Well, I can honestly say that your feedback about Metro dissing Wallingford actually did have some impact—-at least enough to warrant having another info table (this time, manned) at QFC. Here’s what Linda Thielke from King County Department of Transportation wrote today:
As many of you have reported, Metro was supposed to have had an info table at the Wallingford QFC last Sunday to talk with people about proposed bus changes for 2012. Unfortunately, we had a scheduling problem and couldn’t staff the location that day.We are so sorry this happened, and have rescheduled that info session for:Saturday, Nov. 194-6 pmWallingford QFC1801 N. 45th St.There were a lot of people (about 70) who turned out for our open house at the Greenwood Senior Center Monday night to talk with us about the different ideas being discussed for next year. We got some great feedback, but we are always looking for more. So, please encourage your community members to either show up this Saturday at the QFC, or send us a comment via our website:www.kingcounty.gov/metro/haveasay .
Nice! Very responsive of them!
For anyone that goes, I suggest a couple of questions regarding Route 26.
1. What are the ridership impacts on existing ridership of this change?
2. How much additional ridership do you anticipate gaining from this change?
3. Please describe the location, and average waiting time of transfers between Route 26 and the routes to downtown and Fremont during midday and evenings on weekdays and all day on Saturday and Sunday?
4. What is the total travel time between downtown (or Fremont) and current Route 26 area residents with the transfer taken into account?
I think the answers to those questions will be instructive in how much analysis there is to back these proposals and what the true impacts to existing riders will be.
@Thomas. Excellent! Yes, these are key concerns for those of us who rely on the #26 local. Thank you for articulating them in a clear, organized way.
I suggest we also expand Question #3 to address the commute (peak) times, too. Again, for those of us trying to get to work, the proposed transfers (whether they are actually on-time…or unreliable, as Metro transfers can be) are a very worrisome issue.
And in any case, I believe your structured inquiry will assist the Metro planners considerably…and help them see that elimination of the #26 local is a really bad idea.
Bravo to you…and thanks again.
If it’s all about “RapidRide”, why not wait until 2013 when they’re closer to having the “E line” on Aurora, and then connect with that? The way it looks now, we’ll be waiting down in Fremont for a connection with another milk run that’s headed downtown, while the RapidRide flies by overhead on Aurora. A feeder/trunk system makes a lot of sense if it works, but it’s hard to see how this gets us there.
I wonder if they’ve made up complete route timetables for their 2012 scenarios, to check their assumptions about transfer times etc. Seems like they should be doing that, and if so they should be able to make it available to the public in their “Trip Planner” application – just enter a travel date in late 2012, and you get the trip in the proposed system. I’d like to see how long it would take to get downtown – and to Capitol Hill, and other places it isn’t so easy to go now.
I still don’t get why people love the #26. I have tried to commute on it to and from downtown and it is slow as all get out to or from downtown – at least an hour to go 6 miles to downtown is ridiculous. It also goes through residential neighborhoods and creates a risk to children and pedestrians on the streets by speeding. It brings people to the neighborhood who don’t live here and stop in to peddle for money on the I-5 on/off ramps. Why not hook up with Rapid Ride or the lightrail systems that would quickly move you to your destination? This bus is not effective at moving people who live in Wallingford to commute downtown in an efficient manner and most times of the day is empty. Even the #16 is a better alternative.
Clea- So the 26 is simultaneously not useful because it’s too slow and dangerous because it speeds through the neighborhood?
I’ve never seen a 26 trip take anywhere close to an hour (unless it’s snowing). The closest Rapid Ride will be on 15th NW next year and on Aurora in 2013 (one stop near Wallingford – at 46th) and the light rail will get to NE 45th and Brooklyn ten years from now. I think people in the neighborhood would be happy to have a faster trip Downtown but Metro’s current proposal would make a lot of the trips longer and less reliable.
People love the #26, and apparently some people don’t get that some people simply love the #26. We’re used to it, we have devised car-free or less-car lives around it, a little urban village prototype, keep its bus stops tended (and let KCMetro know when one is facing challenges like the one at 50th on Thackeray), know the drivers. I live on its route on purpose (decades), worked with 3 city agencies to have it be a player in successful traffic calming (at least between 45th and 40th), planted trees “to narrow the visual corridor,” learned how to be an alert pedestrian (more often to avoid speeding school district busses, cars and garbage collection vehicles on their way to the transfer station, the 3 big speeding offenders these days), and haven’t seen a kid in the street or in danger here, ever. It uniquely serves north, east and lower Wallingford along with all the other areas it serves, commuters, seniors. Quick isn’t a fits-all solution; some people enjoy a meandering ride. Seems to me the very crowded commuting “coaches” compensate for less-full ones at times during mid-day, afternoon.
