(Image: CHS)

As the “T”s are added and crossed at Capitol Hill station before the gates open for the first time on March 19th, King County Metro is finalizing its work plan around bus service serving the new light rail stations. This is really just the final bit of bureaucracy on this long process, as most of the changes have been approved for months now. But there are some notable things that can be learned from the work plan, and I want to lay them out here.

Transfers
The work plan estimates that transfers between buses and light rail at the vicinity of Broadway and John will go up by only 560 people per day, which is a pretty remarkably low number of transfers. Only 280 people per day will transfer from a bus to a light rail train and vice versa at the station, according to the documents presented to the King County Council. This after a months-long discussion in our neighborhood to figure out how to reorganize our bus system to best utilize light rail.

Ridership is projected to total 14,000 riders per day, meaning that Metro’s current estimate for transferring is less than 5% of total ridership. These numbers assume that 95% of riders will arrive at the station via a mode other than a bus. It is unclear why Metro is estimating this number to be so low

Bus Stop Re-locations
The eastbound stop, currently in front of the Forever Tan on E Olive Way between Harvard and Broadway, will move to be directly in front of the station on the east side of Broadway. Riders transferring from an 8 coming from Seattle Center or a 10 from Downtown will have a very easy transfer to their bus by simply walking outside the station.

Additionally, Metro will be adding a stop to the 49, 60, and 9X buses directly outside the west station entrance, directly south of Annapurna restaurant. The pedestrian walkway under Broadway will allow a user to not have to wait to cross the street here, another great improvement.

The northbound stop for those same three buses will be remaining north of John Street in front of American Apparel. This is only one street to cross for riders transferring, and a stop on the far side of a traffic light ensures that a bus gets through a green light before picking up riders.

 The tricky transfer will be for eastbound riders on the 8 or the 10. This stop will remain where it is located in front of Rite Aid through the March changes, but the work plan specifies that Metro will work with the City and Sound Transit to relocate it to be close to the intersection of John and 10th Ave E, which would mean no riders would have to cross the street to transfer.

 Interestingly enough, the map that Sound Transit released showing the bus stops in the vicinity shows marked crosswalks between all corners both Harvard Ave/Olive Way and 10th Ave E/John Street when in fact there is only one marked crosswalk across John at 10th and none at Harvard.

(Image: Metro)

Real Time Arrival Signs
Real time arrival signs, the type seen at RapidRide stations that show the number of minutes until the next bus comes using the bus’s location, are on the way for Broadway buses adjacent to the light rail station, but will not get here until 2018 at the earliest according to Metro.

It remains to be seen how well integrated the arrival time information is going to be between buses and light rail trains. Currently the big screens greeting riders at all entrances to the station are mostly filled by a static Sound Transit logo.