In a response to complaints — and a few ideas — generated by the final erosions of its planned Capitol Hill routes restructure in preparation for the start of light rail service to Capitol Hill Station, an unusually nimble King County Metro is turning on a dime to ask the community about one final proposal.
Metro has released a survey which spring boards off an idea floated on the Seattle Transit Blog to reroute the 10. The 10 currently takes E Pine up to 15th Ave: routing it via Olive Way and E John would not impact its reliability much and would allow thousands more along E Olive and 15th Ave to have access to the light rail station.
You can comment on the proposal here.
As we reported last week, Metro retreated from its proposal to reroute the 11 up Olive Way and E Thomas to get to Madison Park, apparently because of an inability to make a certain turn at 19th Ave and E Madison.
This change would have connected Madison Valley and Madison Park to the Capitol Hill light rail station and also provided an east-west connection to residents off Olive Way who are losing their 43 service at most times of day. But moving bus service off any segment of Madison Street was apparently a nonstarter for certain contingents in Madison Valley.
So with the announcement that the turn could not be made at 19th Ave, the 11 is back where it runs now, with nothing to replace 43 service and the only route running on Olive Way the unreliable route 8. Connections to our brand new light rail station at Broadway and John would be worse than they are today. That’s what we thought was happening — at least, until Monday.
Moving the 10 is not a perfect solution: riders along 15th Ave between Pine and John would lose all bus service. But it is an idea Metro should seriously consider after deciding to reverse its plans at the last minute.
Go home Metro, you’re drunk.
Why can’t they deploy 1 plan that doesn’t alienate a portion of their riders?
Seriously correct; we need more bus service, not just re-routed service. And this one affects me directly, so yeah, it pisses me off. I live around 15th and Aloha and have an Orca pass, and go to the gym and many other businesses around Broadway & Pike, and though I try to walk, when it’s raining or I need to be there in less than 20 minutes the #10 is perfect; my wife and I use it for this many times a week. Maybe we’re in the minority, and most folks getting on the 10 on 15th are going downtown, or will start using it to get to the light rail to go to the U district, but (for selfish reasons of course) I hope that I’m wrong and other folks use the survey to express their dislike.
Folks that normally use the 43 & 8 buses in this area should also chime in; adding the 10 to John will only slow down traffic there, and it’s already slower going that way than it is going down Pine, in my experience. Weekend nights excluded of course, though even then it’s not as bad as you’d think.
The 43 is basically being cancelled (except for a few one way peak trips). So the 10 will replace the 43 from downtown to Safeway.
Damn, you’re right, I totally forgot about that. Again, taking away service instead of adding. I get that they expect people to take the light rail, and it will certainly be convenient for folks that work and go to school where it lets out, it’s not convenient for everyone. Which is the problem; instead of trying to provide more convenience for more people, they just shift it from one group to another. Very disappointing, and I feel bad for people that really rely on it. For me if the 10 changes I’ll just have to get better at leaving early and walking more often; living where I do and working in SLU, I’m already used to not having a convenient bus route for work, so this change will mean I really only take the bus if I’m going to or from downtown, which is rare. I feel bad for folks who really rely on it for important stuff, and get screwed; guessing that’s a lot of people that currently use the 43.
Totally agree on this. It may make sense for peak commuting, but for getting around the neighborhood, it’s a loss.
I usually take the 10/11 to get to 15th from downtown, but I will take the 43 if the wait for the 10/11 seems really long, and the 43 is about to leave. The 43 is always slower than the 10 getting to the same point at 15th & John. The intersections on John between Summit and 12th are the real time killers, with people trying to turn left on Broadway as the absolute worst.
Here is some ridership data:
http://metro.kingcounty.gov/programs-projects/link-connections/pdf/current-routes.pdf (Scroll down for the 10).
Downtown is the big winner. Going East, 10x more people start their trip downtown than anywhere else on the route. Going west it is not as dramatic but downtown is the #1 destination of people on the 10.
The best answer would be to bring back the 43, but Metro hates the 43. The next best answer would be to have the 11 turn on 23rd but Madison people have too much power. So, this is the best of a bad situation.
