Kitsap Transit adds bus service, reduces ferry service in Fall service change

29 Replies to “Kitsap Transit adds bus service, reduces ferry service in Fall service change”

1. An important note is that Kitsap’s weekend service for the Fast Ferry was entirely funded by a grant from WSDOT for the summer period, and Kitsap Transit was not able to backfill funding for the rest of the year.

2. Bremerton’s Wheaton corridor has decent peak hours frequency since there are several other routes operating on top of half-hourly 215.

3. “The route has a new stop at Olympic College. To account for the new stop, the schedule for other stops has been adjusted.”

   Translation: the bus is adding a detour that will delay everybody on the bus by crawling 1000 feet at 5 mph, plus waiting at an extra traffic light, in order to spare people headed to Olympic College from 500 feet of walking, along a flat street with sidewalks. The detour will take place just before the ferry, in order to maximize the number of thru-rides affected.

   Seriously, this kind of thinking is transit planning at it’s worst. If your destination of 500 feet off the main road, you should expect to walk, not for the bus to delay everybody else to serve your destination’s front door.

   1. And the 2 block walk to Olympic College is about half the distance people need to walk in downtown Bremerton to get between the northbound and southbound stops of the 215.

4. For the record, the 108 operates on Bethel Rd/Ave from the Fred Meyer at SR 160 to Port Orchard and the ferry dock there, with a deviation into Wal-Mart and northbound trips using Mitchell Ave. It would not be the first route I would expect to be KT’s first frequent route (if only because I’d expect Bremerton to get one first, but much of Bethel Rd feels decidedly exurban when looking through Street View), and I wonder how much of the route’s popularity is driven by Safeway, Walmart and Fred Meyer, since the main part of Port Orchard doesn’t have that sort of big-box supermarket/hypermarket.

   1. I was also surprised that Route 108 is KT’s first frequent minute route. KT doesn’t share route-level ridership data (though I’m working on getting it), but I have to assume Route 108 performs well. As HZ noted above, many of the main corridors in Bremerton are served by several less frequent routes which combine for decent frequencies.

      1. The 108 is only a 12-minute trip in each direction. You only need two coaches on the route to have 15-minute headways.

         The Bremerton routes are all longer and two coaches only get you to a 30-minute headway.

      2. Probably thanks to the two foot ferry that runs pretty frequently across Sinclair Inlet.
         Kitsap Transit 181 has been running every 15 minutes during AM and PM peak, which making it less surprising that they would run 108 every 15 minutes.

   2. I was wondering why the first 15-minute route wasn’t in Bremerton, Bainbridge, or Silverdale. And whether the Port Orchard ferry really comes that often. But I don’t know enough about Kitsap County to know what city that route is in or what the potential ridership there is like.

      1. I don’t think it would be in Bainbridge because Bainbridge’s transit demand is too dependent of state ferry.

         Bremerton has hidden semi-frequent corridor like Wheaton Way and Kitsap Way, but there is no effort to advertise thing that way. It is probably for the best because some of those additional peak hour or weekday only service don’t seem to seem to honor ferry arrival not timepoint.

         1. some of those additional peak hour or weekday only service seem to honor ferry arrival rather than timepoint.

         2. But people in Bainbridge need to get to the store, library, pharmacy, community center, etc. All these trips add up to several times ferry trips. It’s the kinds of trips that would generate transit demand if there were a good transit network.

         3. I feel like outside Winslow, different part of Bainbridge Island is just as low density as each other.
            If Kitsap Transit wanted creating a 15-minute route, they would probably have hard time picking one route to upgrade because not a single route particularly stands out.
            That’s why I think before they have the budget to run every intra-city peak only route half hourly all day, running more BI Ride is a better upgrade than picking one bus route to run it every 15 minutes.

         4. HZ hasn’t been to Lynnwood Center or Fort Ward on Bainbridge. That’s ok. Tourists will always have Winslow.

         5. Brian H,

            If you don’t have a car the only way to get to Lynnwood Center is on a bike. It is literally not possible to take fixed route transit to/from Seattle and Lynnwood Center in a day. Sure, you can try your luck with BI Ride but good luck enjoying anything other than a quick lunch with that span of service. Of course people don’t go there.

         6. Brian H,

            Yes I haven’t been there, but my conclusion comes from the fact that Kitsap Transit wouldn’t put even one all-day route for Bainbridge Island.
            If something really stand out, why wouldn’t KT run an all-day route to those neighborhoods?

5. I hope KT would think though 385.
   Like few other Kitsap buses run on headway-based schedule. Its departure and arrival doesn’t exactly pair up with ferry arrival.

   Because of that, I think it should just make a stop at Winslow Dr far side of SR 305 and not pulling into Ferry Terminal at all. It is a short walk and without going into Ferry terminal, it probably can run every 15 minutes or do a bigger loop with the same service hour. Also, WSDOT should really work on some improvement of side walk between Bainbridge Ferry Terminal and Winslow. There is a serious pedestrian congestion there.

   1. Lol, summer tourists (from out of area, perhaps flat lands?) act like the walk from Bainbridge terminal to Winslow Way is like Mount Everest. The downtown group used to run golf carts for them before this shuttle.

