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Metro will reroute the 10 to better serve Capitol Hill Station

Rt 10King County Metro asked and the people responded: Change is coming to the 10. After receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback in a recent public survey, Metro’s decision to reroute the popular Capitol Hill bus comes as part of its preparations for the start of light rail service to Capitol Hill Station next year. Under the change, slated to go in effect in March, the 10 will scrap its E Pine and 15th Ave to E John sections to travel up the Hill on E Olive Way to serve the Broadway station.

With the 43 set to drastically reduce its service, the E Olive Way/E John Street corridor would have only had the notoriously unreliable 8 connecting it with the light rail station. Metro retreated from its proposal to reroute the 11 up E Olive Way and E Thomas to get to Madison Park, citing problems with turning at 19th Ave and E Madison.

The 11 will continue to serve E Pine, but a handful of 15th Ave blocks between E Pine and E John will be left without service. Here’s how Metro explained its decision:

Despite concerns, we think this change would better meet ridership demand along East John Street and in the Summit neighborhood, where there are nearly 1,000 bus boardings every day (940 people getting on and 1,300 getting off buses) on current Route 43. The Summit neighborhood and Olive corridor are the densest parts of Capitol Hill. Residents in this part of Capitol Hill face a steep climb to the light rail station. While the Route 43 will continue to operate in the peak periods, making this change avoids a significant net reduction of service at other times of day.

45% of 1,269 respondents approved of the changes (PDF) in the survey Metro put out earlier this month. The revamped 10 would also provide easy connections from the light rail station to Group Health, the 15th Avenue retail core, and Volunteer Park. To address concerns over bus capacity on the 11, Metro says it will use 60-foot-long articulated coaches during peak hours.

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a.
a.
8 years ago

Sorry to nitpick because I love the news coverage and issue coverage you provide to the Hill, but I just have to say that after looking at Metro’s own Summary of Feedback, I don’t agree with your assessment that Metro received “overwhelmingly positive feedback.” Question two of the survey was ‘What do you think of this potential change to Route 10?’ and according to their results, 45% answered ‘I like it.’ I’m not a statistician, but I play one on tv, and that doesn’t seem like overwhelmingly positive feedback to me. I get that Metro is spinning this as the feedback being positive, but after looking at more detailed data on the results, I think this is a misleading spin on the situation.

a.
a.
8 years ago
Reply to  Bryan Cohen

I don’t think ‘can accept’ is overwhelmingly positive.

Ryan P
Ryan P
8 years ago
Reply to  a.

Considering that typically the only people who ever bother filling out these surveys are ones who are looking to complain, that is overwhelmingly positive.

MK
MK
8 years ago
Reply to  a.

As one of the people answering “can accept”, I am totally fine with the change. It makes me walk slightly farther (1 block) to catch the bus, but if it’s good for the system, I’m fine with the change.

I put that in my comments. So in my case, Metro was perfectly correct in their assessment.

Dave
Dave
8 years ago
Reply to  a.

I will add that the “I can live with it” is a particularly horrible way to word a survey question. Any change Metro makes (with possible exception of accepting Duckboat safety protocols) is not going to kill me. I will survive. However, when 45% respond in favor, and the combined “I don’t like it” responses total 43%, it is hardly overwhelming.

Matt
Matt
8 years ago

One thing SDOT needs to do is implement no parking from 4-7pm on weekdays for Olive heading east between Bellevue and Broadway to keep traffic moving up and over the hill. It might actually improve Metro’s on-time record ever so slightly.

pragmatic
pragmatic
8 years ago
Reply to  Matt

4 lanes of traffic? Um, no thanks. Better would be to give buses ability to queue jump at signals and add in-lanes bus stops.

Timmy73
Timmy73
8 years ago
Reply to  pragmatic

It would benefit everyone so buses and cars alike are not stuck waiting behind someone making a left turn, thus holding everyone up. The current issue, although not that huge, someone wants to turn left and no one can go around on the right due to parked cars so we all end up waiting.

There are actually many areas where peak no parking near intersection buffers would greatly aid in the flow of traffic.

Brad
Brad
8 years ago
Reply to  Matt

The parking was a peak hour lane in the 90s and early 2000s. Not sure why they changed it.

Lee
Lee
8 years ago

Good, I’m glad that they are doing this.
Although I don’t get why the 43 needs to go.

rob
rob
8 years ago
Reply to  Lee

This is basically an admission by Metro that getting rid of the 43 is a mistake. That going between Pike/Pine to northern 15th Ave E. will require taking two buses (unless one is willing to walk) is beyond stupid, as is eliminating all service between E. John and Pine on 15th.

le.gai.savant
le.gai.savant
8 years ago

A great example of bureaucracy at work. Metro sneaks in a last minute change and says it’s approved by doing a blatant trick to bias the survey in favor of the result they want.

On one side, Metro asks, who likes the change, and add to that, people who don’t like it but could live with it.

On the other side, Metro asks, who doesn’t like the change, and aren’t willing to say, we could live with it. Metro does not ask, who would be okay without the change even if they don’t like it.

Then they compare, the ones who like it and some of the ones who don’t like it, against the ones who don’t like it.

Oh, and they only take people’s poll responses for a ridiculously short period of time, which as someone above noted, is very likely to bias the result in favor of Metro, since responders are mainly people who are Metro supporters.

Oh, come on. It’s a poll obviously designed to get the result Metro wants, even if people are against it.

More people didn’t like the change than liked it. Metro is going ahead anyway. In other words, Seattle politics as usual.

Mimi
Mimi
8 years ago
Reply to  le.gai.savant

Huh?

JLB
JLB
8 years ago

If I see that 45% approved the change, then that means to me that 55% of people that responded to the survey said, “Don’t!” Not only does this mean that it was not overwhelming positive, it is in fact negative. More people said no than yes.
Once again, these sort of plans are good to have but in no way should they be implemented before or at the same time as the addition of the light rail to the mix.

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
8 years ago
Reply to  JLB

How do you figure that? If 20% were to say “don’t care”, you’d have 35% remaining saying “don’t”. Then by your own logic, it would be “in fact, positive” since 45% approve and 35% don’t. I’m not saying most people approve, but your conclusions don’t follow.

Adam
Adam
8 years ago

This makes the most sense. But hopefully they revisit the restructures 6-12 months after U Link opens so they can see how it’s actually shaking out.

Dave
Dave
8 years ago

This really plays into Uber’s strategy of providing bus-like service (UberHop) for areas where Metro makes really poor planning decisions. I rode the 11 from 15th and Pine this morning at 7:15. It was full, and that’s with the 10 serving the same stop at 8-10 minute frequency. While I don’t support UberHop as a replacement to effective public transit, it is starting to make a lot more sense than this BS from Metro.

cool stuff
cool stuff
8 years ago

Awesome! Now I can put the 10 in the pile of buses I don’t need to fucking bother with anymore, since the 43 already covers that shit and isn’t a tiny sardine can.

genevieve
genevieve
8 years ago

Of all the proposed route changes that Metro has put forth, this one is the least offensive – although it seems driven by the incredibly bad decision to reduce the 43 rather than to add new value. I’m a little annoyed that the one corridor that was very easy to travel during rush hour (downtown to the Boradway-15th stretch, which currently has 3 routes) will get more chaotic and crowded, but I’ll live.

Now, how about restoring the 43 service….

I like it
I like it
8 years ago

More busses on that stretch between Broadway and Melrose is a godsend