Comparing G Line performance to other routes that operate in the corridor — Routes 11 and 12 — ridership in March was up a staggering 127% compared to 2024. As part of the bus restructure implemented with G Line rollout, those routes were rerouted to serve different destinations, but do still provide service along the Madison Street corridor.

That translates to nearly 5,000 daily transit trips being made in the corridor that weren’t being made before the launch of the RapidRide G, King County’s most ambitious RapidRide line to date. The G Line has likely attracted brand new riders, but a big part of its ridership magic is enticing existing riders to ride more often thanks to the quicker trips and increased frequency that it has brought to Madison.

Ridership on Route 11 and 12 is down a bit, and Route 10 and Route 49 have also taken hits due to service cuts in the fall restructure (to account for all the new G Line hours) and the siphoning effect of the frequent G Line. However, those ridership losses — collectively in the 1,000 to 2,000 daily boardings range depending on the month — are more than offset by the G Line’s surge.

What makes RapidRide G different? The $130 million project included more dedicated roadway space than any other RapidRide line, with red bus lanes through Downtown, First Hill and Capitol Hill allowing coaches to bypass other traffic. Center-loading bus islands in First Hill separate the G Line from turning vehicles, and all-door boarding and ORCA card readers at stations reduce dwell times.

But the biggest upgrade that came with the G Line was frequency: buses are scheduled every six minutes throughout most of the day, Monday through Saturday. If you miss a bus, one is coming up behind it pretty quickly.

A few kinks to iron out

The route is not operating seamlessly, however. The traffic signals along the route, operated by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), continue to be the main impediment to maximizing the G Line’s potential. While King County Metro has made some improvements in keeping buses on-time — or maintaining RapidRide headways, in Metro parlance — there’s still a lot of room for improvement. In March, 82.6% of G Line trips were considered on-time, compared to 77.2% in September when the line launched.

When a bus gets off schedule, buses will bunch together, arriving one right after the other, frustrating riders, and leaving a gap elsewhere that could leave a rider waiting more than six minutes. This remains common on the G Line given the unique frequency that generally isn’t seen on other RapidRide lines.

But riders may see improvement starting this month. On March 31, King County Metro implemented what the agency calls “Advanced Service Management” (ASM) on the G Line. Already in place on other RapidRide lines, ASM allows Metro to deploy coaches based on what’s happening on-the-ground as opposed to what’s written on the schedule.

“The key change is moving from scheduled service (meaning buses aimed to arrive at set times on a clock) to more evenly spaced or headway-based services (meaning buses arrive a set number of minutes apart),” Metro spokesperson Al Sanders wrote in a blog post. “Last year, we piloted the Advanced Service Management program on the RapidRide A and F lines. Riders experienced smoother and more reliable service. With the success of that pilot, Metro is now expanding Advanced Service Management to the RapidRide G Line as part of the spring service change.”

The implementation of ASM along the route has significant potential, but any system Metro implements won’t be able to bypass the hard truth around how the operation of city-controlled traffic signals. Savvy G Line operators have figured out that it’s actually faster to get out of the bus lane after the eastbound stop at the downtown library, due to the fact that buses remaining in the dedicated lane have to wait for drivers to turn onto the I-5 ramp before getting the go-ahead — a big red flag for reliability.

Another criticism of the G Line is that its signature high-frequency service tapers off dramatically after 7pm and on Sundays, when buses are scheduled every 15 minutes. Metro did begin to rectify that in this spring’s service change by adding two more runs per night, but more will be needed to avoid the nightly nosedive in frequencies, which is likely leaving ridership on the table.

Looking ahead to more service gains

In spite of those kinks, riders clearly seem happy with the level of service that the G Line is providing and appear hungry for similar projects in other areas. Seattle has additional RapidRide routes on the way, in the form of the J Line along Eastlake Avenue, which is set to open in 2027. Further on the horizon, the R Line along Rainier Avenue is tabbed for 2031.

However, it’s less clear whether local leaders will see the incredible success from the G Line and decide to build on it by boosting frequency on other routes and improving features on existing and planned RapidRide lines to strive for the G Line’s higher standards.

Pre-pandemic, Seattle saw significant increases in transit ridership by investing in the frequent transit network, getting as many routes to 10-minute or 15-minute service as possible, with more frequent service in some places. Systemwide, Metro has yet to restore service to pre-pandemic levels, and relatedly more than 30% of its pre-pandemic ridership is still missing.

Even though it’s frustrating to now have to learn those lessons all over again, as County and City leaders remain fixated on other things, RapidRide G serves as a clear and present reminder that investing in frequency and service can pay big dividends.

The post RapidRide G Line Attracts Major Bus Ridership Gains Along Madison Street first appeared on The Urbanist.

Over the first 26 days of October, average weekday ridership reached 4,111 daily riders, a 15% increase over initial weekday ridership in September. That’s more than twice as many riders as were riding the former Route 12 along Madison Street before the G Line’s arrival.

That ridership boost was powered by service that is more frequent, fast, and reliable — improvements that top the wish list for transit riders. With 328 daily trips six days a week, the G Line features the most frequent service that King County Metro offers and its highest level of transit priority roadway, aided by dedicated lanes along most of the corridor and center-loading bus platforms through First Hill.

However, the $144 million line has experienced some hiccups over its first few weeks as Metro has grappled with delivering a brand new type of service, including a unique fleet of coaches with doors on both sides and GPS technology that determines when it’s okay to open on the left side. Riders have reporting bunching, where two buses arrive in close succession. With buses scheduled every six minutes, it’s easy for one coach to pick up most of the passengers waiting at a stop and the coach coming behind to quickly catch up.

The G Line’s six-minute service can be traced back to an agreement between Metro, the City of Seattle, and the Federal Transit Administration to secure a $60 million federal grant that pushed the project across the finish line. The agreement stipulates six-minute service from 6am to 7pm Monday through Saturday. But that promise has proven to be a major undertaking for Metro, with 101 operators alone qualified to drive the G Line in order to meet promised frequencies.

