Tag Archives: rapidride g

‘Finishing touches’ — Work to begin on permanent fix for RapidRide G’s big orange panels on Madison

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Goodbye, big orange panels

Work on what the city is calling the “finishing touches” on the year and a half old RapidRide G line will include the elimination of those big orange panels installed to compensate for construction errors that left the route’s loading platforms an inch too high for bus wheelchair ramps.

The Seattle Department of Transportation says work is scheduled to begin later this month at the Terry Ave platform with work at the line’s other “center-running stations” to follow.

“This work will continue to make it easier for riders using mobility devices to board the bus,” SDOT and Metro said in the announcement of the construction project. Continue reading →

G Line ‘tap to pay’ test begins on route to full Seattle ORCA rollout

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(Image: ORCA)

“Tap to Pay” has rolled out on the G Line along E Madison in a soft launch upgrade to ORCA transit payment system.

You can learn more about the “soft launch” of the system here.

CHS reported on the upgrade last week as Seattle’s transportation system gears up for the opening of the new 2 Line and Judkins Park Station expansion of Sound Transit’s light rail in March.

The test of new “tap to pay” capabilities that “will let riders across the Seattle region use Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express cards, as well as mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay,” is being rolled out with the test that began Monday on G Line buses. Continue reading →

Happy birthday, RapidRide G

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(Image: King County Metro)

By Matt Dowell

Happy first birthday to Madison’s RapidRide G, a.k.a. the G bus, the G line, or just The G.

While the one-year anniversary or the line’s start was overshadowed by the city’s whipsawing on its transit planning around a single-block near the G, the reshaping of the Madison corridor deserves a look back and a look forward as the line begins its second year of service between the waterfront, First Hill, Capitol Hill, and Madison Valley.

“In the last year, Metro provided more than 49,000 service hours on the RapidRide G Line, helping spur tremendous growth in ridership,” a Metro blog post celebrating the bus rapid transit line’s first year reads.

Metro says the G Line is now “the 12th busiest route in our system,” averaging around 6,300 riders every weekday — about half the totals projected as the line was first being designed before the pandemic reset traffic and transportation habits across the city.

Metro says that early surveys indicate riders enjoy the G more than regular Metro routes and that it’s boosted bus usage across the Madison Avenue region: “Three routes, the 10, 11 and 12 — those most closely aligned with the G Line corridor — when combined with the new G Line, have seen weekday ridership grow by over 80 percent!”

Transit riders are enjoying the fruits of a project that, by the time buses started running, was three years of construction plus nine years of planning in the making. The line cost $134 million including $60 million in federal funding and was Metro and SDOT’s most ambitious bus rapid transit project to date. It required an overhaul of Madison Avenue traffic patterns and the addition of dedicated bus lanes along most of the 2.5 mile route in order for buses to arrive every six minutes, as promised.

The duration and impact of the construction along the diagonal arterial brought some infamy to RapidRide G long before it turned one, made worse by a number of visible snafus: streets paved, torn up, repaved; orange metal plates at some stations that linger to this day (SDOT says they’ll be removed soon).

Lewis

Jordan Lewis, a Capitol Hill resident hoping to cash in on the buzz and the frustration, dressed up as an under construction RapidRide G line station for Halloween last year.

“The long, protracted construction process was the only thing that people along Madison talked about,” said Lewis. “It was such a topical thing.”

Lewis now rides the G downtown to work each day and considers the project worthwhile. But not everyone in the neighborhood does. After traffic alterations on Madison that streamline bus flow, many drivers find themselves in a Derek Zoolander-like predicament: they can’t turn left.

Some Capitol Hill businesses feel this has cut them off from their customers, hurting revenue. Continue reading →

The A) and B) of RapidRide G’s first months of service: ridership, the semi-permanent big orange panels, and the surprise tunnel at 10th and Madison

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The big orange panels are staying — for now (Image: CHS)

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 →

Repairs underway as city screwed up wheelchair access on platforms and every bus shelter on new RapidRide G line — UPDATE

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RapidRide G will continue to operate on Madison through the work but it turns out that more than signal timing and the line’s new “kiss the curb” coaches are in need of fine tuning.

The Seattle Times reported Monday morning that all 25 bus shelters and three station platforms along the newly launched $144 million line need to be repaired because of errors restricting wheelchair access.

Riders and CHS readers noted large orange steel panels placed at platforms at the route when the line began its first service last month. It turns out, the Seattle Department of Transportation placed the segments to raise buses the less than an inch required for the RapidRide wheelchair ramps to properly operate.

