Happy fall, everybody! It’s been a busy past few months, here is what we’ve been up to since we hosted Race the L8!

SDOT Rules out Bus Lanes

In August, SDOT announced that they are ruling out bus lanes for now, saying that the impacts they would have on surrounding traffic would be too drastic. However, the traffic study that SDOT predicated this decision on assumed that zero drivers would switch to taking the bus or seek alternate routes after bus lanes are installed. They are instead hoping to solve traffic on Denny Way via “alternate routing and wayfinding” and by “encourag[ing] transit use (mode shift),” which will be laughably ineffective. It’s also completely contradictory for them to cite mode shift as a goal when their traffic study completely ignored it.

However, the study’s data was still incredibly insightful for current conditions. It revealed that eastbound Route 8 riders actually outnumber drivers headed to Capitol Hill on Denny Way. Not only that, when you combine those bus riders with pedestrians going east across the Denny overpass, they even outnumber drivers headed to I-5 S via eastbound Denny. SDOT needs to do better and stop punishing this plurality of travelers along Denny Way for making climate and community-friendly transportation choices.

You can also read more about our concerns surrounding the study and SDOT’s decision in The Seattle Times, The Urbanist, and the Seattle Transit Blog.

Support from Elected Leaders

Despite this announcement from SDOT, we are still confident that we can get bus lanes installed next year before the World Cup. We have sent tens of thousands of letters to local leaders and they’re finally joining us in our call for bus lanes and elected officials from all levels of local government are now directly calling on SDOT to install bus lanes:

• We were honored to have been able to stand and speak with City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck when she echoed our demands for full-length two-way bus lanes on Denny Way with her Better Bus Lanes campaign. She even has majority support in City Council, with councilmembers Hollingsworth, Saka, Juarez, and Solomon as co-sponsors for a Statement of Legislative Intent in Council’s budget packet.
• County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda sent a letter to SDOT and the Mayor’s office requesting that SDOT install bus lanes on Denny Way.
• State Representative Julia Reed joined the call and reached out to WSDOT for us to make sure we could address any concerns they had for bus lanes on Denny Way. She let us know that they were “unconcerned” about potential impacts to I-5 traffic and that “[t]he state’s ready to talk prioritizing transit on Denny.”

We can expect even more support from

• Mayor-elect Katie Wilson is a renter that lives car-free in Capitol Hill. She not only attended Race the L8, but also made not one, nor two, but three different social media posts during her campaign specifically calling for bus lanes on Denny. Since winning the election, she has also stated “I want to put bus lanes on Denny” on Seattle Nice [40:47] and The Seattle Times reported that “in her most specific pledge, she wants a bus lane on Denny for the chronically late No. 8 Metro route” when discussing first-day priorities.
• Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who spearheaded the Better Bus Lanes campaign above and is also a renter that lives car-free, was re-elected for City Council Position 8. She even won the largest percentage of votes ever seen in a Seattle election, showing just how popular her platform is.
• Dionne Foster, who attended Race the L8 and has stated that traffic violence is one of her top priorities, defeated incumbent Sara Nelson for City Council Position 9. Dionne also joined Central Seattle Greenways, one of the supporting groups for Fix the L8, on a candidate walk this summer. It was very clear that she has a deep understanding of traffic safety issues in the city and has a deep understanding on how to tackle them.
• Eddie Lin, who has previously stated that “The more “car-centric” a city is, the less livable it is and less character it has”, was elected to represent District 2 in Seattle City Council. He was the only District 2 candidate who responded to our invite for Race the L8 but could not make it as there was a D2 candidate forum that conflicted with the race.
• Girmay Zahilay won the election for County Executive and teamed up with Alexis Mercedes Rinck during the campaign promoting better bus service throughout the county.

Momentum is heavily swinging into our favor and we’re optimistic that Seattle will soon finally roll out the red carpet for Route 8 on Denny Way.

Note: Fix the L8 did not endorse any candidates during the election as it is supported by Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, a 501(c)(3) non-profit

Next Steps

Despite all of the above, we are still pushing forward and maintaining pressure on the city to install bus lanes on Denny Way. For example, in October we held a Halloween Ghost Bus-ting canvassing event where we asked riders to send emails to the city and remind them to vote while dressed up and handing out candy.

Now that we have made it clear to the city how badly people want bus lanes, we are shifting our focus to organizations and businesses around Route 8. There has been some business backlash surrounding other transit priority improvements in the city and we are working proactively to ensure that the business community is engaged in discussions surrounding bus lanes for Denny.

We are also meeting with King County Metro to ensure that they are prepared to handle the unprecedented demand that Route 8 will experience after bus lanes are installed. After all, the time savings from having a bus lane won’t mean much if buses always skip your stop because they’re already full.

Jason and Nick,
Co-Leads, Fix the L8