Seats precious on popular Route 545
Bus service debate pits Capitol Hill against Eastsiders
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/187973_busfight26.html
Thursday, August 26, 2004
By JANE HADLEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Jerry Zimel recently scored a seat on an eastbound bus to his job at Microsoft. He was lucky.
Shortly after the Ballard man boarded Sound Transit Route 545 at Montlake, the aisles filled with standing passengers headed to jobs on the Eastside. Route 545, one of the agency's most crowded, has grown 50 percent -- to 3,000 boardings a day -- in the last two years since the Overlake Transit Center opened.
In response, the Sound Transit board has decided to add precious service hours to the 545. But the agency is hearing a different tune from two very different communities, Capitol Hill and Redmond, as it decides between two ways of expanding service.
What's good for Capitol Hill -- adding a stop in the Seattle neighborhood on the eastbound route -- could be bad for Eastsiders who fear they'll lose service. And riders who don't live on Capitol Hill would have longer commutes because of the journey across the neighborhood.
The debate underscores the importance of buses to commuters in a metro area that is still years away from other mass transit options, like light rail or an expanded monorail. It also shows the difficulties transportation planners face trying to accommodate the different needs of bus riders in a changing urban environment.
People on Capitol Hill want the 545 to stop in the Seattle neighborhood so they can get directly to jobs in the Redmond area. But doing so will mean longer bus rides for non-Capitol Hill riders in Seattle and less expansion of service for Redmond riders.
"It doesn't really matter to me as long as it doesn't get stuck," said Cheryl Paston, a Woodinville resident who knitted as she rode the 545 into Seattle to work one morning. Paston worries that a bus going over Capitol Hill during rush hour might get bogged down.
"There's concern from people who live on Queen Anne and Belltown," Zimel said.
Zimel, the Microsoft employee, bikes to Montlake to catch the bus and, hopefully, a seat. "Our biggest issue with the 545 is the frequency," he said. "It's pretty full."
Capitol Hill riders complain they're getting the short end of the stick. The city's most bus-riding neighborhood can't get direct service to the Eastside, the airport, Southcenter, Northgate or other desirable destinations, said Mikhail Katchiyants.
"It is slow to get out of the (Capitol Hill) area as well as back into it by bus," he said.
Capitol Hill has the single largest concentration in Seattle of Redmond employees. About 1,400 Capitol Hill residents commute every day across state Route 520 to Microsoft and other employers such as Nintendo, Eddie Bauer, Safeco and Group Health, Sound Transit says.
And the trend of people commuting to the city from the eastern suburbs has changed over the years. In 1990, about 15,000 people lived in Seattle and commuted to work in Kirkland, Bellevue or Redmond, while 21,000 commuted from those three Eastside cities to Seattle. But 10 years later, that trend had reversed, with about 29,000 Seattle residents commuting to the Eastside and 22,000 commuting from the Eastside to Seattle, according to the Puget Sound Regional Council.
Many Capitol Hill commuters would like to ride the bus, said neighborhood resident Anirudh Sahni, a former Microsoft employee. They would if the 545 route stopped on Capitol Hill.
"Sound Transit has recognized that Capitol Hill has the density for a rail tunnel under the hill, so it surely has the density to justify an express bus over the hill," Sahni said.
But John Resha, executive director of the Greater Redmond Transportation Management Association, a private non-profit commuter organization, complains the diversion would mean less service for Redmond residents coming to Seattle. Under either alternative, frequency will be increased, larger buses will be used and the bike racks will hold more bikes. How does this add up to "less service?"
With the expansion in service, buses will run more frequently and for the first time will run on Sundays. Sound Transit plans to buy 13 new large articulated buses to serve the Eastside. Racks on the new buses will carry three rather than two bikes.
Going via Capitol Hill would lengthen the trip between Redmond and downtown Seattle by about 10 minutes, said Michael Bergman, program manager in Sound Transit's transportation services division. The staff report says 7-11 minutes based upon a now-discarded route that exited at Roanoke St and backtracked to 24th Ave. The Lake Washington Boulevard route will be faster than 7-11 minutes. 5-7 minutes is more likely what the difference will be.
Only the trips heading east in the morning and west in the evening would stop on Capitol Hill. The trips taking Redmond residents to Seattle in the mornings and back in the evenings would not stop on Capitol Hill.