I love the 26.
It is slow, but I’ve tried every possible combination of buses from my house to downtown and I’ve not found a faster ride, just other bus combinations with the same commute time and more walking.
I walk small children up and down and across the 26 line and have never been worried about the bus hitting my children. I do worry constantly about my kids being run over by car commuters pulling out of driveways and speeding along 50th. I do worry about my kids crossing streets lined with parked cars that impede visibility.
I wish more of our neighborhood would chuck their cars in faver of riding the 26. That would, in my opinion, vastly improve pedestrian safety in the neighborhood.
When I ride the 26 local it is full. In the last month, I’ve been on more than one trip from downtown that has left riders behind for lack of space. It’s less full toward the end of the line and at odd hours, but I absolutely depend on that service as well.
The 26 does not the source of people begging on the off ramps. Eliminating the 26 would have no impact on that.
It does bring people who don’t live here to the neighborhood, but that’s the point of a bus.
As a steady rider of the #26, I simply disagree with assertion that the #26 is not effective for getting people from Wallingford to downtown. Quite the opposite: it is the service many of us commuters rely on so we can go to and from our jobs. It is dependable, efficient, and reliable, and the stops are within safe walking distance from our homes.
Also: the average time for my commute, from south Wallingford to my job site downtown, is about 30 minutes…and the bus drivers are navigating their buses carefully through the area at the posted speeds.
Do I love the #26 local? Definitely. Absolutely. It does what buses are supposed to do: transport people to where they need to go. I depend on it so I can get to work timely and safely. Metro’s proposed changes don’t offer viable transit alternatives.
It’s good from south Wallingford. From the north end of the route it may seem more like a milk run
I wonder if Metro employs any engineers who could design a transit system, starting with a population map of the service area and some minimum service standards. Or do they get some needed political energy from building up constituencies for legacy bus routes, and then jerking them around so they can spend months in community meetings?
Metro has a whole team of planners. Who are currently proposing that in June there be more service added to the 44, but you don’t see anything about that mentioned here.
The #44 goes that-a-way, not this-a-way.
@ neighbor
The 26 express stays so the peak commuting pattern is covered.
There is one more question to add:
Do the routes they anticipate existing 26 local riders to transfer to or from have the capacity to accommodate those riders?
On the shoulders of peak times ie when 26 Express is not running, I highly doubt the UW downtown 70’s series have any capacity for more passengers.
I know the 44 isn’t a replacement for the 26. I’m just disappointed that there is little discussion of the tradeoffs of moving to a more rational allocation of bus service hours rather than prioritizing the status quo. A status quo that includes, apparently, intentionally running underperforming parts of bus routes slowly so that they will be able to serve even fewer passengers per tax dollar.
I’m not totally in support of the proposed changes to Wallingford. Quite simply they will make it more difficult for me to use the bus personally for my current uses. I am in support of looking at it as part of a whole set of changes that would improve the usefulness of the system as a whole, both for Wallingford residents, and for the whole city.
Thomas: the 73 is slated to get more service in June, before the proposed changes to the 26 in September. If you want the 44 and 73 to have more service, I suggest you write King County Council in support. Because I guarantee that people in neighborhoods where poorly-used service is being cut to pay for it will be opposing it.
@ Thomas
Thank you for your comments but I’d like to offer a couple more thoughts:
Metro’s proposal suggests those of us in the south end of Wallingford can take a different bus to Fremont then successfully transfer to a downtown-serving route. The difficulties here are the distances to the bus stops, the unreliability of transferring, and as you point out, whether the buses intended to receive transferring passengers can actually do so.
As to the 26 express, for our area it’s not really a viable substitute: 34th to 40th is a long hike for anybody, and it’s especially difficult if one has physical limitations.
I’m not totally in support of the proposed changes to Wallingford. Quite simply they will make it more difficult for me to use the bus personally for my current uses. I am in support of looking at it as part of a whole set of changes that would improve the usefulness of the system as a whole, both for Wallingford residents, and for the whole city.
I’d be really careful about supporting changes under a supposition that they are an improvement to overall service when you know that they are not an improvement for your own bus use.
