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RapidRide G arrives with ambitious public transit goals — and plenty of hiccups over Madison’s new buses, stops, signs, and signals — UPDATE

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With reporting by Hannah Saunders

The new RapidRide G stretching 2.5 miles along Madison Street from the waterfront to Madison Valley via First Hill and Capitol Hill is unprecedented in the city’s rollout of a growing alphabet of “bus rapid transit” lines. The first days of service across the line’s special coaches, dedicated lanes, center loading passenger islands, and coordinated signaling has been an illustration in the challenges of doing new things in the big city.

Starting with Saturday’s launch, the promise of 6-minute service and smooth rides through the corridor has mostly been out of reach due to early hiccups around signal and signage coordination, collisions, and delays due to mechanical failures and operator challenges with the new coaches.

King County Metro says it is responding to early issues though it also referred some questions about signalling to the Seattle Department of Transportation.

UPDATE: “This is the first RapidRide line with six-minute headways and, as we expected, our operators continue to gain experience with our scheduled operations and maneuvering with the varying traffic conditions along the route,” a Metro spokesperson said in a statement

Metro calls the line’s start a success despite the issues and says it is working with SDOT to address the signal priority issues.

Metro says the new or upgraded signals along the route along with a special signal at the terminal to ensure buses start their routes smoothly will continue to be adjusted.

“Metro and SDOT staff are working to resolve any issues as they come up,” the spokesperson said. “SDOT is currently updating signal timings along Madison Street and at the intersection with Martin Luther King Jr Way. SDOT will keep monitoring and adjusting these signals to improve traffic flow for both buses and general traffic in the coming weeks.”

The full statement from Metro appears at the end of this post.

Other issues also have added up in the growing pains around the newly launched $144 million line that includes bus service 10 new stations between 1st Ave and MLK Jr Way operating from 5:00 AM to 4:00 AM daily with a bus every six minutes between 6 AM and 7 PM Monday through Saturday.

The growing RapidRide system’s arrival on Madison is hoped to optimize an area that was already served by a tangle of Metro routes in neighborhoods unlikely to be connected to Sound Transit’s light rail network anytime soon.

Some issues are small in comparison to the ambitions of the new line. One Rapid G Line bus driver with a year of experience under their belt, for example, told CHS the protocol on the new route requires they switch drivers every time at the end of the route — just one of the many new steps and procedures slowing performance on the new line during the launch.

“It could be worse,” the driver said. Continue reading →

RIDER ALERT — Route 3’s arrival on Summit part of changes and cuts to dozens of bus lines as RapidRide G service begins in September

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Thanks to CHS reader Matthew for the picture

The neighborhood around Summit Ave is celebrating. New signs have gone up announcing the September start of service in the area on Route 3, one of several bus lines King County Metro is adjusting — and deleting — with the launch of the RapidRide G line on Madison.

The first #3 bus will mark the return of Metro service on the street since Route 47 was stalled in a pandemic-era suspension.

The gains of I-5 Shores are the losses of Queen Anne. Like so many routes being adjusted, the #3 change comes with some bad news for somebody. In this case, the route’s old path to Queen Anne is being sliced away. Continue reading →

Metro’s 2025 plan for wire-free electric buses includes bright new look

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(Image: King County Metro)

King County Metro buses are getting a new look for the first time in 19 years. Metro announced  “The New Energy” design of “electric yellow and seafoam blue” intended as “a visual representation of Metro’s commitment to helping combat climate change” will be outfitted on new battery-operated vehicles joining its fleet.

Metro says the new look is “intended to be a visual reminder of the transition away from Metro’s hybrid (diesel-electric) buses to the zero-emission fleet.”

Metro says the new liveries will be phased in as 120 new battery-electric buses start going into service in 2025.

Continue reading →

This time, the goodbye to Capitol Hill’s Metro Route 47 looks permanent

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By Cormac Wolf — CHS Reporting Intern

Route 47, the storied ride along Summit and Bellevue Ave on Capitol Hill’s western slope, was shuttered during the pandemic. Now it seems likely King County Metro will restore service to the dense neighborhood, but without the 47. It’s hard to find anyone upset by the probable change.

As CHS reported earlier this month, Metro is shifting buses around in anticipation of the coming RapidRide G line on E Madison. They’re currently soliciting public opinion on whether to lend more buses to routes 10, 11, 12, and 49 (option A), or extend route 3 to include route 47’s old territory (option B). Option B would essentially revive route 47, serving Summit Slope residents every half hour.

We reached out to several community groups aiding riders to see what their consensus on the choice is and asked around about the line. We didn’t find much enthusiasm about saving the 47.

Central Seattle Greenways, the contingent of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways which works in Capitol Hill, was split on the potential options. Continue reading →

With $1.6B to spend over the next six years, audit say Metro needs to build smarter, faster

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County officials are telling Metro to improve its efficiency when it comes to construction of long-term projects and system improvements after an audit showed most of its big efforts finish behind schedule.

