I’d like personally to be part of the solution to Seattle’s transportation problems, by building demand for transit and curbing related pollution. So last night I tried commuting by bus from Redmond to Seattle.
Was it even close to competitive with driving? Consider the results:
— Walking from office to bus stop. 9 mins.
— Waiting for bus. Sound Transit buses supposedly come every 10 mins, but I missed one by about 30 seconds. 9 mins.
— Riding the bus from Redmond to Seattle’s Montlake stop. The bus took a circuitous route through the Overlake Transit Center instead of using a freeway-ramp stop. Then the HOV lane was blocked for six of the seven miles leading to the 520 bridge because of cars trying to cross to merge or exit. 64 mins.
— Walking from Montlake stop to home. The neighborhood bus isn’t designed to meet commuters, takes a roundabout route and stops running at 6 p.m. The other option is riding past Montlake to downtown and then backtracking by local bus to my neighborhood. I just walked, wending my way through several pedestrian-unfriendly 1960s-era intersections designed purely to move cars. 29 mins.
— Total travel time: One hour and 41 minutes to go 12 miles.
I’ve had blood-boiling commutes before and this one wasn’t especially bad. But it was slower than driving myself. Plus, sitting on the bus isn’t much less stressful than being alone in a car (especially if you’re in one of those comfy BMWs, Lexuses or Audis clogging the highway). There was a bit of financial benefit since my bus pass is free and I saved roughly half a gallon of gas, maybe $2 — or less than the cost of a coffee. I also feel more green, of course.
But clearly we need more than warm feelings to move people better. Reports today that variable tolls may be introduced in 2009 is a step in the right direction but is still too distant. The replacement of the 520 bridge (if voters approve funding in November) would eventually provide HOV lanes and and eliminate the merger jams. The need for road improvements that make transit work better is a huge reason to vote for transit-and-roads plan this fall.
Since those fixes are still years away, here are some interim ideas:
1) Immediately move the HOV lane to center to avoid merger congestion east of the 520 bridge. The main consequence would be cutting off a single freeway bus stop just east of the bridge.
2) Add buses in the corridor from Redmond to the densest neighborhoods in Seattle, such as Capitol Hill, the University District, Ballard and Green Lake.
3) Begin charging a toll to cross the bridge as buses are added — not in 2009. Ideally this would be congestion priced, to incentivize taking transit.
Without immediate changes to speed transit, it’s simply not practical to expect commuting patterns to change.
Comments
3 responses to “Testing Seattle’s buses for a cross-lake commute”
I am so with you on your three recommendations.
But don’t give up on the bus just yet! Give it another chance! Once you get into the rhythm of it, taking the bus can be a nice relaxing way to end the day.
The buses do run every ten minutes, but because they’re stuck in traffic (or not) they can come off schedule. Eastbound up to the Olive stop, the buses are likely to be early. Montlake on, it depends on the back-up from I-5 to the water. Westbound, they’re on schedule until I-405.
Tip when running westbound. Keep an eye on the WSDOT Seattle Traffic site: when 520 is black east of I-405, the bus commute will take forever. I often just stay a bit later at work and wait for it to recede.
There are also “local” buses that run from the U-district to the Eastside, and are essentially express buses that stop in several places around the Microsoft campus, not just 51st and OTC. They don’t run as frequently, but they may get you much closer to home and without the transfer. I’m guessing you’re up in RedWest, so check out http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/neighborhoods/overlake.html.
The target population of most transit projects in the US seem to be poor people who have no other transportation alternatives or people who willingly choose to travel slower by taking the bus. Most people in this country are rich enough to buy a car so congestion is universal. To take cars off the road, the travel times need to be at least the same or faster than driving. I’d rather see few but deluxe transit miles built rather than full coverage of the city with slow poke buses. Deluxe transit would have high ridership because they would indeed be competitive with driving. Examples of deluxe transit are NY metro, Tokyo Shinkansei, Paris RER. Over time, full coverage could be built.
We could also wait for congestion to get bad enough to make drive times slower than bus travel. That seem to be the favored approach of the anti road building pro transit coallition.
I won’t give up on the bus completely. Next time I have an after-work meeting downtown (where I’d have to pay for parking) it would make sense to go by bus.
But the bottom line remains: transit won’t attract users unless it’s a better deal that sitting in your own car.