I’d urge everyone to be honest with Metro about the impact of the bus changes on their own lives and transit habits. Metro can take honest input and then make the rational choices with the information they have.
I don’t think you can definitively say that the current system is “intentionally running underperforming parts of bus routes slowly so that they will be able to serve even fewer passengers per tax dollar.” I suspect that is pure speculation.
Switching the 26 local from a downtown/Fremont run to a U-district/Sandpoint run may well be even more inefficient as the line will lose a substantial amount of its current ridership, and it’s an open question as to whether it will make that back up with folks who want a run east/north instead of west/south. (For me the demise of the 26 means I may very well abandon the bus system entirely, despite the fact that I’ve never owned a car before. I’m now a homeowner, and with the current housing market, I don’t have the flexibility to move to fix the commute that this change will break. )
The number of local residents commuting to South Lake Union is growing rapidly. The proposed changes, particularly since they jump the gun in terms of connection to light rail, don’t support that quickly growing demographic as well as the current 26 local.
>>I don’t think you can definitively say that the current system is “intentionally running underperforming parts of bus routes slowly so that they will be able to serve even fewer passengers per tax dollar.” I suspect that is pure speculation.<<
That quote is mis-aimed, again (which I disagree with and agree that it is pure speculation), at traffic calming on Thackeray, a 25 foot wide street residents of which organized (between 45th and 40th) to nicely ask KCMetro, SDOT and the SPD to come up with a solution to vehicles GREASING down our street.
IF there are going to be buses on Thackeray, a street with a fair grade downhill, it is assumed that the Voluntary Slow Order of 20mph will remain in place; it has nothing to do with wasting tax dollars or seats on buses. I see it as a very clever use of existing resources in a way that "we all get along," most of us anyway.
IF all buses, including the (frequently speeding) school district yellow buses were off Thackeray, we would reorganize and seek another solution to dangerous, loud and fast traffic on this little truncated street called a place.
Eventually RapidRide E and North Link will make it easier for transferring passengers to get to SLU and downtown, but by that time many people who currently have car-free or car-limited lifestyles such as pow will have bought cars or changed their lifestyles in other ways, and it’s going to be a lot harder (if possible) to get people back on the bus.
I don’t think you can definitively say that the current system is “intentionally running underperforming parts of bus routes slowly so that they will be able to serve even fewer passengers per tax dollar.” I suspect that is pure speculation.
The only evidence I have is that Nancy M. has claimed here that Metro agreed to run the 26 at two-thirds of the speed limit in parts of Wallingford due to neighborhood pressure. Serving fewer passengers per tax dollar is a necessary consequence of this, not the underlying cause. I intend to write King County Metro and ask if this is true.
I disagree with and agree that it is pure speculation
Nancy M., I have taken your comments on the facts here as gospel. I don’t see how you can call that speculation, even if you disagree with the conclusions. I also don’t see how, if Nancy M.’s facts are correct, the conclusions can be argued with. There are 8,662 26 local trips annually. If the slow order delays them by even a minute, then that’s another 144 hours of service that could be spent elsewhere.
In existence from before traffic calming on Thackeray and currently is a 15mph speed limit sign with an arrow icon indicating an upcoming turn (the sign is 3 houses up from the 42nd corner on Thackeray, east side, where Thackeray Ts to the east and west). Working it backwards, it makes sense to be driving slowly as that limit approaches.
Also, I am not opposed to neighborhood traffic calming, at all. I just think that streets that require traffic calming or intentionally slowing traffic are not the best places for frequent bus service, and by making buses in that area less productive, they make other ways of allocating bus service look better.
I guess I do not understand how one can say that a bus route is less productive or ineffective if it is full and well used. To me, even if a bus “meanders” a bit on the way downtown, it will still make better time than having to wait and make a transfer someplace. The 26 covers a lot of ground. No, it is not an express, but there should be room for a variety of service. The 26 has always appeared to be a success. It is also an alternate to the U-District routes for Roosevelt kids.
The only evidence I have is that Nancy M. has claimed here that Metro agreed to run the 26 at two-thirds of the speed limit in parts of Wallingford due to neighborhood pressure. Serving fewer passengers per tax dollar is a necessary consequence of this, not the underlying cause.
Uh, isn’t this “traffic calming” limited to a few blocks between 50th and 40th. It take the 26 four minutes to traverse that part of the route. So without the calming the bus’d take a little less than three minutes. I seriously doubt this has an impact on the number of buses run or the passengers moved per dollar. I fail to see how it can have a big impact on Metro’s bottom line.