So, if I’m reading this right, inbound on Pine between 15th and Broadway, the 11 picks up 34% of its riders and the 10 picks up 48%. That’s only 4 stops. Add the stretch of 15th between Pine and John, and the 10 picks up 67% of its ridership from the affected area.
Yeah, I catch the 10 at 15th and Mercer to go downtown for work, so my commute won’t be affected. But getting around the neighborhood will be much harder. Walking with bags full of groceries in the rain while pregnant from Trader Joe’s/co-op is not going to be an option. Same with the farmer’s market at Pike and Broadway and any of the businesses down there.
I’ve also used the 10 in those situations (not pregnant though), when I’ve gone shopping down there and gotten more than I can comfortably carry home. Connections within neighborhoods are important, especially one as dense as Capitol Hill. Hopefully you complete the survey, it could make a difference, unless they’ve actually made up their minds and are just going through the motion of asking for input.
I’m torn as it’s also very nice to have a connection to Link/ID street car. It would be nice to just keep the 43 and keep the 10 as is. Sigh…
If this went through, I would quite literally never take the 10 again.
The 43 and the Light Rail both get me to mid-Broadway, most of Broadway north of John is fucking useless, and 15th between john and pine would have no service.
I have literally no idea what the benefit of this change is in ANY way.
The 43 is going away, it won’t get you anywhere. This change benefits anyone who took the 43 from 15th to downtown. Primarily people in the Summit area who were seeing their service slashed as a result.
The 43 is not running except for a few times a day when this would take effect.
The benefit of the change is explained in the article. The Olive Way/ E John Street corridor would have only the 8 connecting it with the light rail station when the 43 gets drastically reduced in service hours. The 8 is unreliable and infrequent.
Pine Street will continue to have the 11 serving it. The question is whether service on 15th between Pine and John is a better use of service hours than serving the very-dense segment of riders along Olive Way.
The 49 could also reroute to Olive and serve the Summit area as well as this proposed reroute. It would also be within the administrative change abilities of Metro.
It would be pretty problematic for a 60-foot coach to have to make the left hand turn from Olive Way onto Broadway with no protected turn cycle.
The 10 reroute also has the added benefit of adding a connection to the station to an entire neighborhood, 15th Avenue.
The turn would be tricky, but improving that intersection’s signaling would benefit all routes, and drivers in the neighborhood in efficiency and safety.
Unfortunately, the densest part of the 10’s current route is not going to be connected to the station by this proposal, and it will have significantly reduced service to anywhere else. From Metro’s statistics, HALF of the 10’s riders get on from Pine in between 15th and Broadway, and that’s with the 11 providing duplicate service on those blocks.
I say “go for it”. I really don’t want to lose the 43, but this change to the 10 would mitigate the loss for me completely.
I think this new idea works reasonably well, given the demise of the 43.
1) The 8 takes people all the way from MLK and the east side of Capitol Hill to the train station, where they can quickly get anywhere from the UW, to downtown, to the ID and beyond. And it also takes the crowd down from CH to South Lake Union.
2) The 11 Takes everyone from Madison Park through the south part of CH into and out of downtown.
3) The 49 brings Broadway folk into and out of downtown same as always, with the option to do part of the trip by train instead.
4) The 10 would take the top-north CH crowd, and the John/Olive folk into and out of the core downtown, or allow people to come up by train to B’way & John and grab the 10 home from there.
The only stretch not covered and needing to walk would be that fairly short stretch of 15th from John to Pine. Others who might complain that there’s no direct run from 15th down to Pine & Broadway, well, you’re only talking about having to walk Broadway from John to Pine there. I’ve lived at 12th & Republican, Boylston & Roy, Harvard & Olive in my 30 years on the hill, and really NOTHING is very far to walk in this neighborhood.
It’s a short stretch for those of us who can walk it. When I take that bus in the daytime along that stretch, most of the people who get on are elderly or disabled. I don’t know how they’re supposed to get to Group Health and Safeway.