      1. HZ, Port Orchard is the county seat, Bremerton is it’s largest city. The navy bases (3 of them) are by far the biggest drivers of intra-county traffic. BI is far wealthier than the rest of the county, and traffic is largely centered around the ferry to Seattle. Psychologically, it is not even part of Kitsap. They don’t particularly like us (residents of the rest of the county) and we don’t care for them much either.

         1. We live in Winslow, Seattle refugees. Why are there no taxis in Winslow? Public transit is almost worthless and there is no bus service near the Senior Center and no taxis. Elderly people like us, 86 and 82, are trying to maintain independence, and there are hundreds of other seniors like us in need of more public transit.

         2. Deborah, you may just want to move back to Seattle. I sympathize with your plight, my own mother recently had to stop driving, but north Kitsap is largely rural, and can not sustain city type services. KT does operate some type of dial-a-ride service, but they refuse to come down my mom’s long gravel driveway. Besides my mom, I know several other people who don’t drive, and they all rely on an informal network of friends and neighbors for a lift. I’m not sure if that is as true on BI, which as I mentioned is culturally part of Seattle, or at least King Co.

         3. “Why are there no taxis in Winslow?”

            When my relative was discharged from Overlake Hospital in Bellevue in 2022 and her friends weren’t available to drive her, my first thought was a taxi. So I called Yellow Cab and they said “There aren’t really any taxis anymore in Bellevue” and “We could dispatch one from Seattle”. I didn’t want to make one come from so far away so I declined. I don’t remember what we ended up doing. I didn’t want to set up an Uber account or summon one, since I’d never used an app-taxi and didn’t want to start now or put sensitive information into my phone. I mentioned the situation here and a couple people suggested Eastside For Hire. I looked at their website, which was ambiguous but looked like it’s for planned-ahead trips, not spur of the moment.

            So the app-taxis seem to have driven regular taxis out of the market except in Seattle and the airport. That may have happened in Kitsap County as well as Bellevue.

6. We live in Winslow, Seattle refugees. Why are there no taxis in Winslow? Public transit is almost worthless and there is no bus service near the Senior Center and no taxis. Elderly people like us, 86 and 82, are trying to maintain independence, and there are hundreds of other seniors like us in need of more public transit.

   1. There are no taxis because there is no housing on Bainbridge that a taxi driver can afford.

7. Deborah, have you looked at Uber or Lyft. Those are available in places like Kingston, so I would guess that they are available in Winslow. You can also read about their Access service for seniors:
   https://www.kitsaptransit.com/access-and-vanlink/access

   I would ignore Cam’s snark, I am guessing that he doesn’t have personal experience with living in Kitsap.

   1. Is Cam wrong, though? If a rideshare driver were interested in tapping whatever market exists around Winslow, where would they live? Surely not on Bainbridge Island itself. But even if they found something cheap in Poulsbo, why would a rideshare driver commute to Winslow instead of Bremerton?

      The easy answer would be to demand more transit service, but Kitsap County has already maxed out its transportation benefit district sales tax rate, with an 0.8% sales tax funding transit service and 0.3% sales tax funding passenger-only ferries. I don’t think Bainbridge Island can stack an additional sales tax on top of that. If BI wants more transit, they’ll need to take it from elsewhere in the County. Or, they’ll need to lobby the state legislature to provide or legalize alternative funding sources.

      1. Why do you assume ride share drivers are poor? By definition, they have the $ to own, or at least lease, a pretty nice car. Particularly in a place like BI, they are at least as likely to be a reasonably well-off retired person looking to make a few bucks and/or just keep occupied. At least that is my personal experience.

         Obviously, I don’t live on BI, but I do ride through it on occasion, and my guess is that it is a lot like the rest of North Kitsap – meaning there’s a lot more lower income folks that you might think, and also a lot more dwelling units and residents than the US Census knows about. Building permits only came to the county sometime in the 70s (and I’ve been told all the old paper records were lost in a fire at some point). In North Kitsap they are still regarded as somewhat optional outside of Poulsbo. That’s another way of saying there may be a lot more run-down shacks in the woods (DADU to you folks) than anyone knows.

   2. Bainbridge Islanders have been more NIMBY than most, when it comes to incorporating housing growth mandated by the state. Just search the Urbanist for Bainbridge to get the history. I wasn’t intending to be snarky, though I don’t promise I won’t be the next time.

      You are right that I don’t live there, but I shopped for a house there, and I know people who live there, and visit frequently. It’s a bit of a pain to come over there without a car. I ride my bike, because I’ve missed some ferries when waiting a very long time for an uber or Lyft.

      I also know people who drive for Uber and Lyft. They are pretty far from wealthy. Mostly desperate to make enough to pay for repairs to their cars, that have too many miles put on them. Looking at Zillow rental prices confirms my suspicion that rental costs track what I was seeing with housing purchase costs. Constrained supply and consequently expensive to live there.

8. Adding 619 bus trips a week is a substantial improvement, especially with Route 108 moving to 15-minute service. It will be interesting to see whether that frequency translates into noticeably higher ridership.

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