In the report (PDF), analysis showed most of Metro’s construction efforts took about 15% longer to finish than planned and the agency often didn’t do a good job of reflecting how much costs increased from original estimates. Under rising inflation, longer construction timelines also brought exponential increases in costs. Continue reading →

Metro holding ‘Madison Street Project’ open house on proposed RapidRide G area service changes

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King County Metro will hold the first of two planned open house sessions Thursday night on the proposed changes to Routes 10, 11, 12, and 47 in conjunction with the 2024 start of service on the E Madison RapidRide G bus line.

Open houses
Thursday, April 6 – 6:00PM to 7:30PM
Miller Community Center
330 19th Ave E

Friday, April 28 – 6:00PM to 7:30PM
Yesler Community Center
917 E Yesler Way

CHS reported on the proposals last month. Metro says the new “Madison Street Area” network would alter Routes 10, 11, 12, and 47 in the Capitol Hill, Central District, First Hill, and Madison Valley neighborhoods to “improve public transportation connections and transfers,” reduce duplication with the new RapidRide G line, and “address service that was suspended since COVID began in 2020.”

Under the RapidRide G planning, Metro is making the case to permanently axe Route 47 while proposed changes to Route 10 and Route 12 are being intertwined with a proposal for the lines be “reoriented” to operate along E Pine instead of E John and Madison, until they turn north on 15th Ave and 19th Ave. Metro is also proposing to move Route 11 off Pine. Continue reading →

With RapidRide G starting on Madison in 2024, Metro planning changes to Routes 10, 11, 12, and final elimination of the 47

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Metro’s plan is to keep the electrified trolleys of Route 12 and 10 rolling once RapidRide G comes along (Image: CHS)

With construction of the new line now at “50%,” officials are collecting feedback on proposals to alter existing bus routes that will connect with the Madison RapidRide G line when it begins service in 2024.

The new “Madison Street Area” network would alter Routes 10, 11, 12, and 47 in the Capitol Hill, Central District, First Hill, and Madison Valley neighborhoods to “improve public transportation connections and transfers,” reduce duplication with the new RapidRide G line, and “address service that was suspended since COVID began in 2020,” Metro says.

The new configurations could also fit better with the streetscape overhaul currently underway that will make Pike and Pine one-way between downtown and Bellevue Ave.

Metro’s plan is to roll the proposals out now and collect survey feedback through May before possibly revised revisions go out later in the year and are finalized in time for RapidRide G’s start of service in 2024.

Metro is promising “a final proposed bus route network that reflects community input from this survey, conversations with community members, and equity analyses” by fall 2023. Continue reading →

Here’s why Route 48 across the Central District and Capitol Hill won’t be electric for Earth Day 2022

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(Image: King County Metro)

By Elizabeth Turnbull

This week as Seattle prepares to host President Joe Biden for Earth Day, one of the city’s most slam dunkable green infrastructure projects remains on the drawing board as diesel-spewing buses — joined by thousands of exhaust spewing, single occupancy vehicles, of course — continue to run up and down 23rd Ave despite a completed multimillion dollar overhaul of the corridor.

CHS first reported on plans to electrify Route 48 in 2016 as Metro was planning the upgrades to coincide with the Seattle Department of Transportation’s road diet, more pedestrian friendly overhaul of 23rd Ave across the Central District, Capitol Hill, and Montlake.

Officials now say that the 48 Route electrification project was put behind other projects due to COVID-19-related financial issues and staffing issues. The Seattle Transit Blog just reported the project is now slated to be completed by 2026.

“We kind of got into financial pinches of COVID, there was a pinch on dollars across the system,” Justin Umagat, a capital project manager at King County Metro tells CHS. “We had to prioritize which projects were going to receive funding and resources at the time, and unfortunately, this particular project was slightly deprioritized over other larger projects in our portfolio.” Continue reading →

Goodbye to the 47 — UPDATE

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Some obituaries of the COVID-19 pandemic will never be recorded. CHS is here to bury Bellevue Ave’s Metro Route 47.

It has been dead and gone for months but we never reported on its passing and, as the economy more fully reopens and increased levels of vaccination have more of us on the move, more neighbors around the western slope of Capitol Hill are asking, “What happened to the 47?”

It was more than the pandemic. The 47 was one of King County Metro’s COVID-19 sacrifices, part of a handful of suspended all-day routes and overall service reductions required due to the plunge in ridership and fare revenue during the health and economic crisis.

But as Metro has bounced back, the 47 has been left permanently behind. Continue reading →

Metro adding partitions and, on some routes, free mask dispensers as bus service ramps back up

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After months of “ESSENTIAL TRIPS ONLY” service, King County Metro is getting ready for its shift back to more normal operation. With the planned return of fares next month. buses will also be equipped with new partitions to allow front-door boarding and protect drivers and riders plus new dispensers with free masks on the busiest routes.

Metro is now installing safety partitions to allow front-door boarding in preparation for restoring fares, targeted for Oct. 1, although a firm date has yet to be announced. The plexiglass safety partitions will swing into position when a driver opens the front door, minimizing interaction between boarding passengers and the driver. The partition also can be opened manually by the driver to allow them to leave their seat to assist passengers, including those who use mobility devices.

Continue reading →