@ Neighbor – You can tell what part of Wallingford I’m in – the part served by 26 Express, and by the “new route” to UW instead of the 26. For the south Wallingford folks, the transfer that you will be directed to in Fremont is to a rerouted Route 5, which currently comes every 15 minutes. I HIGHLY doubt there is sufficient capacity to accommodate 26 local traffic transferring in Fremont at certain times of the day.
Rapid Ride E will not make a hill of beans difference in transferring in Fremont, as the stop will be up on the bridge, and buses from south Wallingford won’t be.
@ Micheal H and Nancy M – a buses speed in an urban area is only partly dictated by the speed limit. Signals and stop spacing are as important, if not more important indicator of bus speeds. I doubt the difference is even a minute – and unless Route 26 is a tight running route, the additional 30 seconds or so or minute round trip will not add one iota of cost to the route. There is a small probability it can, but I doubt it given how Metro schedules their routes.
Overall, this change has in large part been published years ago in the LINK system integration plan, that shows how bus service would look when LINK comes on line. The thing that surprised me was that they’re pulling the trigger on it without high capacity link for East Wallingford to feed into it – i.e. it will be a decade perhaps until Link reaches Brooklyn/45th.
Having personally led more than 20 system restructures across the country, there are several things that you can do to change this (these are things that I have personally seen work in the past):
1. Directly politically influence the king county council. This will be difficult, as I personally know one of the big dogs in Metro’s service planning (I will not name names) lives in Wallingford and is also “affected”.
2. Use the regular comment forms and come up with a better idea. It’s generally not good enough to say “keep the 26”, as there’s a reason it’s up for restructure – the Fremont to Green Lake tail isn’t a stellar performer (or that’s my perception – I do not have the data – Metro does). Describe what could make it work for you.
3. Show that the proposal is technically unfeasible. Personally, I believe that there is a strong likelihood that the “transfer” suggestion won’t work due to insufficient capacity between downtown Seattle and either Fremont/UW during certain times of the day. Make em show you the data to prove that it works. If they can’t show you the data, during the hearing time, you have a case that it doesn’t work and hammer it home.
4. Play the disability card. If enough mobility-impaired, blind, mentally disabled, and/or wheelchair bound people show up complaining that it won’t work for them, there is a higher probability that the Council will cave on the issue. It’s a reality that I’ve seen work repeatedly.
Just my 2 cents…
@Thomas
You are my new hero! You are thoughtful, experienced, and you know the subject matter. Thank you for your posts…they are extremely informative!
A productive, effective bus system gets most riders in the service area to their destinations quickly. Routes that wander through miles of neighborhood streets can pick up a lot of people, if a full bus looks like success to you, but riders who get on at the start of the route aren’t going anywhere fast. The 26 can take nearly an hour for those people (for example, get on 6:17PM at Jackson, get off 7:06 at Woodlawn if all goes well.)
If we had a feeder/trunk system with a fast and frequent trunk route, we might not have any reason to care about “one seat rides.” But they need to get those trunk routes running, plus a rational allocation of feeder routes, and the proposed changes don’t seem to have much to do with that.
@Mike H – Sorry, I missed your comment in post 14.
Route 73’s added trips appear to be slated for Sunday, not weekdays.
I wholeheartedly agree that transit investments should go where transit works (44 is a great example). And I am completely on-board to prune the low performing routes to invest in the higher performing routes. We have limited resources, they should go where it brings the most bang for the buck.
Does the September Wallingford restructure achieve that? I’m not so sure…
Thomas: my bad on the 73, thanks for the correction.
Hi Folks,
Here are two blog posts on the subject of Metro’s proposed changes to the bus network, in particular how it relates to Wallingford.
This post discusses the possibility of tweaking Metro’s proposed restructure plans, moving Route 16 to from Aurora to Dexter and serving either Stone Way or Wallingford Ave up to 45th St where it would join its present alignment. It includes charts that show how many people are on the bus and how many people use each stop on current routes 16 and 26.
http://seattletransitblog.com/2011/11/07/what-if-route-16-moved-to-dexter/
The following post presents charts of the bus travel time difference between Aurora and Dexter. It’s mostly aimed at the difference between having Route 5 on Aurora (as it is now) and on Dexter (as proposed in the restructure), but some of this also applies to the 16.
http://seattletransitblog.com/2011/11/04/chartapalooza-aurora-versus-dexter/
You can read my analyses of this restructure as it will affect other parts of the city, and other subjects, here:
http://seattletransitblog.com/author/bruce-nourish/
Hope this helps inform the debate.