Metro spokesperson Al Sanders told The Urbanist that a greater percentage of trips are arriving close to their scheduled time as the agency has attained more experience operating the G Line. October saw 76.1% of weekday trips arrive on time compared to 72.9% in September, and 78.4% of trips on Saturdays compared to 77%. But with close to one out of every four trips still off-schedule, the brand new line remains below Metro’s target of running at least 80% of trips on time.

As the G Line’s reliability increases, its popularity only continues to grow. With overall ridership up 19% in October compared to September, riders seem to be figuring out the benefits that the G Line has brought to a corridor where buses used to be infrequent and would regularly get caught in I-5 traffic. Metro has also been touting the G Line via a widespread advertising campaign, including signs on the side of G Line coaches.

Notably, ridership on Sundays — when buses arrive every 15 minutes compared with six minutes on every other day — was up 18% month-over-month and is at 70% of ridership levels on Saturdays.

With such a short route, much depends on the traffic signals along Madison and Spring Street to keep buses moving. Since construction continued at bus stops until hours before the G Line launched, Metro had a fairly limited window to test operations along the full corridor before going live. Post-launch, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), which handles the traffic signal infrastructure, has been making tweaks at numerous intersections.

“SDOT continues to coordinate with Metro to fine tune signal timing for the RapidRide G Line to improve traffic flow and reduce bus delays,” SDOT spokesperson Mariam Ali told The Urbanist. “During the first weeks of operation, we have closely monitored performance and made adjustments at key intersections, including Madison St & 6th Ave, Madison St & Boren Ave, E Madison St & 12th Ave, E Madison St & 15th Ave, E Madison St & 23rd Ave and E Madison St & MLK Jr Way E. We’ve also implemented new signal timing along the corridor from 8th to 22nd avenues.”

While initial ridership is modest when compared to some of Metro’s other workhorse RapidRide routes, the G Line is the first ever RapidRide line that created a brand new transit corridor, instead of simply upgrading an existing route. And it’s the shortest RapidRide line in the network. Compared to the E Line, the most popular bus route in the county and one that saw over 13,600 boardings in September, the G Line has fewer than one-third as many stops. The H Line, the most recent RapidRide line to launch prior to the G Line, has been seeing over 8,000 riders per day on its route between Downtown and Burien, getting close to the pre-pandemic highs of the former Route 120.

That being said, the G Line has significant capacity to grow ridership as it settles into its new position in the region’s bus network. That position is all the more vital due to Sound Transit’s failure to successfully build or plan a light rail station serving the neighborhood.

Sound Transit passed over First Hill for a light rail station, as had originally been planned as part of the 1996 Sound Move package, citing soil concerns. The agency again snubbed First Hill with Sound Transit 3 by shifting the planned Ballard Link station around Madison Street further south. As such, the G Line will remain the frequent transit connection to one of the city’s fastest growing neighborhoods.

So far, the ridership data shows the G Line is already providing big gains for riders, and it’s serving as a model for what happens when agencies boost frequency and get buses out of traffic.

The post RapidRide G Bus Ridership Starts Strong and Is Trending Upward first appeared on The Urbanist.

With Metro promising six-minute service levels along Madison Street throughout most of the day, any delays at stations or at traffic signals means that buses start to bunch, with one bus arriving after the other. That bunching leads to gaps in service elsewhere, and unpredictable arrival times depending on when you get to a stop. While Metro tested coaches along Madison prior to launch and even constructed a demo bus island at its Ryerson bus base in SoDo, none of those conditions were a true match for the live operation of the route.

After a chaotic Monday morning with coaches running significantly off-schedule, conditions for G Line riders have stabilized somewhat as Metro continued to get a handle on maintaining stable headways on the route. While gaps in service have not disappeared, they have decreased as Metro deployed staff to the G Line’s terminal at MLK Jr Way S and E Madison Street.

According to Metro’s real-time data feed, around 11% of trips on the G Line were cancelled on the first day of service on Saturday, a number that had increased to 13% by Monday, the second day of six-minute service. But by Tuesday, that had improved to 7% and on Wednesday it was just 1%. Even with those cancellations, the G Line delivered more frequency than any other route on the system on all of those days, but the cancellations represent a rough gauge for how close Metro is getting to its promised service levels.

“Since the weekend, now into the first few days of the week, our Bus Operations division has been assigning first line supervisors to the layover terminal to help manage a lot of the sort of complex aspects of G Line service: fallbacks, namely,” Ian Kowalski, the G Line project’s planning lead, told The Urbanist. A fallback is an extra operator staffed to a bus on a route with very frequent service, so that when one operator needs to take a break, they can take over and keep things running on time. “Essentially helping operators wrap up their runs and then get back out on the road, on their next run, and helping with the timing so that we can keep coaches on those six-minute headways.”

The brand new coaches have proved challenging for many of the 101 operators who have been assigned to G Line service. While they received four hours of training — double the two hours of training standard for qualification to ride any of the agency’s other seven RapidRide lines — construction work being completed by the G Line’s contractor, Jansen Construction, up and down Madison Street up until Saturday morning had an impact on the testing environment on-the-ground.

There have also been technical issues with the coaches themselves as they’ve been broken in. As issues with specific coaches arose, Kowalski explained, Metro deployed technicians out to fix issues.

“We had reports of some challenges with the operations of the left door[s],” Kowalski said. “It’s a system that’s designed to be automatic when the coach pulls up to the center island stations, there’s a system on the coach that recognizes that the coach is at these predetermined locations, and automatically opens the left hand doors when they’re needed.”

Then there’s the issue of the signal timing along the corridor, which is controlled by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT). Riders on the G Line will notice the bus is able to zoom between stops thanks to dedicated bus lanes and fewer stops. But the amount of time spent waiting at lights remains a big factor behind bunching buses. Kowalski told The Urbanist that SDOT has been responsive to requests to tweak signal timing, most notably making a significant change to the signal cycle at MLK Way on Tuesday morning that is enabling G Line buses to get to the first stop on the route sooner. But there’s still clearly more work to be done.

“They make adjustments daily, several times a day,” Kowalski said. “Over the next coming weeks, they’ll be making adjustments to the whole signal system throughout the corridor. So we’re really hoping that that helps smooth out a lot of the bunching and gapping and headway issues.”

