To an urbanist, there’s no sweeter sight than fresh red paint claiming a new bus lane.
We have seen that sight a bit more frequently lately. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has added about 32 blocks of bus lanes this fall, including stretches on Columbia Street, Olive Way, Pike Street, and Fifth Avenue. Mayor Jenny Durkan’s budget includes another 60 blocks of bus lanes for next year, mostly on Rainier Avenue as funded in the Move Seattle Levy.
It’s good to see the City delivering but so many more bus lanes are needed to keep transit riders out of gridlock, to stretch transit funding farther, to induce more ridership, and to decrease our region’s climbing climate emissions. We’ve been making this case for some time.
One month ahead of the Alaskan Way Viaduct closure, the Move All Seattle Sustainably (MASS) Coalition–of which The Urbanist is a member–issued a list of 20 high-impact bus lanes. We urged the City to add bus lanes as quickly as possible to deal with the Seattle Squeeze, as the City is calling the congested era before the new surface-level Alaskan Way boulevard and big light rail expansions come online. East Link is not due until 2023, and Lynnwood Link and Federal Way Link aren’t scheduled to open until 2024.
For the past decade or so, the Seattle metropolitan area has been leading the nation in transit ridership gains. However, how sustainable is that when so many riders find themselves in Seattle Squeeze gridlock and bus reliability suffers? That is why I’m urging Mayor Durkan to move faster.
The public supports moving faster; 59% backed the Move Seattle Levy which promised seven RapidRide corridors, with bus lanes being the signature transit improvement. Since then, the Move Seattle program has been reduced and delayed due a budget crunch. As it stands now with no additional funding identified, Move Seattle will not turn Routes 40, 44, and 48 into RapidRides. The other four RapidRide routes have been delayed, but the RapidRide H Line upgrading Delridge’s Route 120 is now slated for 2021. All seven routes deserve red bus lanes as soon as possible regardless of the status of the red “RapidRide” branded buses and bus stops.
We can’t wait for the federal funding mess to sort itself out. We need bus lanes on these corridors now. The Mayor and City Council should deliver on these promised corridors and find funding to double bus lane mileage being delivered in the next year.
The following bus lanes would make a huge impact and could be implemented quickly. The Mayor has prided herself on budget discipline. Here’s a good case to use it:
- Extend planned Rainier Avenue bus lanes to S Jackson Street (Route 7);
- Extend Third Avenue bus lanes to Denny Way (benefits dozens of routes);
- NE 45th Street and 15th Avenue NE (Routes 44, 48, 49, ane 70);
- NW Market Street (Route 44);
- Fairview Avenue in South Lake Union (Route 70);
- Leary Way NW (Routes 40 and 28); and
- SW Alaska Street and 35th Avenue SW (RapidRide C Line and Routes 50 and 37).
The Seattle City Council is about to debate the 2020 budget. They should support the 60 blocks of bus lanes in the budget, but push to double Seattle’s bus lane mileage. Here are the exact stretches of road I’m suggesting bus lanes should go:
