The notoriously undependable but much-depended on Metro 8 might be a little more trustworthy thanks to changes planned on Denny Way including two stretches of bus-only lanes and improved bus stops on Capitol Hill segments of its route.
“Though reliability increased when Route 8 was divided into two separate routes in March 2016, late buses are still a problem, especially during rush hour and major events at the Seattle Center,” the agency said in its announcement of the planned streamlining.
On Capitol Hill, Metro announced that “on-street parking will be restricted on short sections of Denny Way, Olive Way, East John Street, and East Thomas Street” and two bus stops on E Olive Way and E John will be expanded “so buses don’t have to leave and re-enter heavy traffic, and to provide more space and amenities for waiting passengers.” Continue reading →
King County Metro will field public comment through October on a proposal to expand its late night bus service:
The public is encouraged to review the proposal and offer comments via an online survey until Oct. 30. Public comments will help shape a final proposal, which could go before the County Council later this year. If approved, it will take effect in September 2017.
The agency says late night passengers represent “a small portion of Metro’s total ridership,” but that demand appears to be growing, with boarding increasing “by 20 percent in the last five years.”
Details of the proposal can be found at kingcounty.gov and the full announcement from Metro is below. Across the Hill, Route 11 would see boosted service along with possible tweaks to improve transfers on other routes. Continue reading →
Over the weekend, CHS’s Re:Take history series took a look back at some of the lost bus routes of Capitol Hill. We don’t have to look back far in time to find the changes. Late last year, Metro planned out a wave of revisions and reroutes to optimize its service around the opening of light rail service to Capitol Hill Station and UW.
Now, the Seattle Transit Blog has provided the first look at how ridership on the altered bus lines has changed in the first months as ridership on light rail has soared.
STB grouped the impacted Capitol Hill routes into a set of winners…
Route 11: up 38% —The #11 is likely absorbing demand on Pine Street east of Broadway for former Route 10 riders unwilling to walk to Link.Continue reading →
“Riding the 43 at dusk” (Image: Patricia via Flickr)
Metro is bringing a program to encourage people who live, work, and/or go to school on Capitol Hill to get out of cars — and keep track of it — for prizes, giveaways, and a strong sense of public transit righteousness. “By taking part in the program, residents can find more ways to give their car a break and explore healthier transportation options available in their neighborhood by taking the bus, walking, bicycling, carpooling and more,” Metro’s marketing exclaims.
For those who already don’t regularly use a car, Metro is also offering rewards for sharing your story — but, just saying, the prizes seem better for ditching a car.
The program is run byAlta PlanningColehour + Cohen for Metro and has been previously introduced in Juanita, South Park – White Center, Squire Park, West Seattle, and North Seattle/Shoreline. (Alta ran the first iterations of the program.) CHS is a community partner in the project to help spread the word.
The full announcement and information on signing up is below.
The Madison bus rapid transit line is slated to open in 2019.
With its big U-Link bus restructure in place, King County Metro has quietly begun laying the ground work to adapt to the next phase of expansion of Sound Transit’s light rail system. Within days of Seattle getting its first look at how Seattle’s light rail network will look in 2040 — with service to Ballard and West Seattle, in addition to Everett and Tacoma on the extremities of the system — Metro released a map showing its first attempt to serve our region in conjunction with that system. CHS dug into the Long Range Plan map to find how those changes would affect Capitol Hill.
As we have seen in the past, these plans can change dramatically, even more so with the timelines in decades instead of years. But the map provides an insight into how transit planners at Metro are attempting to serve Capitol Hill riders. Metro is breaking these changes into two conceptual phases: 2025 service and 2040 service.
2025
The biggest change that will be in place by 2025 is Madison BRT. This project will consolidate service on Madison Street in dedicated lanes between downtown and Madison Valley, freeing up some service hours to be used elsewhere to complement.
As a result, Metro is eyeing moving route2off Seneca St. on First Hill and onto Pine Street in Capitol Hill.