The Urbanist has reached out to SDOT for a more in-depth rundown of what is being done to tweak signals to get buses moving faster.

Another issue that riders have encountered at G Line stops are the dynamic departure boards. Currently, the screens display both scheduled trips and real-time projected arrival times, providing riders with information that’s likely to be inaccurate. Kowalski confirmed that Metro is working on pushing out fixes in Metro’s real-time feed so that information at stops is more accurate.

While long waits and limited information at stops are undoubtedly frustrating to riders, all signs point toward G Line operations heading in the right direction.

“Nobody likes bunching. We don’t like it. Passengers don’t like it, the operators don’t like it, but we also don’t like big gaps either, so in having our first line supervisor’s presence out there, we start to reduce the number of incidences where we have gaps or bunching as the operators become more familiar with each individual zone,” Metro’s RapidRide expansion lead Jerry Roberson said.

“It’s not good enough to say that it takes time,” Roberson continued. “But I think it takes this learning curve in these first few days and these first few weeks, to get these kinks worked out so that this can be the type of very frequent corridor that it was designed to be, and to operate the way it was designed to operate.”

The post Metro Works to Smooth Out Bumpy RapidRide G Launch first appeared on The Urbanist.

With 2.8 miles of dedicated bus lanes covering the most congestion-prone areas of the route around Downtown and First Hill, and with many of those bus lanes occupying the center lane of the road to keep motorists out of the way of coaches, the RapidRide G will be as close to a gold-standard bus rapid transit (BRT) line that Seattle has seen to date. On First Hill and Capitol Hill, riders will board buses from median islands in the middle of the street, taking advantage of a wholly unique feature for the region: buses with doors on either side of the coach, like a light rail car.

Procuring these unique vehicles proved to be a challenge, which is partially responsible for the multiple years of delays delivering the project, once pledged to open in 2021. Metro ultimately switched from fully electric buses to diesel hybrids to find a supplier. The project’s setbacks allowed the H Line to leapfrog it and open in March 2023, 18 months ahead of the G Line.

The $144 million project, which was able to take advantage of $80.5 million in federal grants, also received $35.8 million in funding from Sound Transit, making RapidRide G the first Sound Transit 3 project to be officially delivered after voters approved that ballot measure in 2016. Just under $20 million came from the Levy to Move Seattle, approved by voters the previous year.

With estimated trip times between 14 and 16 minutes from First Avenue to Madison Valley, the G Line will offer significant time savings over a current bus trip on the corridor, which can take 20 to 30 minutes and require a transfer. But the biggest benefits for riders will come from increased reliability of trips, less time spent in traffic, and increased frequencies. Buses are slated to arrive every six minutes throughout the day Monday through Saturday. After 7pm and on Sundays, buses will come every 15 minutes.

The G Line’s median island bus stops are more elevated than normal bus stops, allowing riders to board level with coaches. Riders using wheelchairs will board using quick-deploying ramps at designated spots on the platforms, and riders with bikes will be able to roll their bikes directly onto the rear of the buses themselves rather than utilizing exterior racks.

On top of these accessibility improvements, the G Line represents the return of transit service to First Avenue, allowing anyone accessing Colman Dock or the Pier 50 fast ferry terminal to transfer to transit without having to climb hills.

Ultimately, the RapidRide project was much more than a simple bus upgrade, with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) taking the lead on planning the changes to Madison Street that have paved the way for this week’s start of service. Along with the 21 stations, which includes two upgraded bus stops, the project replaced sidewalks up and down the corridor, replaced asphalt with concrete that can handle frequent bus service, and replaced a 120-year-old water main under Madison. SDOT upgraded traffic signals all along the corridor, including five brand new signals, and construction crews navigated the existing overhead trolley and streetcar wiring that is already in place.

Unlike most RapidRide routes that Metro has launched since it created the program in 2010, the G Line isn’t an upgrade to an existing route but rather represents a brand new transit corridor. The route came out of Seattle’s 2012 Transit Master Plan, a document most Seattleites will probably only remember as one that recommended exploring rapid streetcar routes to Ballard and the University District. The plan put Madison Street in the “top tier” of corridor projects but ruled out a streetcar project due to steep street grades.

As a diagonal street cutting through a rapidly growing cross-section of Seattle loaded with destinations, Madison was an enticing bus rapid transit candidate, as SDOT Director Greg Spotts referenced in his official statement.

“You can count on the G Line to get around the heart of Seattle, connecting the ferry dock and downtown with health care facilities on First Hill and neighborhoods along Madison,” Spotts said. “This infrastructure and mobility project creates safer streets and intersections for all users, while enabling frequent, reliable bus service every six minutes along a unique diagonal corridor within our street grid.”

Initially, the route was only envisioned as running as far east as 23rd Avenue to connect to north-south transit. But community feedback clamoring to connect to additional destinations along Madison Street caused the City of Seattle to propose a new terminus in Madison Valley in 2015, even as it encountered pushback on the idea of laying buses over near MLK Jr Way.

After years of design work, federal funding snags due to a transit-adverse Trump Administration, and pandemic-related delays, the G Line finally broke ground in 2021. The full rebuild of Madison Street heavily impacted neighboring residents and businesses during construction, but ultimately delivered a major upgrade to the corridor.

“This G Line will make our entire transit network more powerful and help get more people out of their cars and into the downtown core — boosting our local economy, fostering community, and helping us to meet our climate goals,” King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda said in a statement. “If you ask me, the G in G Line stands for Great!”

The G Line’s launch will bring other major changes to the bus network around Capitol Hill, with the Route 12 moving to Pine Street and the 11 to E Olive Way. The Route 10, 11, 12, and 49 will see reductions in service, with the City of Seattle prioritizing other crosstown routes with funds from the Seattle Transit Measure, including the Route 60 and 125. Metro is also reviving trolley service on Summit Avenue (formerly provided by Route 47) as a tail of the revised Route 3.

