to some extent, but we don’t know how much.
I feel like 106 is one of those few routes that don’t need to go near Downtown Seattle’s main transit corridor because large part of it runs parallel to 1 Line. Even today, it doesn’t hurt to make it turn around at Mt Baker. If it goes north, it should be sent somewhere that doesn’t have other service as frequent as 7. So Boren Ave might be perfect for it.
However, Boren Ave is two lanes per direction without turn lane at several intersections and it is pretty busy. I wonder Metro purposely avoids this corridor for years because they don’t think they can run service reliably there.
I wonder Metro purposely avoids this corridor for years because they don’t think they can run service reliably there.
Yes, I’ve heard precisely that argument from a planner. The other issue is that it would require new service. Moving the 106 would reduce the cost a bit but it would still cost more than the current alignment. This means that buses would run less often.
I don’t think there was ever a commitment to the routing reflected in Metro Connects. But that doesn’t mean they won’t implement some of the ideas. A lot of them are quite intuitive, like bus service on Boren. It follows the grid, or at least one of the grids. In contrast, consider the 3 taking over for the 47. This is a clever use of service hours and the trolley wire. I don’t think it was part of Metro Connects nor can I say it ever occurred to me. Whoever thought of it deserves credit for being creative. I would like to see service bumped up to every fifteen minutes but otherwise it is a good implementation.
Once that is done I would also have the 49 continue on Broadway as the service would be quite complementary. You would have buses on both sides going downtown (the 3 and the 10) while the 49 improves frequency on the Broadway corridor.
Moving the 3 may have been “clever”, but it pretty much stinks for anyone who used it on the old routing north of pike. The options to travel on that section of 3rd are now greatly reduced but hey Summit got its bus back.
They just extended the bus that used to end downtown. The only other change was the numbering. Riders headed to the north end of downtown (or Queen Anne) just take the 4.
The Seattle Transit Measure is funding the 3-Summit branch I’m pretty sure. No service to Queen Anne was reduced: these were the extra route 3 daytime runs that terminated downtown.
When the 3-Summit branch was created, all route 3 service in Queen Anne was renumbered to 4, since it was identical to route 4 service there. The 3 and 4 used to have different termini on Queen Anne, but they became identical when they were rerouted to Seattle Pacific a few years earlier.
So as I understand it there are 3 patterns:
Route 3 Madrona/changing to 4 Queen Anne, half hourly, unchanged except for the mid-route number swap.
Route 3 Madrona to Summit, half hourly, unchanged except for the Summit extension.
Route 4 Judkins Park to Queen Anne, half hourly, unchanged.
For what its worth the Metro Connect plans had a couple routes. They had the Boren route going on Denny while an Uptown/Roy/5th/Harrison/Fairview route turned and went up to Capitol Hill. That was backwards in my opinion. The current 8 is fine (at least from Madison Valley to Uptown). The Uptown/Roy/5th/Harrison/Fairview would just continue on Boren. That avoids a set of turns (for both buses). It also means that bus goes the same basic direction the whole way (from Mount Baker to Uptown). So basically this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/FhSvfPagDinToeQM9. (Hopefully Google drew it correctly.)
Ok. An interesting idea to try something out quickly and measure it. What are the next steps if it turns out this doesn’t materially improve the 8?
If eastbound Route 8 speeds don’t significantly improve, then there’d be an assessment of what’s still blocking the bus (too many right-hand turns? poor enforcement of the bus lane? too many stops to the bus never gets up to speed in the first place?). Then would come the potential solutions for those problems.
It’s basic stepwise problem solving.
Yep. That’s what makes this so good.
How can it not improve it? You can see the line of cars blocking the bus for several blocks. You can see most of those blocking cars turning to the freeway entrance. If the bus has a lane without those cars, it can’t help going the speed limit and making the intermediate green lights that are timed to the speed limit.
The remaining issue will be the couple blocks where mixed traffic is still allowed for right turns. We’ll have to see if a substantial bottleneck remains. But with 90% of the cars gone from the bus’s path, that has to speed up the bus substantially. And 90% is enough to change the bus experience from extraordinary gridlock to typical Seattle congestion or better.
The world is full of unintended consequences but certainly time will tell.
Rather than think about Route 8, how about stepping back and think about creating an east-west transit spine through the area? With the quantity of tall buildings in the area and the presence of Seattle Center destinations, something akin to Third Ave but seems appropriate —- especially once Link opens.
I say this because there is a real temptation to just tinker with current route frequencies. With the density of SLU as high as it is, it feels a bit limiting to just do that. A more holistic approach to the route structure centered on a repurposed street may be better.
I have a feeling you’re going to enjoy an upcoming Page 2 article.
RapidRide G on Madison is that east-west spine. That’s how Metro positioned it, and why Madison got 6-minute service. And it’s been wildly popular, with ridership going through the roof.
Al is suggesting a transit spine on Denny through SLU, which is very much not the G line.
I’m thinking something akin to 15th Ave/Pacific St at UW, where there’s like 5 routes including a couple of regional connectors. After all, I’m sure there’s plenty of people who want to work in SLU but not live in Seattle proper.
It’s too bad downtown’s street grid is fragmented, otherwise it would be easier to make 2 intersecting transit spines… One for North/South routes (like 3rd) and the other for East/West routes, with the region’s ultimate transit center at their intersection.
By using “spine” here, I simply mean a street segment where several routes converge then fan out like ribs or branches. Pike/Pine Downtown is a similar spine concept. I could have said “trunk” but that also carries various meanings within the transit world. As Delta says, Pacific/ 15th is a similar example.
Actually, RapidRide G is just one high-frequency route. That’s a different approach. It has no branches or ribs. It’s a valid service design, especially if the corridor can be almost exclusive and buses can operate faster and at more reliable intervals. But it’s a different route structure approach.
More than anything, I’m ultimately saying that SLU service seems to deserve to have something more deliberate than adding a bus lane here or an additional bus for better frequency there. Without a broader intent, this incremental strategy is what would result.
Finally, this idea does not have to be Denny. It doesn’t even have to be east-west. It just that it may be time to introduce some new systemic logic beyond route tinkering. It may actually be too late!
OK, maybe trunk instead of spine. A spine is a singular corridor connecting the highest-volume transit axis: downtown-UW-Everett-SeaTac-Tacoma, Seattle-Bellevue-Redmond. SDOT has chosen Madison as the east-west spine for downtown, for better or worse. But a trunk is the entire core network, and can have parallel secondary lines or a grid. Trunk routes are expected to the the highest-volume, fastest, and most frequent, so it’s what people ideally would use if they’re going that way, and if it’s a high-quality trunk it will be their first choice. Then they can transfer to secondary/crosstown/coverage routes if their destination isn’t right on the trunk.
There are some concepts floating around of how to leverage the Denny semi-busway for more than just the 8. There will be an article on it tomorrow.