King County Metro says it is looking into solutions that could include making adjustments to the buses or lowering the cement platforms at eastbound stop 104 at Terry, eastbound stop 105 at Summit, and westbound 124 at the three-way intersection of Madison, Union, and 12th Ave. Continue reading →

RapidRide G arrives with ambitious public transit goals — and plenty of hiccups over Madison’s new buses, stops, signs, and signals — UPDATE

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With reporting by Hannah Saunders

The new RapidRide G stretching 2.5 miles along Madison Street from the waterfront to Madison Valley via First Hill and Capitol Hill is unprecedented in the city’s rollout of a growing alphabet of “bus rapid transit” lines. The first days of service across the line’s special coaches, dedicated lanes, center loading passenger islands, and coordinated signaling has been an illustration in the challenges of doing new things in the big city.

Starting with Saturday’s launch, the promise of 6-minute service and smooth rides through the corridor has mostly been out of reach due to early hiccups around signal and signage coordination, collisions, and delays due to mechanical failures and operator challenges with the new coaches.

King County Metro says it is responding to early issues though it also referred some questions about signalling to the Seattle Department of Transportation.

UPDATE: “This is the first RapidRide line with six-minute headways and, as we expected, our operators continue to gain experience with our scheduled operations and maneuvering with the varying traffic conditions along the route,” a Metro spokesperson said in a statement

Metro calls the line’s start a success despite the issues and says it is working with SDOT to address the signal priority issues.

Metro says the new or upgraded signals along the route along with a special signal at the terminal to ensure buses start their routes smoothly will continue to be adjusted.

“Metro and SDOT staff are working to resolve any issues as they come up,” the spokesperson said. “SDOT is currently updating signal timings along Madison Street and at the intersection with Martin Luther King Jr Way. SDOT will keep monitoring and adjusting these signals to improve traffic flow for both buses and general traffic in the coming weeks.”

The full statement from Metro appears at the end of this post.

Other issues also have added up in the growing pains around the newly launched $144 million line that includes bus service 10 new stations between 1st Ave and MLK Jr Way operating from 5:00 AM to 4:00 AM daily with a bus every six minutes between 6 AM and 7 PM Monday through Saturday.

The growing RapidRide system’s arrival on Madison is hoped to optimize an area that was already served by a tangle of Metro routes in neighborhoods unlikely to be connected to Sound Transit’s light rail network anytime soon.

Some issues are small in comparison to the ambitions of the new line. One Rapid G Line bus driver with a year of experience under their belt, for example, told CHS the protocol on the new route requires they switch drivers every time at the end of the route — just one of the many new steps and procedures slowing performance on the new line during the launch.

“It could be worse,” the driver said. Continue reading →

When will you ride RapidRide G? ‘Bus rapid transit’ line across First Hill and Capitol Hill starts Saturday

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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. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Ribbon cut on RapidRide G in a big month for public transit around Seattle — Service starts September 14th

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Local and federal officials cut the ribbon last week but you’ll have a few more days to wait for your first ride on the RapidRide G line.

Thursday’s ceremony featuring Federal Transit Administration Administrator Veronica Vanterpool and local officials in the First African Methodist Episcopal Church’s one-acre surface parking lot along E Madison was a photo op.

September 14th brings the real action as Metro buses roll out on the new $139 million route for the first time. The new five-door, 60-foot-long buses can load from both curbside and center island stations on the route. Continue reading →

Officials holding Thursday ribbon-cutting ceremony for RapidRide G

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It won’t open until September 14th but they are cutting the ribbon on the RapidRide G line today.

The city announced the Thursday ceremony Wednesday.

The rushed ceremony after three years of construction on the $139 million Seattle transit project comes as federal officials are also in the area for another celebration of Washington D.C.-boosted transportation spending — Friday’s opening of Sound Transit’s $3.1 billion light rail extension to Lynnwood. Continue reading →

As RapidRide G moves toward September 14th opening, riders are reminded that new bus stops are ‘not yet operational’

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RapidRide stops are “not yet operational,” the city reminds

The Seattle Department of Transportation says construction on the $139 million RapidRide G bus line on Madison remains on schedule for a planned September opening that will also bring major changes in service to mahy nearby bus routes and stops.

Meanwhile, King County Metro is hoping to clear up confusion for neighborhood riders stuck in the transition.

“Construction progress in July has been vital to the project as it moves toward completion in the fall, when service begins on Saturday, September 14. While heavy construction wrapped up earlier in the summer, July saw our crews complete countless details, repairs, upgrades, and finishing touches that tie the revamped Madison St. corridor together with some final details to wrap up this fall,” SDOT said in its latest construction update. “Our crews have been filling in gaps in new roadway painting and markings, adding features to bus shelters, repairing damaged sidewalks and removing debris and equipment that is old and leftover from prior eras.” Continue reading →