Even with parts of the Capitol Hill bus network getting weaker, the G Line’s addition to Metro’s portfolio provides a solid foundation for the next evolution of Seattle’s bus network, with a frequent trunk line along Madison providing reliable service on par with Link light rail. The BRT-level service the route provides may set a standard and inspire Metro and its partners to go bigger on future RapidRide upgrades. After three long years of construction, the G Line is finally here, and the corridor will be forever changed for it.

The post Metro Launches RapidRide G, Seattle’s Most Ambitious Bus Rapid Transit Project first appeared on The Urbanist.

The G Line will take over for Routes 11 and 12 along Madison Street between Downtown Seattle and Madison Valley, offering both increased frequency and significantly quicker trips for riders along the corridor. With the service change on September 14, King County Metro is restructuring bus routes in the area to feed the new rapid line, with some neighboring routes seeing frequency cuts. Thanks to pressure from advocates, Metro’s restructure revived Route 47, as a Summit Avenue tail of the revised Route 3.

For most of the day, the G Line will offer 6-minute frequencies. Frequencies decrease sharply to every 15 minutes after 7pm and on Sundays.

The RapidRide G will mostly operate in its own dedicated bus lanes, including the most congested segments downtown and around I-5. Through First Hill and Capitol Hill, buses will run along the center traffic lane, separating them from any other vehicles turning right, and riders will board from brand new stations in the median of Madison Street, mirroring stations along Jackson Street used by the First Hill Streetcar.

With buses stopping both along the curb and at the center medians, King County Metro is adding a fleet of special diesel hybrid electric buses with five sets of doors — three on the right and two on the left. The new fleet also includes a new feature for Seattle: interior bike racks at the back of the bus.

The G Line will be the first RapidRide line in Seattle to meet bus rapid transit standards for speed and quality of service. Transit riders will definitely want to try it out and mark the occasion.

Beyond a mere transit rebrand, SDOT noted the following project highlights:

• Built/replaced 3.8 miles of sidewalks 
• Completed 9.1 lane-miles of concrete roadway and 2.3 lane-miles of new asphalt overlay.
• Added 1.4 miles of dedicated transit lanes
• Built 21 new RapidRide stops; 10 paired stops in each direction and one on First Avenue
• Built 4 new center-running stations between 7th and 13th Avenues
• Installed 5 new traffic signals and upgraded 36 existing signals 
• Planted 108 new trees throughout the project area (some final tree planting will be done this fall) 

Unlike more extravagant recent light rail openings, the G Line opening will be light on pomp and circumstance. Politicians already got their speeches out of the way at an August 29 ribbon-cutting ceremony, and the buses won’t need to wait for their speechmaking to end. Service on the G Line will start early in the morning on September 14. Metro is offering a small business pass that pledges discounts at local businesses along the G Line. Italian Family Pizza’s new walk-up window at 1028 Madison Street will be offering free slices from 2-5pm. So grab a free slice on your way over to our gathering.

Stoup Capitol Hill (formerly Optimism Brewing) is a spacious all-ages brewery with a variety of beers, seltzers, N/A drinks, snacks, a food truck, and a small play area for kids. The event is free, but please RSVP so we know how many to expect.

The post Join for The Urbanist’s RapidRide G Line Opening Celebration first appeared on The Urbanist.

In just three months, service is set to begin on the most robust bus rapid transit project that Seattle has ever seen, the RapidRide G Line. With a grand opening planned for Saturday, September 14, King County Metro’s newest RapidRide line will take over for Routes 11 and 12 along Madison Street between Downtown Seattle and Madison Valley, offering both increased frequency and significantly quicker trips for riders along the corridor.

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), which is managing construction on the $133 million project, confirmed in early June that progress toward completion had surpassed 90% after a long two-and-a-half years of substantial street rebuilding. “All major roadway construction is done, and we’ll continue working on a few sidewalk segments, carrying out some patch work, and making touch-ups along the nearly 2.5-mile-long stretch of roadway,” the June 5 construction update from SDOT noted. Finishing touches will be implemented throughout the summer, including roadway painting and landscaping.

The Urbanist has been covering the long road to get here since 2014, when the first stakeholder sessions kicked off to consider design alternatives for how to serve the Madison Street corridor. Originally set to break ground in 2018, the project was subjected to funding delays during the Trump Administration and construction wasn’t able to fully start until 2021.

For most of the route, including the most congested segments downtown and around I-5, the RapidRide G will operate in its own dedicated bus lanes. Through First Hill and Capitol Hill, buses will run along the center traffic lane, separating them from any other vehicles turning right, and riders will board from brand new stations in the median of Madison Street, mirroring stations along Jackson Street used by the First Hill Streetcar.

With buses stopping both along the curb and at the center medians, King County Metro is adding a fleet of special diesel hybrid electric buses, produced by bus manufacturer New Flyer, with five sets of doors — three on the right and two on the left. The original vision for RapidRide on Madison was a fleet of electric trolleybuses, with trolley wire already in place for much of the route. However, that ultimately proved unobtainable within the project’s budget. The new fleet of New Flyers also include a new feature for Seattle: interior bike racks at the back of the bus, a feature also found on Community Transit Swift buses and TriMet’s FX2 bus rapid transit in Portland.

The RapidRide G fleet will consist of 13 coaches, with nine expected to be in use on most days, leaving four able to be swapped out when maintenance needs arise. Six coaches are currently being outfitted and tested, with the full fleet expected to be in place by the first day of service, according to Metro spokesperson Al Sanders.

After construction on the RapidRide G reaches substantial completion, currently expected in early August, Seattle residents and visitors will start to see vehicles in testing along Madison. In the meantime, Metro has been testing the new coaches at its bus base, using simulations of center-loading bus islands.

The goal for RapidRide G is to offer incredibly frequent service, beating even current train frequency on Link light rail, with buses coming every six minutes between 6am and 7pm Monday through Saturday, dropping to every 15 minutes later at night and on Sundays. That promised schedule dates all the way back to the funding agreement that Metro, the City of Seattle, and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) signed that led to $59.9 million in federal Small Starts funding flowing to the project.