Bruce
I am a transit planner for King County Metro and I will staff the information table at QFC tomorrow. I know Thomas and Nancy.
In the late 90s, Seattle allowed parking on both sides of Thackeray Place NE and bus operators complained. Seattle agreed to restrict the parking and add traffic calming. Nancy was a leader for the blocks south of NE 45th Street.
Also in the 90s, I staffed several meetings of the Wallingford neighborhood planning group. I became friends with Greg Hill.
In the early 80s, I lived at 4202 Interlake Avenue North while I attended grad school at the UW in Economics. There are several Metro employees living in Wallingford.
I have worked several restructures of Metro service (e.g., North Seattle 1998, Aurora and Wallingford 1999, Northshore 2002, North King County 2003, Redmond 2008, and the B Line in 2011). In each case, ridership grew at a rate higher than the county average. It was most notable in the North King County and Aurora examples.
As Thomas wrote, the concept of the Latona corridor being oriented to the University District is part of the Link integration network that was developed by ST and Metro planners in 2007. It is only conceptual. The actual restructure would be developed much closer to 2021 when the NE 45th Street station is scheduled to open. Metro has a well-developed outreach model, though this year’s has been constrained and compressed by the fiscal crisis and the summer discussion over the Congestion Reduction Charge. I first heard of the concept in the early 90s from Roger Pence, a former Metro planner who now works for ST in Link outreach. The concept may have more merit with Link, as LInk will greatly improve service reliability and the connections between the U District and Capitol Hill and Northgate as well as downtown trips in direction of travel opposite that of the I-5 reversible lanes. But, it has signicant merit before Link as well. Not only is the University District the second highest transit market in the county, but it provides access to many other routes and markets (e..g, the 71 series to and from downtown as well as routes 43, 49, 65, 67, 68, 75, 70, 271, 542, and others).
The current Route 26 was implemented in about 1940 after the streetcar network was removed. Route 16 was an electric trolleybus between 1940 and 1963. Route 26 was and is a diesel bus. Before 1940, the Meridian Streetcar line served both corridors. In the period between 1940 and 1963, I-5 was not the barrier it is today and I expect intending transit riders in the Latona corridor could walk access service on Roosevelt Way NE more easily.
There have been several changes to the Route 26 structure in my 20 years at Metro. In 1998, Route 17 was shifted to Westlake Avenue North from Dexter Avenue North and routes 26 and 28 were shifted to Dexter Avenue North from Westlake Avenue North. This was done to improve service frequency on Dexter that had more riders than Westlake. Ridership on routes 26 and 28 improved. Also, in 1998, the through routes were revised; routes 26 and 28 were interlined with 42 and 29; they have formerly been paired with routes 42 and 56, respectively. Route 16 had been paired with Route 21 on 35th Avenue SW; as it was unreliable, it was truncated at Colman Dock and routes 21, 22, and 56 were paired with Ballard routes 15 and 18. In 2005, when the DSTT was closed for retrofit for joint bus-rail operation, routes 26 and 28 were shifted to 3rd Avenue in downtown. In 2009, with Link implementation, Route 42 was reduced and Route 26 was paired with Route 124, Route 28 was paired with Route 23; together, the four routes provide a combined four trips per hour in each direction between South Michigan Street and North 34th Street. For many years, Route 28 was a shuttle on nights and Sundays and met Route 26 in downtown Fremont. Seattle funds under Bridging the Gap have helped end the shuttle and extend all Route 28 trips between Fremont and downtown. this made both routes 26 and 28 more attractive due to shorter wait times in the evening.
More in a bit.
The questions suggested by Thomas @2 are good ones. But please note that no route is an island. Routes are part of service networks. The best networks have routes that work well together with short wait times and good transfer points. Riders want to go many places at many different times. In a service restructure, one network of routes replaces another. So, the comparison is not strictly on a route to route basis. That a route is a good productive one attracting many riders does not mean it should not be changed to improve the network. For example, in 2011, routes 253 and 230 were the best routes in Bellevue and Redmond, but they were deleted in the B Line restructure. In Ballard, routes 15 and 18 are very strong, but they are changed in the conceptual network.