This change, in turn, will pave the way for Metro to create a new crosstown workhorse between the Rainier Valley, Beacon Hill, and Capitol Hill from the current route49. This route will serve 12th Ave, which perplexingly does not have any Metro service today despite being the eastern edge of one of Seattle’s largest private universities. This will also be the most frequent transfer between Madison BRT and light rail service at Capitol Hill Station. Continue reading →
Red sections indicate where overhead wires will be installed. (Image: SDOT)
Amid the massive overhaul of the 23rd Ave corridor and the uproar it’s caused with local merchants, another project on the street has quietly got underway: building the infrastructure necessary to transition the route 48 diesel hybrid busses into a fleet of all-electric trolleys.
Connecting the U-District to Mt. Baker through the Central District and Capitol Hill, the 48 is the workhorse of 23rd Ave transit, shuttling riders the entire length of the corridor. Much of 23rd Ave has overhead wires to accommodate the 4 and 43, but the 48 has to run diesel hybrid busses due to gaps in the line.
There are currently 1.7 miles of missing overhead wires needed to run electric trolleys on the 48, with gaps from John to Cherry, and Dearborn to Plum.
The Seattle Department of Transportation, which is handling funding and construction for the King County Metro line, estimates the project will cost $14.6 – $17.5 million, with $9.4 million already secured through federal grants. Construction will include installing trolley poles, overhead wires, and traction power sub stations. The second phase of the project is expected to get underway next year, setting up the 48 to go electric in 2018.
“The Electric trolley bus is the really tried and true transit wet have here in Seattle,” said SDOT’s transit deputy director Bill Bryant at a recent city-county joint transportation meeting. “It is particularly well suited for our hilly environment and lots of starts and stops.”
There are clear environmental benefits, too. With its 4 miles per gallon busses, the 48 route uses roughy 185,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year. Electric trolley bus technology was found to be $3.7 million cheaper annually than diesel hybrids, according to an SDOT study. Electric trolleys will also significantly reduce noise along the busy corridor.
In 2023, the 48 will also be the only transit line to directly connect non-downtown stations on all three Link lines: Central Link (Mount Baker Station), East Link (Judkins Park Station), and North Link (Brooklyn and UW stations). Continue reading →
Yes, Metro is running yet another planning survey. But this one you’ll probably only have to answer once every 25 years.
The county public transit agency is rolling out its full Metro Connects draft plan April 18th but the draft’s summary is available now:
Metro Transit created an online survey and will co-host a series of open houses with Sound Transit where residents can provide their thoughts on the draft of the plan — Metro Connects — that will set the course for what transportation will look like in 25 years as King County’s population continues to grow.
Metro says the draft plan is the result of rider research and outreach done in 2015. “Residents told Metro that they want more frequent, better-connected bus and light-rail service to more destinations, starting earlier and ending later each day,” the announcement of the draft plan reads. “Metro Connects is the plan to deliver that service.”
The proposed draft plan includes elements ranging from customized local services for “unique” areas to investments that will reduce the amount of time buses spend waiting at stops and changes that will make it easier for buses to navigate the city quickly like more bus only lanes and traffic signal priority. The draft plan also calls for Metro to deliver better real-time information for riders and efforts to “make it easier to move between Metro and other transportation providers” through elements like integrated payment options.
“I invite everyone to share their ideas as we finalize the long-range plan that will shape the future of transportation in our region,” said County Executive Dow Constantine says in the announcement. “Metro Connects will be our atlas as we create an integrated transit system that provides more choices to get to more places on time.”
The survey, in addition to collecting some of your usage habits, is focused on your take on the draft plan. So you’re going to have to read it. You can check out the summary here.
The plan breaks down to five components: 1) More Service, 2) Count on Metro, 3) More Choices, 4) One System, and 5) What We Need to Succeed.
We’ve pulled out Metro’s bullet points for each section: Continue reading →
After enjoying our first week of light rail service to Capitol Hill Station, on Saturday it’s King County Metro’s turn to undergo a big reorientation to better serve the station. Here’s a user’s guide to the new schedules and route changes on all of the routes affected by the biggest service change for Capitol Hill buses in quite some time. With this change should come a network that quickly allows riders to transfer to Link, even if the bus does go downtown on its own anyway after it drops you off.