The question now is whether Metro’s staffing levels, which have been improving in recent months, will be enough to hit those promised frequencies on the RapidRide G. Metro plans to add 143,000 annual service hours onto its bus network, many of which will include trips on the RapidRide G. Hiring and training continues at a slow and steady pace, but the agency may not be at the level needed to hit 6-minute frequencies across the board by September 14. For now, Metro said it is completing over 99% of its scheduled trips, after readjusting service levels to more achievable levels last fall.

With bonuses and increased compensation for operators included in the new contract with the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the bottleneck for getting new bus operators on the road is primarily Metro’s training process. On May 13, Metro posted a recruitment for full-time bus operators and received close to 1,000 applications in one week. But Metro faces limitations on who can train new operators, significantly limiting the size of graduating classes out of operator training.

“We are seeing results from our innovation in this area, but there is still more to do. To have enough trainers on staff to train bus operators at the scale and pace needed to add the number of service hours Metro would like, ATU and Metro will need to come up with new solutions. In short, having more trainers will allow us to add and train more new bus operators, which will allow us to deliver more bus service,” Sanders said.

Metro has relied heavily on overtime to meet its schedule in recent months, with overtime accounting for about double the target of 17% of service.

“Bus operators will be picking their fall assignments in late July and early August, after which RapidRide G Line specific training can increase as we will know which operators will be driving the route. We now have more full-time operators than we’ve had since February 2022. We expect to meet our service hours increase this fall, using overtime to fill shifts as needed,” Sanders continued.

In short, Metro expects a few hiccups this fall, but is expecting staffing to improve in 2025.

“Despite these gains, there may be some cancellations on service system-wide during the first few months of the fall service change, which could temporarily impact some trips on the RapidRide G Line and other bus routes. Reliability will strengthen in early 2025 as we continue to recruit and train new operators.”

Along with the launch of the RapidRide G, bus riders in central Seattle will see substantial changes to the overall network starting September 14. Routing on the 10, 11, and 12 buses will all be reconfigured to better align with the new service on Madison, and Metro will bring back service to the Summit Slope neighborhood of West Capitol Hill via a new extension of the Route 3. Those changes are happening at the same time as another bus restructure around North Seattle and Shoreline as part of the Lynnwood Link extension launch.

With the headaches from the long construction period soon set to be a thing of the past, RapidRide G’s arrival in several of Seattle’s densest neighborhoods will represent a big upgrade to bus service and a major milestone for Seattle’s transit network overall.

The post Seattle Gears Up to Launch Madison’s RapidRide G on September 14 first appeared on The Urbanist.

As part of the $133 million upgrade, buses are planned to operate along the new G Line every six minutes for most of the day, dropping to every 15 minutes after 7pm and on Sundays. A number of routes will be modified to cover network gaps and reduce redundant overlapping, and other routes will simply see changes in their planned frequencies in response to Metro’s need to shift service hours around to create increased frequency on Madison Street. The current plan is for RapidRide G service to start this August and for all of these changes to take effect at the same time.

“The proposed service revisions to Metro’s routes around the G Line are the result of a year-long collaborative process grounded in equity, community engagement, and best practices in service design,” Constantine stated in his letter transmitting the legislation to the council. “To focus investment where needs are greatest, Metro’s engagement strategies and community partnerships focused on reaching equity priority populations — defined in Metro’s Service Guidelines as communities of color, low- or no-income populations, disabled populations, foreign-born populations, and people with limited English proficiency.”

Several routes would see decreased frequencies compared to current service levels, particularly during peak hours, a setback for one of the region’s most densely populated neighborhoods. And Constantine’s transmittal letter to the County Council includes a big caveat: “Due to current workforce and vehicle maintenance constraints, Metro may need to implement a reduced version of the proposed network and grow service over time contingent upon operational capacity.” In other words, due to its labor shortage, Metro may not be able to deliver the entire set of planned changes on the RapidRide G’s launch date, something that will become more fully clear in the months ahead.

Route 47 becomes the Route 3

The most high-profile change included in the package is a restoration of bus service to West Capitol Hill along Summit Avenue E and Bellevue Avenue E, an area that has been without direct bus service since early 2020. Numbered the Route 47 when service was indefinitely suspended, the long-standing trolley route would return as a new tail of the Route 3 between Madrona and Downtown Seattle. The Route 3 would no longer extend to Queen Anne, but the change doesn’t represent a loss of actual bus service to that neighborhood — trips would simply be run as Route 4 trips so riders can understand which route is which.

Route 3 service will only extend up into Capitol Hill every thirty minutes, and stop after 7:30pm on weekdays, 7pm on weekends. But, when it’s running, the new route will likely prove more useful than the former 47, which terminated at 3rd and Pine. Capitol Hill will have a new one-seat connection between First Hill and the Central District, and provide a better connection to Pioneer Square.

Transit advocates, including the Transit Riders Union, had advocated for the return of service to Summit Slope, and a survey Metro completed last year found a roughly even split between bringing back the 47 and increasing frequencies on other nearby routes.

Here’s a full breakdown of other proposed changes that will impact routes near the RapidRide G:

Route 10

Service on the Route 10 to Volunteer Park would be rerouted off E Olive Way to E Pine Street, the pathway the route took prior to launch of light rail service at Capitol Hill Station. The change will provide more service to an area of the neighborhood that’s been lacking bus service, but will ultimately shift the route from providing a direct connection to light rail to falling short of providing a direct connection to the RapidRide G. Riders wanting to transfer between the 10 and the G will have to walk two blocks from 15th and Pine to 17th and Madison, the nearest set of G Line stops.

Weekday service: Today’s 10- to 20-minute service will be reduced to 20-minute frequencies for most of the day, with service at night dropping from what’s currently 10-30 minutes to 30-60 minutes, a big setback for transit service along the 15th Avenue E business district and its nearby residents.

Weekend service: 15- to 30-minute service during the day will become 20-30 minutes, with 30-60 minute service remaining at night on both Saturday and Sunday.

Route 11

With the RapidRide G not extending all the way to Madison Park, the Route 11 will be moved off E Madison Street west of 24th Avenue E, increasing service along E Thomas Street between there and 15th Avenue E and taking over the routing of the current Route 10 along E John Street and E Olive Way.