However, the longer trip in one direction still affects Redmond residents, because the round trip will take 10 minutes (5-7 minutes) longer. That means the expanded 545 service would have five buses an hour rather than the six buses an hour it would have if it didn't stop on Capitol Hill on one leg of the trip.
Buses would run every 12 minutes rather than every 10 minutes. Today there are four buses an hour with buses running every 15 minutes during rush hours.
"Right now 545 is well over capacity," Resha said. And when the frequency of the service is increased, even more riders will be attracted, he said. Alt 2 increases frequency as well. Larger buses will be used as well.
Today Capitol Hill residents going to Redmond have two choices. They can go downtown, the opposite direction from their destination, and transfer to the 545. Or they can go to Montlake and transfer to the 545.
Speaking at a recent Sound Transit meeting, Capitol Hill resident Matthew Kerner said the bus ride to Redmond with the transfer is unreliable and on one recent day took him 90 minutes, while driving his car takes him 35 minutes. Without the transfer, the bus ride would take him about 45 minutes -- fast enough to lure him out of his car.
Sahni said that when he worked at Microsoft, routing the 545 across Capitol Hill would have saved him a minimum of 30 minutes a day.
Bergman estimates the time saved at about 18 minutes a day. Apparently Capitol Hill residents have no idea how long their commute trips are. Sound Transit staff knows better.
Sahni and other Microsoft employees like to use their time on the bus reading or working on their computers. A transfer interrupts this.
"All these factors discourage ridership," Sahni said
"It is not an ideal transfer environment by any means," agreed Sound Transit's Bergman.
Richard Borkowski, president of People for Modern Transit, strongly favors the Capitol Hill stop. He says while the reroute would save Capitol Hill residents many minutes and much inconvenience, Redmond residents would suffer only a two-minute longer wait.
Several Redmond commuters interviewed on the 545 one recent morning indicated they wouldn't mind a bus every 12 minutes instead of every 10 minutes if it would help out Capitol Hill riders.
"Twelve minutes is still an improvement over (the current) 15 minutes," said Mary Holm, a paralegal who lives in Redmond and commutes downtown. "That would be fine."
The important thing is for Sound Transit to consistently use its articulated buses, Holm and several other Redmond riders said, rather than the smaller 40-foot buses, which inevitably require riders to stand.
The Sound Transit board is expected to decide the issue in the late fall. The expanded service wouldn't go into effect until September of next year to allow time for new buses to be delivered.
Sound Transit staff members recommended against the Capitol Hill reroute on Friday, saying that the diversion to Capitol Hill would hurt other commuters to Redmond. However, ST staff recommended a 555 diversion into the Univ District that will taken 8-12 minutes longer than the current route.
Sound Transit estimated that 256 non-Capitol Hill riders commuting to jobs in Redmond would suffer an added 10 minutes to their ride, while 239 Capitol Hill riders would benefit.
The general industry standard is not to divert to pick up added riders if it will add more than five minutes to the ride, Sound Transit staff members said. The 555 diversion will take an additional 8-12 minutes.
Sound Transit staff said with the expanded service on 545, ridership is projected to increase 4 to 13 percent. But if it is routed through Capitol Hill, it will increase only zero to 7 percent. Curiously, the 8-12 minute diversion through the Univ District is estimated to increase ridership by as much as 46%.
Resha, of Redmond, said stopping on Capitol Hill turns what is a regional express bus route into a local neighborhood feeder service. Then why was the 555 route diversion through the Univ District not rejected for the same reason?
Sahni, however, pointed out that Sound Move, the 1996 blueprint for Sound Transit, identifies Capitol Hill as an "urban center" that needs to be connected to other urban centers in the region -- like Redmond.
"Having an express bus from Seattle to Redmond that skips around the region's densest urban center is like having an express train from Tacoma to Everett that stops in Puyallup, Kent and Edmonds but not Seattle, and asking Seattle passengers to transfer via shuttle buses in Kent or Edmonds," Sahni said.
The Capitol Hill diversion is supported by the pro-transit Transportation Choices Coalition, which says it would increase ridership.
Resha said plans for the Evergreen Point Bridge call for bus rapid transit rather than light rail.
The 545 route is intended to build up over time from express service to "enhanced bus" to "bus rapid transit" service, which attempts to mimic rail in speed, comfort and reliability.
"If you start to deviate from the concept of express service and divert into neighborhoods, you're changing the nature of the service," Resha said.
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P-I reporter Jane Hadley can be reached at 206-448-8362 or janehadley@seattlepi.com
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