13 Replies to "TRAFFIC/TRANSIT TODAY: Fall's first Friday"

• Brandon St September 27, 2019 (8:42 am)

  My commute time has increased an average of 20 minutes this week. There’s a choke point that the 99 on-ramp has created because of the bus only lane they implemented this week. It causes cars that merge onto 99 from West Seattle to brake and try to merge immediately after the cloverleaf, which causes a backup onto the bridge, and on mid-week days like we saw this week, this can back up all the way onto the Delridge streets, Avalon, and Fauntleroy. This in turn, makes buses late because they’re stuck on the city streets trying to access their bus-only lanes. SDOT & WSDOT should seriously consider going back to the way it was over the past months where there is no bus only lane until they near the Dearborn exit. The traffic flow was fine, there were no major delays from West Seattle to Downtown (with the exception of the exit itself), so I don’t really see the logic to add this bus lane, in my honest opinion. But what do I know!

• ugh September 27, 2019 (8:50 am)

  The new bus lane is awful.  All the buses have to wait in the same choke point trying to get onto 99N.  My commute has doubled every morning this week.  (tripled yesterday with the rain)

• Anu September 27, 2019 (9:35 am)

  I always wondered in 2016, how we were lucky enough to be able to afford a house in West Seattle. Now I know why. The rest of the city knew that traffic was going to get horrendous here in a few years. The 30 minute downtown commute days seem surreal now. Between the never-ending and extremely ill-planned 35th and Avalon construction, and the never-ending and extremely ill-planned viaduct removal, the city has completely choked West Seattleites. It is so tragic given how beautiful our neighborhood is. It’s like we’re paying a price for it… in addition to the taxes funding these never-ending projects. 

• Tracey September 27, 2019 (9:54 am)

  AnuWhen I moved here in 1997 my friends warned me about West Seattle traffic.  Not that it was awful then but it was way worse than the rest of the city because of “that” bridge.  I don’t know if that was true but all of them wished me luck.  I don’t understand why anyone buys a house here if they have to use the bridge regularly.  My social life north has even been curtailed let alone any regular work obligations.  Thankfully, I work South.   I head north about a half a dozen times a year now.   I do feel the pain of all you regular commuters though.  And now for the toll to head north…..

• GatewoodGuy September 27, 2019 (10:09 am)

  Looking forward to seeing the WSB writeup on this later today. I’m not blaming Lisa, but a straightforward “I support the removal of this bus lane” statement would have reassured me that she’s doing everything she can on this, and that’s not what I got when I wrote in. We love to dither in this city and I’m sure Zimbabwe has 12 studies he can point to trying to persuade all of us that our commutes haven’t actually just increased by 20–30 minutes. I’m curious if he tried to pin everything on the oil spill at the gathering last night. 

• mnw September 27, 2019 (10:40 am)

  Last week my commute from Morgan Junction to Belltown took me 30-35min. Every day this week it took me at least an hour. I am a car driver but I see buses sitting in the same traffic, waiting to get onto 99. This was a very bad decision and I hope they acknowledge and reverse it. 

• dcn September 27, 2019 (10:56 am)

  I was happy when the tunnel finally opened because traffic over the WS Bridge flowed so much better. I don’t take 99, so I didn’t realize it was due to leaving 3 lanes flowing north on 99 for all vehicles. Since they reinstituted the bus lane, I’ve seen and experienced the daily backups on the bridge and West Seattle arterials, with buses caught in these backups too. I’ve also seen 4th Ave northbound become more congested as people avoid the new 99 mess. There is also more reckless behavior as frustrated drivers take side streets, and cut across the bus lane to escape the 99 mess. I can guess there is more dangerous driving on 99 north also, since drivers must now change lanes twice within the space of a mile if they want to get off in downtown, rather than take the tunnel. The fact that this mess was caused by one change that WDOT made, means that this traffic is not an inevitable consequence of the population growth in West Seattle, but a poor decision on how to manage the roads we have. It will not encourage more people to take the bus, since the buses are now less reliable too.  And a large percentage of us who drive do not have the option of busing anyway because we do not work downtown, or have other constraints. Finally, for a city that says they are concerned about reducing our carbon footprint, can they explain how making all cars and buses take 10-15 minutes longer to get to work is helping us meet our carbon reduction goals? 

• Trickycoolj September 27, 2019 (11:14 am)

  SO reported High Point to Harbor Island via Snake Hill/Delridge/Low Bridge took 45 min with no obvious reason. 

  • Lts September 27, 2019 (11:24 am)

    Reason… too many people

• ktrapp September 27, 2019 (11:53 am)

  Unrelated to the bus lane on 99, but I’m curious as to the apparent reason Metro has in rotating drivers on routes.  I think it just happened again this week.  Both on last night’s and this morning’s commute, I was on a 21X where the driver had no clue what stops they should actually be stopping at.   Last night, someone had to stand next to the driver to tell her when to stop.  This morning, the driver kept making stop along 35th, until someone asked why she was doing it.  She was unaware that she was driving an express!  She then took the wrong route onto the bridge, and proceeded to stop a block early for the Pine St. stop.  I can see wanting to keep things from going stale for the drivers, but Metro HAS to do something about better preparing their drivers for new routes.  Every few months we experience a week or two of missed stops, too many stops, wrong routes, and generally buses way behind schedule, since the drivers are thrown to the wolves with a printout of bus stops that could have been printed in 1979.

• Anu September 27, 2019 (12:00 pm)

  Tracey, I SO wish I could work South. I applied to countless jobs at companies south of us when I was last job hunting, to no avail. Also, due to the fear of THE bridge, West Seattle is the only marginally affordable neighborhood for non-tech workers like me and my husband. So this is my destiny now. It was NEVER this bad until all these construction projects with no end in sight. Five or six years ago, I’ve even had 20 minute commutes to downtown on the bus.

• Commuter September 27, 2019 (6:16 pm)

  I feel your pain, everyone. I moved to West Seattle a year ago because I love it here and it’s the only place in Seattle my husband and I could afford to buy. I work on the Eastside (love my job), and the morning commute is about 50 minutes, but well over an hour now with the new bus lane on 99. The added commute time is really bumming me out – increased stress and depression. Just hoping this gets better after this “seattle squeeze” is done. 

• Joe Z September 28, 2019 (8:57 am)

  We desperately need the light rail to be built. I understand people want a tunnel but if a tunnel is going to take until the mid-2030s then they need to build the line to Delridge first and open it ASAP. 

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