We’ve all been stuck in traffic on Westlake Avenue when the Fremont Bridge is raised. Once across, it’s a slow crawl through Fremont along 36th Avenue North.
Traffic also gets sticky further west into Ballard along Leary Avenue Northwest and Northwest Market Street, which is used by tens of thousands each day.
Now imagine that trip — any time of year — with new 24/7 bus-only lanes, and car lanes largely reduced to just one lane in each direction from Westlake Avenue through Fremont and into Ballard.
This is the latest plan from Seattle Department of Transportation for Metro Bus Route 40.
Let us be clear, our questions about the Route 40 plan do not translate to a lack of support for neighborhood transit projects. We know that to keep our city moving, it’s imperative to have strong bus, Rapid Ride and light rail routes.
The baseline for new neighborhood transit investments should be robust community conversation and localized data that demonstrates that SDOT’s desired outcome will truly improve local connectivity and efficiency.
SDOT’s current Route 40 plan doesn’t meet this bar.
Here’s why:
The pandemic changed everything: In October 2023, The Seattle Times analyzed more than 7,000 King County Metro stops, looking at pre-pandemic ridership versus current numbers. The data found that the “pandemic distilled ridership down to those who rely on it most, hastening plans for a service that better suits those who use it all times, for all reasons.”
We couldn’t agree more.
According to SDOT data, Route 40 carried 13,233 daily riders in fall 2019. This plummeted to 3,594 daily riders in fall 2020 and, in 2023, is up to about 7,000 weekday riders, just more than half of pre-pandemic levels.
Bus riders are slowly returning to Route 40, which is a good thing. But will it see a return to pre-pandemic numbers?
Not even SDOT has that crystal ball.
Are neighborhood 24/7 bus-only lanes the right solution? Bus-only lanes make sense in the densest parts of our city, like downtown where both workers and residents commute by the thousands daily.
It’s unclear how successful new bus-only lanes are working in Seattle’s neighborhoods.
In 2022, a project adding bus-only lanes to Rainier Avenue South began. SDOT acknowledged that the addition of the bus-only lane could improve transit times, but also increase drive times for those traveling northbound by up to nine minutes. Many in the neighborhood report that the mostly vacant bus lanes are unsafely used to skirt backed-up traffic.
And that’s if bus travel times are not affected by other neighborhood street complexities — such as right-hand turn lanes that block bus flow and render bus-only lanes ineffective.
SDOT data justifies bus-only lanes with generalized national data; time savings marginal: SDOT recently provided us the Route 40 grant application documents we requested, as well as some travel time information.
Here’s what we found:
● The grant documents do not expressly require SDOT to build 24/7 bus-only lanes. Bus-only lanes are only indicated as one of the tools that can be used to achieve a 5% to 10% time savings.
● Surprisingly, the 24/7 bus-only time savings SDOT shared is not from studies conducted along the Route 40 alignment — instead, it’s averaged likely time savings based on broad national studies. When the grouped numbers are dissected, some show an increase in bus travel time due to the bus-only lanes.
With SDOT focused on a levy renewal, now is the time to get it right on current levy projects: We can all agree that transit behavior changed during the pandemic. And even now, the “new normal” remains unclear.
With a billion-plus-dollar transportation levy on the ballot this fall, SDOT needs to demonstrate its commitment to working with our neighborhoods and prioritize all voices — especially when those voices disagree with their proposals.