Weekday service: Similar to the reductions on the Route 10, current 15- to 20-minute service will be reduced to 20 minutes for most of the day, with service at night dropping from what’s currently 15-30 minutes to 20-60 minutes.

Weekend service: Saturday and Sunday service would be mostly unchanged, with buses coming slightly more frequently during the day, every 20-30 minutes.

Route 12

The Route 12 to Interlaken Park, which shares the most overlap with the future pathway of the RapidRide G, will be rerouted onto E Pine Street through Capitol Hill instead, covering an area currently served by the Route 11. With the new Route 10, overlapping service up and down Pine Street will combine to offer fairly frequent service on the corridor. And unlike the Route 10, the new 12 will provide a direct connection to the RapidRide G.

Weekday service: 10-15 minute service throughout most of the day would drop to 20-minute service. At night, buses could come as infrequently as once per hour compared to the current 20-40 minute service.

Weekend service: Saturday and Sunday service would be mostly unchanged, with buses coming slightly more frequently during the day, every 20-30 minutes.

Route 49

Routing on the 49 between Downtown Seattle and U District station won’t change, but the workhorse route will see a fairly significant drop in service levels.

Weekday service: 15-minute service during peak hours and throughout midday would drop to 20-minute service. At night, headways will drop from 15-30 minutes to 20-30 minutes.

Saturday and Sunday service: 15-minute service throughout the day on weekends would become 20-minute service. 30-minute service at night would remain steady.

Route 60

The 60 between Westwood Village and Capitol Hill, serving South Park, Georgetown, Beacon Hill and First Hill, may be the second biggest beneficiary of these changes behind the new RapidRide G. The route will see consistent increases throughout the week at high demand times.

Weekday service: 10- to 15-minute service during peak hours would become 12-minute service, with 12-minute service midday remaining constant. At night, inconsistent service bottoming out at half-hour headways would become 20-minute service.

Saturday and Sunday service: 20-30 minute service through the day would increase to 15-minute service. At night, 30-minute service would remain steady.

In the coming months, more details are set to be revealed about the launch of RapidRide G, including the exact date when service will start. Ultimately, while some riders will see a reduction in the frequency of their bus, on net, the network of connections around Central Seattle will remain incredibly strong with the addition of a brand new high-capacity transit corridor on Madison Street.

The post RapidRide G Bus Changes Would Restore Dormant Trolley Route in Capitol Hill first appeared on The Urbanist.

King County Metro is wrapping up its second round of proposed bus restructures around the forthcoming RapidRide G Line. In September 2024, the new line is supposed to launch with very frequent bus service along the Madison Street corridor between 1st Avenue in Downtown Seattle and Martin Luther King Jr Way in the Central District. As part of this, Metro is proposing adjustments to existing service on five bus routes that serve Capitol Hill and First Hill.

In this phase of the restructure process, Metro is offering two competing options. One is essentially the proposal shared in March (Option A) and the other would restore a suspended route (Option B). Generally speaking, both alternatives would reduce service in various parts of Capitol Hill and the U District, with the most noticeable impacts outside the Pike/Pine corridors. Underpinning both alternatives, too, is a move of Routes 11 and 12 off Madison Street west of 23rd Avenue E so as to deploy the RapidRide G Line on the street in their stead with higher frequencies as a single, direct service to the waterfront.

According to Metro, there was strong interest in the first round of public feedback to restore service on the long-suspended Route 47. That route is over a century old — a tram line turned trolleybus route — connecting the dense shoals of Capitol Hill. During its life, it ran on a circuit via Summit Avenue E and Bellevue Avenue E north of E Olive Way to Downtown Seattle, but was suspended in 2020. It was a short route, but it served a highly populated, hilly area with faster access to Downtown Seattle than alternative services.

As a result of public feedback, Metro is proposing restoration of Route 47 in Option B by extending some Route 3 trips to serve the corridor. The catch, however, is that service options for all other non-RapidRide G Line bus routes would be worse off than under Option A, which doesn’t restore Route 47.

It’s hard to see the Route 47 proposal as an honest attempt by Metro to restore the service, all but guaranteeing its continued demise.

This bus restructure is very challenging because Metro is largely operating under its policy to make annual service hour neutral changes. A small infusion of an additional 26,000 annual service hours is slated to be deployed into the restructure area, but most of that is going to the RapidRide G Line to meet its frequency targets required under a grant agreement with the Federal Transit Administration.

In March, fellow reporter Ryan Packer explained the general frequencies that will be provided on the RapidRide G Line in light of the agreement.

“[The] agreement commits Metro to providing six-minute service — 10 buses per hour — between 6am and 7pm, every day except Sunday. That’s a big increase for trips along Madison itself compared to the routes the G Line is replacing, the 11 and the 12,” Packer wrote. “After 7pm, service is kept very close to where it is now, with four buses per hour. (So make sure to leave for your 7:30pm show at the 5th Avenue Theater a little early.)”

With the information Metro has been providing, it’s hard to really parse how the proposals stack up against today’s service levels. To illuminate that, The Urbanist put together a table comparing current weekday and weekend frequencies and spans of service against the two alternatives now on the table.

To be sure, there are elements of the proposed alternatives that are better than the existing schedule, but they are relatively few and mostly during nighttime periods, though midday frequencies on Route 11 are a little better in Option A than today.

On balance though, frequencies during most peak, midday, and evening periods would get worse by 5 to 10 minutes on Routes 10, 11, and 12, often offering 20- or 30-minute frequencies instead.

The impacts of the restructure proposals really hit hard outside the Pike/Pine corridor. Riders along Route 49 near Broadway E, 10th Avenue E, and Harvard Avenue — all areas with substantial levels of multifamily housing — would see a 25% reduction in daytime and evening service. That’s similar for riders of Route 10 along the very dense, mixed-use corridor of 15th Avenue E north of E John Street. But for Route 12 riders north of Pike/Pine, the daytime and evening service cut would be more in the 33% to 50% range on weekdays and 25% on weekends.

