(SDOT MAP with travel times/ Is the ‘low bridge’ closed? LOOK HERE/ West Seattle-relevant traffic cams HERE)
6:58 AM: Good morning! No incidents or alerts to report so far.
7:28 AM: Metro says the 7:34 am Route 113 won’t run.
9:34 AM: Taking surface Spokane St. to West Seattle? SFD is responding to a two-vehicle crash reported to be blocking Spokane/Colorado, with one vehicle reported to be a delivery truck.
The top traffic picture (tunnel entrance) has been frozen since yesterday morning.
Routing the busses through Pioneer Square is just dumb. Everyday cars are parked on the side of the street essentially turning most of 1st Ave into one lane. You typically zoom to the Dearborn exit the crawl at a snails pace into the business district. Really really frustrating.
It doesn’t help that the buses all block the right lane of the Dearborn exit so that NO ONE can access it, leaving it unused .
I don’t understand your comment, Newnative. The right lane IS the bus lane. Where would you like the buses to be?
I have never been on a bus that has entered the right lane on the Dearborn exit, they block it so that no one is able to use it. the right lane is a right turn only-I have no idea if anyone wants to use it (to turn right) but the buses sit in the intersections or wait until the left lane clears before turning onto Dearborn. Effectively making this a one-lane street. 
Sometimes the buses have little choice but to block the intersection. If there’s not enough room for the bus to clear the intersection, but there IS enough room for one or two cars, they’ll keep turning in front of the bus, and the bus never gets to go. This happened to me on the C line during Snowmageddon. We waited 20 minutes to turn left onto 1st Ave.
Newnative, are you referring to the right lane on the ramp or on Dearborn? The far right lane is right turn only for non bus traffic. The lane next to it is specifically striped and marked as a bus only right turn lane. The buses exiting there all need to turn left onto 1st so they are turning directly into the left lane as there is not enough space for them to change lanes. I can see it being difficult for non bus traffic to negotiate that when the traffic is really busy but I’m not sure there is any good way around it.
I ride the 55 or C to and from work every day. The 1st Ave route is frustrating, but it’s only “dumb” if there’s a better option, and I really don’t see one. Alaskan Way will be one lane and shared with ferry traffic for most of the construction time, and Dearborn can’t can’t be extended any further east than 1st. It would be great if they could restrict some street parking in that area, but that’s the only change I can see that wouldn’t make things even worse.
Possibly of interest to this discussion, when changing featured cameras after the upthread mention that the previous one on the ramp had not updated since yesterday, I grabbed this frame that appeared when I was looking at the WSDOT construction cams:
I agree this is a pain point, but I’m not sure it’s really the busses fault. They’re doing their best to get 100+ people through that intersection that isn’t designed for this amount of turning traffic.I do think they’re is more that our city could do to help this pain point if we’re going to live with it for the better part of a year. Better timing between the off ramp light and the 1st Ave light could help cars and busses flow through here easier. Striping changes could help as well.
And let people OFF the bus before 3rd/Madison; one stop, all I’m asking for (yes, I contacted Metro already). Won’t help the Dearborn exit woes but would sure make many bus riders less cranky!
Sorry, comment time is over.
That’s what I’m describing.
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