There are 13 new Metro buses ready to ply Madison from the waterfront to Madison Valley via First Hill and Capitol Hill carrying paying passengers for the first time starting this weekend.
Three doors on the right — two on the left. $2.75 a pop.
The RapidRide G line begins service Saturday after a decade of planning and three years of construction powered by federal, state, and local funding that included massive infrastructure projects for utility systems up and down the $144 million route.
The 2.50-mile, 10-station RapidRide G line will operate 23 hours a day, from 5:00 AM to 4:00 AM between 1st Ave downtown and MLK Jr Way in Madison Valley with stops across First Hill and Capitol Hill along the way, with a bus every six minutes between 6 AM and 7 PM Monday through Saturday.
A twisting path of bus-only lanes and plenty of paint, a First Hill cluster of center-loading bus islands, and signal priority along the way is hoped to speed the journey.
How ridership of the new G line will look is unclear.
The new system is hoped to optimize an area that was already served by a tangle of Metro routes in areas unlikely to be connected to Sound Transit’s light rail network anytime soon.
The area is expected to continue to be a center of Seattle population and job growth as well as the city’s core for hospitals and medical services.
Seattle began planning for Madison “bus rapid transit” more than a decade ago — here is CHS reporting on the city council pondering cutting planning on the project in 2012.
G now joins a growing alphabet of Metro bus rapid transit lines. CHS reported here on the start of construction on RapidRide J serving Eastlake. The Eastlake project including two new miles of bus priority lanes and 3.7 miles of “protected bike facilities” has a $128 million cost estimate.
| RAPIDRIDE Route | Destinations |
|---|---|
| A Line | Tukwila International Boulevard Station, Federal Way Transit Center |
| B Line | Redmond, Overlake, Crossroads, Bellevue |
| C Line | South Lake Union, Downtown Seattle, West Seattle, Alaska Junction, Fauntleroy, Westwood Village |
| D Line | Crown Hill, Ballard, Interbay, Uptown, Downtown Seattle |
| E Line | Aurora Village Transit Center, Shoreline, Bitter Lake, West Green Lake, Downtown Seattle |
| F Line | Burien Transit Center, SeaTac, Tukwila International Blvd Station, Tukwila Sounder Station, Renton Transit Center, The Landing |
| G Line | Madison Valley, Capitol Hill, First Hill, Downtown Seattle |
| H Line | Burien, White Center, Westwood Village, Delridge, Downtown Seattle |
Bus rapid transit was seen as a lower cost, faster to implement alternative to streetcars and light rails when Metro and city officials were first pitching the Madison line.
Originally conceived with a planned opening date of 2019, the Madison RapidRide G line started with a $134 million price tag buoyed by $60 million in federal funding. The construction budget, by the way, included an agreement with Capitol Hill queer bar Pony on a $250,000 deal with the city in exchange for shaving off a bit of its property to make room for the new route.
Along the way, Metro found out its plans to run electric trolleys along the route wasn’t going to work because the vehicles couldn’t handle the grade. The route will be served, instead, with the new five-door electric hybrid coaches.
The route is now overhauled with new bus stops, transit priority, new crosswalks, and better sidewalks though the Seattle Department of Transportation says it implemented many features with paint not concrete.
“As the project developed, SDOT identified areas where painted features could be effectively utilized without compromising the overall safety and functionality of the corridor,” a department spokesperson told CHS. “This approach was considered as part of a broader strategy to maximize the impact of available funding.”
Perhaps more substantive will be the reorganization of Metro’s routes around the new RapidRide core that includes changes and cuts to dozens of bus lines including moving Route 10 back onto E Pine and the new dedication of Route 3 to serving the neighborhoods around Summit Ave. Check your route’s schedule before heading out.
Metro held a ribbon-cutting for the new line earlier this month. Saturday, Metro says it will hold a community celebration at 19th and Madison including the Seattle Seahawks Blue Thunder Drumline and the Daughters of Royalty Drill & Dance Ensemble to welcome riders to RapidRide G.
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$2.75 a pop. whose going to ride these busses? and why doesn’t it go down to Madison Park? what a waste of tax payers money. not to mention what a traffic jam Madison will be.
The G line doesn’t go to Madison Park because there is minimal demand for bus service that far out, which is already satisfied by route 11. In fact SDOT had originally planned to end the G line at 23rd, but it was extended to MLK after surveys showed more demand in Madison Valley than they’d expected.
Ah yes must ALWAYS think of the cars
Generally the demand is to go between downtown and First Hill/Capitol Hill, not some rando suburban-ish neighborhood.
It was proposed to go all the way to Madison Park but was blocked by the residents who didn’t want a new bus turnaround in the neighborhood.
Shame for the rest of us.
Still nothing up Queen Anne.
No purpose for me to ride the G line. But I am VERY excited it has brought two routes back for getting up Pine and the fact that I can now take 1 vs 2 buses to get to 19th and some 15th areas I stopped accessing when the 10 was removed before. On the rare occasion I need to go past Madison Valley, I will miss the 11 direct route from my apartment. Walking to it, for me, won’t be simple. But these are typical challenges when you are not body-abled (wish we had Metro Flex for us disabled here in the Metro area).
Five years late, of course more expensive than we were told, hardly any faster than the old bus, and doesn’t even reach Madison Park’s beach. What, too plebian for the neighborhood? Who runs this city? Do they think we’re idiots?
And now getting around in that area is ridiculous. Streets are all cut off, weird turn lanes, no turn on reds, no left turn of Madison to pine. It’s so messed up and infuriating. Pointless traffic jams for a bus to nowhere.
Yes, that’s exactly it. The rich people in those neighborhoods literally run the city. They directly text Harrell.
I hope that unlike the First Hill streetcar that the traffic signals prioritize the buses when it’s coming. The first hill trolley is so slow because the signals are bad and don’t stay green or turn green sooner when the street car is coming.
My neighbors and I rode the #3 today. So happy to have service back on Summit/Bellevue. Unfortunately, the cash collection box wasn’t working so only three of the five passengers in our group counted. Hopefully, Metro will get it fixed so any low numbers don’t count against the run.
I’m glad this is finally done, but it’s really unfortunate that it doesn’t include a bike lane up Madison, that they’re not using fully-electric buses (or trollies), and that it doesn’t go all the way to Mad Park Beach. Would’ve been such a great opportunity to do something special with this project.
I feel for the bikers swerving in and out of traffic trying to get up Madison.
The G line does have racks for multiple bikes inside the bus (so no slow loading/unloading bikes from rack on front). Racks are in the hinge region, where you probably don’t want to sit anyway.