There are some other tradeoffs riders will also have to consider with the proposals.

• Route 10 would no longer provide direct access to Capitol Hill Station via E John Street and service along E Olive Way. But it would mean that riders would have more direct service to the heart of Capitol Hill at Pike/Pine and it restore bus service on 15th Avenue E south of E John Street — a dense, mixed-use corridor in its own right.
• Route 11 would be routed away from Pike/Pine, requiring a transfer to reach if east of Capitol Hill. But those same riders would have direct access to Capitol Hill station as a result.
• Route 12 riders north of E Madison Street would lose their one-seat ride to the Colman Ferry Dock and downtown office core. In the process though, they would gain more direct access to Pike/Pine and the downtown retail core.

Some of these tradeoffs might be worth it, but the reduction in service levels does make them a harder pill to swallow. With Metro continuing to cut back service in September and overall service reliability being poor, it’s very hard to say if the promised service in the proposals would actually be attained — though a new contract with Metro staff could be a saving grace in attracting more staff.

But more fundamentally, this restructure around new rapid transit — much like the Lynnwood Link restructure for the north end — really illustrates the need to reform Metro’s service guidelines which direct bus restructure processes. Bus restructures spurred on by new rapid transit lines shouldn’t result in local transit network service reductions. It violates the contract that has been made with riders and voters that new rapid transit lines are supposed to expand the pie, not eat away at it. At some point, riders and voters will catch on that new rapid transit investments aren’t delivering on that promise and the political consequences to transit is not likely to be good.

Ultimately, shiny new rapid transit doesn’t mean a lot if you can’t get to where you want to go in a timely manner.

Riders and transit advocates should provide feedback to Metro through RapidRide G Line restructure survey (open through August 31). Riders and transit advocates would also be wise to contact the King County Executive, King County County Council, Regional Transit Committee, and Metro via email about their concerns with Metro’s restructure processes and pending restructures.

The post Metro Floats Reviving Route 47 in Flawed Bus Restructure Proposal for RapidRide G first appeared on The Urbanist.

Next year, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and King County Metro will cut the ribbon on the RapidRide G Line. The change is one of the most substantial overhauls of a bus corridor that the region has ever seen as Madison Street between 1st Avenue and Madison Valley converts into a bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor with exclusive priority for buses along most of its length. The $133 million project has been in the works for nearly a decade, one of the top recommendations to improve transit service from Seattle’s 2016 Transit Master Plan.

As construction reaches a halfway point, King County Metro is preparing for how other bus routes in the vicinity of the G Line may change in response to service starting on the new corridor. They are asking riders and neighbors for input around the changes.

Unlike this month’s conversion and upgrade of Route 120 to RapidRide H Line for its entire length between Downtown and Burien, the G Line will take over for segments of two separate bus routes: Routes 11 and 12. More than just one route will need to be modified, impacting more bus riders in Capitol Hill, the Central District, Madison Valley, and First Hill than just the ones currently catching buses on Madison.

If the G Line were launching in the pre-pandemic rapid bus expansion context in which it was conceived, the conversation around the G Line might be very different. At that time, Metro could consistently add service thanks in large part to Seattle’s dedicated transit benefit district. Instead we find ourselves in a significant bus operator hiring crunch. Following in the footsteps of other recent bus restructure proposals around new light rail stations, Metro is in the position of having to make some tough choices about where to reallocate service.

There are some unique constraints at play here. According to Metro, the agency expects to be able to invest about 26,000 additional annual service hours in the vicinity of the G Line when it launches. But the lion’s share of those hours will be devoted to meeting the G Line’s ambitious frequency goals, as laid out in an agreement between Metro and SDOT as part of the 2021 Small Starts grant agreement with the Federal Transit Administration.

That agreement commits Metro to providing six-minute service — 10 buses per hour — between 6am and 7pm, every day except Sunday. That’s a big increase for trips along Madison itself compared to the routes the G Line is replacing, the 11 and the 12. After 7pm, service is kept very close to where it is now, with four buses per hour. (So make sure to leave for your 7:30pm show at the 5th Avenue Theater a little early.)

With late night service, it’s still unclear what level of frequency nightlife goers in Capitol Hill could expect from the G Line. We only know that after 10pm, buses will come somewhere between every 15 and 40 minutes. On Sundays, the dedicated transitways along Madison will only get used four times per hour all day. Ultimately, it’s midday riders, along with those in the AM and PM peak, who will see the most G Line trips.

In order to meet those ambitious “most” day frequencies, Metro’s proposed restructure would reduce frequencies on other routes, some of which don’t even connect with the G Line. And that’s where we run into the most difficult parts of the plan to swallow.

A Scaled-Down Network Reroutes Riders Away from Link

Under Metro’s proposal, the Route 10, which currently runs along Pike and Pine downtown and then up Olive Way to head to Volunteer Park via the 15th Avenue business district, would be rerouted away from Capitol Hill Station, despite not interacting with the G Line in any way. Instead it would run all the way up Pine Street to 15th Avenue. This restores transit to a part of Capitol Hill that lost direct bus service in 2016, 15th Avenue between Pine and John, in order to give riders direct access to light rail.

It’s not entirely clear why that benefit no longer exists, but the real blow to the 10 is that frequency would be reduced to “at least” 30 minutes compared to its current 15-minute frequency throughout most of the day. Riders heading home from Volunteer Park would have to wait twice as long for their bus, and don’t even have a direct connection to either Capitol Hill Station or the G Line on their route.

The shift of the 10 to Pine Street seems primarily designed to make up for the loss in frequency along Pike Street, with Route 12 (currently running along Madison Street) shifting over to Pike but also going to frequencies of “at least” 30 minutes, another big downgrade. Combining these routes together, but only along Pike Street up to 15th Ave, provides close to the original 15-minute frequencies that were lost, but that’s limited by the low frequencies of the routes on their own.

Service along Olive Way, connecting to Capitol Hill Station, would be replaced by the Route 11, which currently runs along Pine Street and Madison Street all the way to Madison Park. This route might look very different if the G Line ran all the way to Madison Park itself, but stopping in Madison Valley means a full local bus connection is needed. The 11 wouldn’t see as much of a service cut as the 10 or the 12, but would go to frequencies of at least 20 to 30 minutes.

