Route 8 is probably the most notorious bus in Seattle, with its continual tardiness being described as “legendary” by The Seattle Occasions editorial board and incomes it the nickname of “The L8.” Pissed off riders even raced it on the road in July, displaying that touring by the Route 8 bus is slower than walking — or even a conga line. The trigger for that is clear: It’s continuously mired within the site visitors that turns Denny Means right into a car parking zone as automobiles queue for Interstate 5. If Seattle needs to satisfy its local weather targets and hold the town transferring, bus lanes must be put in alongside Denny Solution to convey Route 8 up to the mark.
Route 8 is one in all Seattle’s most important bus routes as the one direct transit connection between Seattle Heart, Capitol Hill and the Central District. Despite the fact that it’s Metro’s slowest and least dependable route, it is without doubt one of the hottest routes that King County Metro operates, attracting over 7,000 every day riders.
Regardless of this, the Seattle Division of Transportation continues to be wholly unconcerned about Route 8’s struggles as a recent announcement on the SDOT weblog solely provided “alternate routing and wayfinding” and “encourag[ing] transit use” to mitigate site visitors impacts on Denny. The $12 million Denny Way Intelligent Transportation Systems Project, accomplished in 2023, didn’t even make a dent in fixing congestion, so it’s unclear how a few signs are going to have any affect in any respect. Moreover, plans to advertise transit whereas permitting the one bus on Denny to stay slower than strolling are utterly contradictory.
The one strategy to enhance transit ridership and truly get individuals transferring could be a bus lane on Denny. A complete lane of solo drivers on Denny Means between Seattle Heart and I-5 can match onto one articulated Route 8 bus, and a transit lane would permit that bus to be over 4 instances quicker than driving alongside this part. This could be sure you entice numerous drivers to take the bus as a substitute and simply make up for the eliminated site visitors lane, even when the present degree of highway-bound site visitors stays the identical. Freeway throughput wouldn’t be lowered both, because the bottleneck to I-5 is the flip to the onramp, and a single lane of Denny continues to be greater than sufficient to fill its capability.
This isn’t simply theoretical; we’ve seen the identical factor play out close by. Madison Road can be important to each native and I-5 site visitors and was as soon as a chronically congested two-lane arterial with a languishing bus, identical to Denny. Nevertheless, SDOT took the daring step of including devoted bus lanes on it for RapidRide G. This lastly gave present transit riders a quick and dependable commute whereas additionally attracting huge swaths of latest riders. Drivers have been drawn in by the prospect of with the ability to breeze previous site visitors and keep away from the headache of parking, inflicting bus ridership on Madison to just about quadruple as we’ve changed 4,500 automobiles on our roads with a fleet of 13 buses.
We urgently want the identical therapy on Denny Means. Happily, not like Madison, development impacts could be almost nonexistent because the Denny Way Paving Project has already achieved the street upkeep that usually comes together with bus lanes. Because of this a brand new bus lane would solely require purple paint and signage that might be put in in a single day. This additionally minimizes prices, that are already funded by transit enhancements included within the voter-approved Seattle Transportation Levy.
The inhabitants inside Seattle metropolis limits grew by 18,900 individuals final 12 months. We should begin taking daring and decisive motion to increase viable alternate options to driving. In any other case, we threat being lulled right into a site visitors and local weather disaster that can proceed to incentivize driving as our inhabitants explodes. In the event you agree, please contemplate signing the petition so as to add bus lanes on Denny at FixTheL8.com.
