Hoped to optimize an area that was already heavily served by a tangle of King County Metro bus routes in neighborhoods unlikely to be connected to Sound Transit’s light rail network anytime soon, the RapidRide G bus rapid transit line is currently serving around 4,000 trips a day up and down Madison and across Capitol Hill.
CHS checked in with the new transit line to see how A) ridership is faring and B) get updates on launch growing pains including construction problems that are making big orange steel panels a permanent part of First Hill’s streetscape.
A) RIDERSHIP: The first trip counts for the new 2.5-mile line are encouraging. RapidRide G averaged more than 4,100 trips a day on weekdays in October, doubling jumping higher from the boarding totals reported in the line’s first month of service in September. For comparison, the much longer 12-mile RapidRide C connecting across West Seattle to averages more than 7,500 trips per weekday and the 9-mile RapidRide D between Crown Hill and Downtown, more than 8,800. The RapidRide G’s “trip density” above 1,600 boardings per mile is tops in the city. UPDATE: Thanks to a reader for catching an issue with Metro’s reporting for partial month service periods: “Wanted to offer a small correction: The ridership of the G didn’t double from September to October, it only ran for half of September but the dashboard isn’t that smart so it just averages the number over the whole month. The actual September weekday ridership was 3800ish” Continue reading