Transit routes have a variety of characteristics that attract riders: frequency or wait time, speed, coverage or route spacing or walk time, orientation or market, reliability, and span of service. All are important, but transit industry estimates are that wait time is twice as important as speed or walk time. This makes sense to me as a rider. About one-third of transit trips in King County include transfers. I expect that rate is higher in Seattle. Note that riders use Route 26 to make a variety of trips; not all are oriented to and from downtown Seattle.
A general theme in the conceptual network is to improve service frequency on the route segments with the highest ridership. improved frequency reduces wait times and makes the whole network more efficient.
I live near the intersection of routes 28 and 48. both routes have been improved in the evening by the service partnership between Seattle and Metro. this makes it easier for me to get around as I often transfer to and from Route 48. when going home in the evening, I do not have to wait for one radial route; I can take any going north and transfer to Route 48.
When considering the questions posed by Thomas, we considered Route 26 by its segments: between Greenlake and NE 40th Street, between the couplet and Fremont, and between Fremont and downtown Seattle. The impacts vary by what the individual riders do with the service. There are 84 daily trips. the data cited below is for an average weekday on the Local variant as sampled by the automatic passenger system. the local variant runs every 30 minutes in both directions.
1. First, one must measure the ridership. On the north segment, there were 250 ons and 350 offs, about 3 and 4 per trip. On the middle segment in South Wallingford, there were 300 ons and 300 offs, about 4 per trip. Each segment attracts about 600 per day. the third segment, between Fremont and downtown is by far the busiest and would be served by the conceptual Route 5; in addition, conceptual Route 18 would also serve the busiest stops at North 34th Street. The impacts to riders would vary dependent upon trip purpose.
2. The ridership gained from the conceptual network would probably be higher than that on the current network. Hours now used on low ridership routes 45 and 46 are used to improve service frequency on the higher ridership routes or segments of routes. I expect conceptual Route 18 to attract many riders with lots of turnover along it as it serves several activity and employment centers. Metro does not have modeling resources or time for extensive efforts and even the ST and PSRC models are only somewhat reliable for systemwide efforts. We base our estimates on the rides attracted per platform hour of existing services with the same orientation.
3. For Route 26 Local riders oriented to and from downtown Seattle, the conceptual network would provide several options. Some riders, especially north of NE 45th Street, may walk to Route 16. Some riders may use conceptual Route 63 to reach NE Campus Parkway (or NE 40th Street in the morning peak period) and routes 71, 72, and 73. In the peak periods, those routes run about every six minutes. In the evening and Sunday, they run every 15 minutes. Some riders may use conceptual routes 31 and 32 to reach downtown Fremont and concepual routes 5 and 18, both of which would run every 15 minutes, though Route 5 will have extra trips in the peak period. So, the average inbound (southbound) wait time would be about thee minutes in the peak, about four minutes in the midday and Saturday, and about five minutes in the evening and on Sundays. In addtion, conceptual routes 31 and 32 would have more trips eastbound in the morning and westbound in the afternoon, reducing those wait times for riders on North 40th Street, Wallingford Avenue North, and North 35th Street. Outbound or northbound, the two Seattle routes would be more frequent than the routes 31 and 32, so riders may want to time their trips. There would be eight to 10 trips per hour between downtown and Fremont and four trips per hour between Fremont and south Wallingford. when headways are longer, as in the evening and on Sunday, riders may want to match trips to minimize the waits.
4. Assuming travel through Fremont, the difference in travel time is mostly accounted in the transfer time. The increase in trips between downtown and Fremont will reduce the initial wait time, somewhat balancing that. for riders north of NE 40th Street, the transfer would be on NE Campus Parkway. SLU riders could use Route 70 that runs every 12 minutes in the peak period. Downtown Seattle riders could use the 71 series that runs about every six minutes in the peak periods and every 10 to 15 minutes at off peak times. Note this set of riders has Route 26X in the peak period and peak direction.
to downtown: existing Route 26, 27 minutes (a trip every 30 minutes); concepual network, 30 minutes as a sum of routes 63 and 71 series trips and the average wait. to SLU: the existing Route 26, 18 minutes; conceptual network, 31 minutes. So the SLU trip is significantly worse in the off peak periods. but the demand is probably highest in the peak when riders could use Route 26X and walk from the Broad Street stop (I have noticed that many more riders are using that stop from my 28X trips since the Gates Foundation and SLU employment have grown).