Ultimately, the bus network will only be as good as its connections. Riders attempting to use the G Line to make connections to other routes will find their options severely limited. The benefit of beefing up service on the G Line is severely constrained if riders have to wait 30 minutes for a connection. In making a step toward more frequency on one of its highest potential ridership lines, Metro proposes two steps back in terms of the overall network.

On top of that, the G Line will include fewer stops than current buses on Madison Street, making some of the connections that do exist, like those to the First Hill Streetcar, even more onerous.

Key Routes Left Untouched

The proposed network changes leave some heavy hitters relatively unchanged in the vicinity of the G Line, most notably the Route 2, which runs very close to the G Line in First Hill before splitting off down Union Street to serve the Central District and Madrona. A few blocks away from the 2, buses will be coming and going every six minutes on Madison Street, but few current 2 riders will have much reason to switch buses. How strange that riders far from the Line G on the north end of 19th Avenue and 15th Avenues will see service cuts due to the G Line but riders on the Route 2 will not.

Route 49, which doesn’t connect with the G Line but will follow the same routing as the 10 and the 12 along Pine Street, is less duplicitive but adds another bus still making many trips a day between downtown and Capitol Hill while trips to other parts of the neighborhood are cut. Whether this is really the best use of the scarce service hours available is a question that needs to be asked.

But it’s hard to argue that the 2, or the 12, or any of these well-used routes should be modified to terminate at the G Line, primarily because of the drop to 15-minute service after 7pm. Terminating bus routes at Link stations makes some degree of sense because Link almost always has more frequency than those buses, something that won’t generally be true later in the evening. And so the proposed service frequencies on the G Line are a big limitation even as the midday increases will benefit a lot of riders.

The Official Death of the 47

Metro’s survey also proposes to permanently eliminate a long-established trolleybus route in east Capitol Hill: the Route 47. Suspended during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the route had been previously suspended by Metro due to low ridership in 2014. It was restored by the Seattle transit measure voters passed that fall with very limited peak hour service. But during a time of scarce resources, Seattle’s criteria for service investments prioritizes other routes over the 47, as do Metro’s overall service guidelines. The short route, which is duplicative with other routes apart from a stretch of around eight blocks on Bellevue and Summit Avenues, has remained in limbo.

The 47 is a victim of other, much better transit options in the neighborhood, including the 49, Olive Way service, and Link. A great deal of riders who might use the 47 to get downtown have a big incentive to walk to a different option. It’s hard to advocate for the return of the 47.

The 47 has a long history in Capitol Hill, originally running as a streetcar up Summit Avenue since at least the early 1920s. Fully eliminating the 47 means getting rid of multiple blocks of trolleywire, a disappointing event in and of itself. But ultimately, service needs to go where it will benefit the most riders.

King County Metro has been put in a tough position to deliver on incredibly frequent service along Madison with the G Line’s start of service. But many elements of the proposed restructure set the system up to have 10 buses per hour that no one can get to because connections are so infrequent. The reorganization takes a step back from earlier goals of connecting Capitol Hill residents to light rail. It raises serious questions about how the agency will be able to ultimately deliver the all-day network that it says it wants to given constrained resources. Ultimately, the answer is being able to deliver more bus service. In the meantime, this will be a bitter pill to swallow, coming on the heels of such a big investment on Madison Street.

Metro’s survey on the proposed restructure is up until May 8.

The post Sparse Frequencies Limit Potential of Metro’s Proposed RapidRide G Bus Reshuffle first appeared on The Urbanist.

To prepare for RapidRide G’s arrival, Metro is examining the service it provides in the area and proposing revisions to routes 10, 11, and 12, as well as permanent removal of Route 47. The proposed changes will have considerable impacts on bus service in Capitol Hill, resulting in some gains and losses.

Metro has released a survey seeking public input on proposed route changes that will be open until May 8th. The agency is also hosting a series of pop ups and public houses to connect with more riders. The first pop up event will be March 26th, at Gay City: Spring Queer Market, 11am-4pm, and the first open house will be April 6th at the Miller Community Center, 6-7:30pm.

Here’s an overview of some of the proposed changes to check out ahead of completing the survey.

Permanent removal of Route 47

Of the changes proposed, the most impactful might be the permanent removal of Route 47, which connected riders living in the western segment of Capitol Hill near Bellevue Avenue E and Summit Avenue E with Downtown until it was suspended in 2020 due to loss of funding. The change would remove seven bus stops on Bellevue and Summit, and it would most heavily impact riders living north of Olive Way.

Metro states in the survey that removal of Route 47 would allow for more focus on lines running on Broadway (Route 49 and 60) and Olive Way (Route 8 and revised Route 11), but the agency owns up that the steep climb between Bellevue and Broadway will present difficulties for riders, especially those with challenges walking and rolling.

Revisions for Routes 10, 11, and 12

In the survey, Metro proposes that routes 10 and 12 operate along E Pine Street — instead of on E John Street and Madison Street –until they turn north on 15th Avenue and 19th Avenue.

Trips would be scheduled to run every 15 minutes or better, opening up frequent all-day service between Downtown Seattle and eastern Capitol Hill along Pike and Pine Street and 15th and 19th Avenue.

However, the change would also result in bus service along the busy commercial area on 15th Avenue between E John Street and E Galer Street no longer providing a direct connection to the Capitol Hill light rail station. Riders coming from that area would need to transfer to Route 11 to access the station.

Metro is also proposing to reorient Route 11 from E Pine Street to E Thomas Street, E John Street, and E Olive Way between 24th Avenue E and Bellevue Avenue. These proposed changes would provide a new direct connection between Capitol Hill Link light rail station and the Madison Park neighborhood and Meany Middle School, and Kaiser Permanente’s medical campus.

Want to share your feedback on the changes outlined above? Complete Metro’s RapidRide G survey before May 8th.

The post Metro is Accepting Comments on Coming Capitol Hill Bus Service Changes first appeared on The Urbanist.