Route 10: On March 26, this bus will start serving Olive Way instead of Pine Street. Departure times for all stops will remain the same, except for the last bus of the night leaving Volunteer Park for downtown, which will leave 5 minutes earlier. Moving the 10 to Olive will provide more service between those areas and downtown than the 43 currently does, including 15-minute service until midnight where there is currently 30-minute service.
Route 43: Enjoy your last few days of full 43 service. When King County Counci lmember Rod Dembowski added service back to this route as the changes to bus service were being passed by the King County Council, it was peak-only service he was preserving. The trips that are sticking around between downtown and the U-District via Montlake are pretty scant. The frequency is approximately every 30 minutes during peak hours. Caveat: these times are subject to change and are only intended to give an idea of the span of service levels that are coming to the route 43.
Amarinthia Torres was watching a stopwatch on her phone while she waited to board a train at Capitol Hill Station Monday morning. 35 minutes door-to-door was the time to beat to get to her office at a Columbia City nonprofit. That’s how long her typical commute takes by riding the 9 bus from her Capitol Hill apartment.
Even if the light rail took a little longer with added walking times, Torres said she expected riding the new U-Link Light Rail line would replace her usual commute. “I’m hoping it will be less stressful,” she said.
Many riders at Capitol Hill Station had similar thoughts Monday morning during U-Link’s first weekday morning commute. Capitol Hill Station opened Saturday with a slice of a giant pair of scissors and a few booms of confetti. While Sound Transit’s new 3.1-mile U-Link extension from downtown to UW via Broadway will expand tourism and nightlife opportunities, the train’s success will ultimately depend on appealing to daily commuters.
U-Link’s first Monday morning appeared to go off without a hitch as riders tried out new morning routines in hopes of shaving some time and hassle off their commutes. Some riders were confused to see out-of-service trains come through the station as the peak schedule wound down around 8:30 AM. Those trains will resume running at 3:00 PM for the afternoon peak. The real-time arrival signs remained accurate for tracking the next rideable train. Continue reading →
Of the 1,300 or so buses in the Metro fleet, only 44% are equipped with cameras. King County Executive Dow Constantine Thursday announced a proposal to install cameras on all Metro buses by 2021 in an effort to “dramatically decrease driver assaults”
Metro currently has cameras in 44 percent of its buses, which has contributed to the agency cutting the number of driver assaults by more than half since 2008. Executive Constantine will request funding in the supplemental budget to install cameras in 80 percent of Metro’s bus fleet by early 2019 and 100 percent by early 2021.
“It is intolerable that anyone would harm one of our dedicated, professional drivers who work hard each day to safely and reliably get passengers to their destinations.
“I’m proud of the work we’ve done in recent years, in partnership with our unions, to significantly reduce the number of drivers who are assaulted. Now it’s time for us to build on our progress, investing more in what works. That’s why I am requesting the funds needed to install cameras in every Metro bus as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, the King County Council’s Transportation, Economy and Environment Committee will receive a special briefing “on the steps the King County Sheriff’s Office and Metro Transit are taking to ensure the safety of passengers and bus drivers” Tuesday, March 1st.
Metro has been asked to estimate a cost for the deployments.
Metro says it has already installed cameras on more than 600 of its 1,382 buses. The most recent buses purchased by Metro — including electric trolleys, RapidRide models and the newest 60-foot-long buses — come with camera systems installed, the agency said. The city’s First Hill Streetcar system operated by Metro is also equipped with onboard security cameras.
Metro Transit Police deputies made 26 arrests for driver assaults in 2015.
With Capitol Hill Station about to open for service, CHS also checked in with Sound Transit about their security camera deployment. A spokesperson confirmed Sound Transit maintains a vast system of surveillance cameras on every platform, in every elevator, and on every train car.
The notoriously undependable but much-depended on Metro 8 might be a little more trustworthy thanks to changes planned on Denny Way including two stretches of bus-only lanes and improved bus stops on Capitol Hill segments of its route.