Many Route 26 riders board and alight south of Noth 35th Street and they would use conceptual routes 5 and 18 and have more trips and shorter wait times.
Routes 26 and 28 are now paired with south routes 124 and 23, respectively. the overall route length and traffic congestion impacts reliability. In the conceptual network routes 5 and 18 will probably not be interlined with south routes and would be more reliable. conceptual Route 63 also should operate reliably; it is the east half of current Route 30.
Donn @4: for Wallingford residents, Route 358X is very similar to what the E Line will be like in 2013. The transfer point is at North 46th Street. SDOT has a project under way today to improve the flow of Route 44.
Michael H @11: yes, Route 44 is proposed to get more peak period trips in June 2012; that has to be approved by the KC Council; other routes that fail the two new service guidelines are proposed to be cut. Stay tuned. Route 44 attracts many stadees. I have friends among its drivers and there are some trips so full that intending riders are passed by.
Thomas @13: yes, my fellow planners have checked the available capacity, especially on Route 5. the 71 series has the most consistent load issues northbound in the evening when Route 70 does not operate. we will double check carefully before the January outreach. There are almost always changes in the network between the two stages of public process. one of the key purposes of the first stage is to learn from the public. In last year’s Bellevue process, the input led to a different structure between Crossroads and Eastgate.
Thomas @23: the only time period that is at all close is the morning inbound and the conceptual network adds trips to Route 5 AND has conceptual Route 18 serving downotwn Fremont. At the other time periods, the inbound Route 5 has plenty of capacity.
The conceptual network improves connectivlty by serving downtown Fremont and SLU with two frequent routes; they are both growing employment and residential centers.
Metro is testing the concepts. We will listen the riders analyze the data more, and make changes to the proposal. There will be a second round of outreach in January.
Hi Jack, thanks so much for taking the time to answer these questions in such detail!
Jack-
I really appreciate all the information. Could you comment on the proposed revisions to the 16? The Metro info says they’re planning on adding trips and the website says 15-20 minutes between buses peak and off-peak on weekdays (up from the current 20 minute frequency). What would we expect that to look like on the schedule (for example15 min frequency at some times, 20 at others or 17 consistently?).
I would also be curious about increasing reliability on the 16. My major challenge with that route is getting stuck on 5th N near Seattle Center whenever there’s an event or when Mercer traffic spills over onto 5th N. Are there any plans to look at the routing?
Jack,
Thank you for your thorough assessment and taking the time to post here. I had missed Route 18 being in the Fremont mix, and the transfer penalty in Fremont is significantly less than I had thought.
Again, I appreciate your point by point information. I feel a lot more comfortable about these changes now.
Dennis@36: today, Route 16 runs every 20 minutes in both directions, Monday through Saturday daytimes; under conceptual network the planner suggestion is to run it every 15 minutes at those times. Estimating the operating cost of the conceptual network is uncertain enough that Transit wanted the service levels fudged a bit.
The conceptual network would revise the Route 16 approach to the Northgate Transit Center to use North 92nd Street and 1st Avenue NE instead of Meridian Avenue North and NE Northgate Way. The conceptual path is both faster and more reliable. So, the southbound trips would be more reliable.
There was internal debate about the 5th Avenue North deviation and ending it was not included in the fall outreach conceptual network. It takes about seven minutes longer northbound and five minutes longer southbound; the northbound deviation has the larger impact on reliability. Bruce of the STB posted links to his posts on the reliability issue above. Theoretically, there are four possible pathways for Route 16 between Stone Way North and downtown: the current one via Aurora Avenue North and 5th Avenue North, Aurora without 5th, Dexter, or Westake; each has advantages and disadvantages for the network and individual riders. At today’s QFC information table, riders expressed both support and opposition to the current path.
The SDOT and WSDOT construction projects will impact Route 16 (e.g., Mercer East, Mercer West, and the deep bore). it is a complext set of issues. The northbound deviation has both larger positives and negatives.
errata
jack@29: in the last paragraph, I committed a typo; before the 2009 Link integration changes, the south partner route for Route 28 was Route “39”, not “29”.
Thanks for answering my questions Jack. I’ll follow up with comments to Metro.
FYI Jack Whisner was the no show metro employee from the 1st information table at QFC on Nov. 12th. When I asked Jack about that he told me he made a mistake and forgot. It wasn’t a scheduling problem as Metro is quoted above,