36 Replies to "TRAFFIC/TRANSIT TODAY: Tuesday watch; West Seattle Bridge trouble"

• sna September 24, 2019 (8:27 am)

  Commute day 2 with the restored 99NB bus lane and again congestion cause by this is terrible for both cars and busses.  I’d love for the city and state to share what data they have on this. 

• JayDee September 24, 2019 (8:28 am)

  Yesterday, after being out of town for three weeks, the 7:45 56 took the busway in and then up third. Hallelujah! They finally see the light. Then today, the 7:23 56 comes by 12 minutes late. Then we queue for 99 northbound? Why? I don’t know and apparently neither does Metro. I get to work at 8:15.  West Seattle gets the short end of the stick again.

• J September 24, 2019 (8:29 am)

  And just like clockwork the re-striping of the NB 99 bus lane has caused major backups along Admiral Way (its been over a year since i’ve seen the traffic all the way up the hill) as well as Harbor and Avalon!  What a mess

• ARPigeonPoint September 24, 2019 (9:01 am)

  Backed way up on Delridge, too.  So stupid.

• Matt P September 24, 2019 (9:17 am)

  All the C buses are running late now. Definitely will start writing to metro about this disastrous decision.

• WS Resident September 24, 2019 (9:34 am)

  I can’t believe how horrible planning is with the city. They’re constantly failing West Seattle. It took us 40 min to get a few miles to the bridge this morning and then the bus was 20 min delayed. The dedicated bus lane on 99 is great but if it takes the bus much longer to get to 99 because of the congestion it creates, then what’s the point?! And this is on top of the simultaneous road construction at every major arterial in WS. Whoever is planning these projects are not doing an effective job. 

  • LW September 24, 2019 (11:27 am)

    Yes, this. All of this. Such poor planning. My commute has gotten so much worse in the mornings as well as evenings. It is drastically cutting into my family time, as well as significantly adding to my stress to have to deal with traffic all the time. Not to mention, how horrific traffic is within West Seattle because of poor planning to have construction at every major arterial in WS. So frustrating. 

• West Seattle Hipster September 24, 2019 (9:38 am)

  Designating the lane “bus only” is proving to be a mistake.  Hopefully the error will be corrected by our transportation leaders, or our city council member will look into it.

• GatewoodGuy September 24, 2019 (9:47 am)

  Can’t believe they made the decision to put that bus lane back in. Write to Metro, but also write to Joe McDermott and Lisa Herbiold. I’d also like to hear from Lisa and Phil what they think about how this bus lane is snaring traffic once more. Any candidate forums happening? Elected officials count on you being too complacent to complain. Call and email them! The entire reason we have districts is so they can fight the city and county on things like this. Get rid of that lane! 

  • WSB September 24, 2019 (10:00 am)

    Yes, the next forum is Saturday (9/28) at 4:30 pm at Neighborhood House High Point.

  • D Martinez September 24, 2019 (11:45 am)

    Obviously you don’t ride the bus.  But apparently your needs far outweigh the THOUSANDS who do.  At least that’s what I gleaned from your ramble.

    • sna September 24, 2019 (12:16 pm)

      The argument is that this isn’t helping busses either.  They’re getting slowed down on the approach to 99 and on the side streets just getting to the bridge.  The way this particular bus lane is designed creates a forced merge point that slows all traffic.  

• GB September 24, 2019 (10:06 am)

  45 minutes via car to get from California/Thistle to Delridge/WSEA Bridge, leaving at 8:01 this morning.   Delridge was not moving due to all the cars taking back streets and rejoining Delridge after Genesee.  Good times!

  • Scott N September 24, 2019 (10:35 am)

    Yes many do go side streets to skip the backup, then go into Delridge later. However many people do live in the North Delridge area and that’s how they get to the main road. 

• wscommuter September 24, 2019 (10:14 am)

  Strongly agree about letting Herbold and McDermott hear about this – the stupid is strong with this move by SDOT – nothing will change unless enough of us complain.  I’ve done so – I hope others will complain as well.  With the bus lane back on 99, instantly the backups return to the W. Seattle bridge and back from there, to Delridge, Fauntleroy and Admiral, because of the merge mess caused by the bus lane on 99.  And more cars moving slowly or not at all just dumps more emissions into the air.  Why can’t they see that the experiment we’ve had the last few months worked?!  With three open lanes on 99, ALL traffic moved better.  It makes it tempting to not make room for buses to to merge on the W. Seattle bridge bus lane into the 99 exit lane.  That would be wrong – and I don’t want to add to bus commuter’s woes.  But the evil thought did cross my mind.  

• mnw September 24, 2019 (10:31 am)

  I have submitted my complaint to SDOT about the issues the NB-99 bus lane is causing. Please email them at 684-Road@seattle.gov with your concerns. Especially bus riders…if the point of the lane is to improve bus commute times PLEASE let them know if it is now taking you longer. I really struggle to understand how they thought reinstating this lane would benefit anyone. Really disappointed. 

• Joe Z September 24, 2019 (10:53 am)

  Just ban cars from using the 99N ramp altogether. It should be bus only. 

  • Jort September 24, 2019 (1:29 pm)

    This is the correct answer. If cars are causing backups, ban the cars. This is not complicated. Start taking the bus and get over it.

    • BH September 24, 2019 (3:50 pm)

      Not a helpful suggestion if your commute takes you north of the city where there are no practical bus routes.  The built-in bottlenecks are the city planners’ specialty. 

• Karen September 24, 2019 (11:10 am)

  Same goes for the buss lane on 99 South between the Aurora bridge and the tunnel. If it was 2 lanes to the tunnel and the speed stayed at 45, the traffic would flow so much better.

• Perplexed September 24, 2019 (11:15 am)

  Why don’t you all take the bus then?

  • Olafur September 24, 2019 (5:43 pm)

    That comment is really not helpful.1. You don’t know where everyone is going – some people have destinations not effectively served by buses.2. You don’t know all the reasons people are driving personal automobiles – not everything and everyone can be hauled onto a bus.3. There isn’t room for everyone on the buses, as is.  I assume, based on your comment, that you ride a bus.  If everyone else began doing so, you’d often find yourself left standing at your bus stop, because buses that are already overfull will drive on by without stopping.  It has already happened to me numerous times.

• wetone September 24, 2019 (12:00 pm)

   Mayor, city council and SDOT’s mentality is they don’t want people having cars in (their) city. This shows with most all new roadwork going on through out city currently.  Road diets, bus bulbs, re-channelization, 99 tunnel (failure for moving traffic) along with pushing more traffic to city streets. This is just a short list,  more in planning. Direct result of those mentioned above. City has failed to maintain roadways, elevated structures, bridges and many other parts of city’s infrastructures properly over last decade +.  Hardest hit from all this being mid/lower class and family’s.  Mayor and SDOT will be pushing new levy (raising taxes) soon for their so called improvements.  Want change ? vote

• Kyle September 24, 2019 (12:06 pm)

  West Seattle needs a bus lane from downtown to 99 south for the afternoon commute. Instead we got a crazy reroute through sodo. West Seattle didn’t need the old bus lane on 99 north back (can’t imagine anyone asked for it). I’m a bus rider and this doesn’t help my commute if it takes twice as long now to reach the bus lane. Do our leaders just not talk to one another? Do they use and data or traffic modeling before making these decisions? The only feedback loop seems to be after the fact with anecdotal complaints from residents who should be tee’d off by our leaders lack of planning. I’ve already sent my email to SDOT :(

• Tony September 24, 2019 (12:17 pm)

  Pretty simple Perplexed. A lot people are not simply commuting from point A to point B. Many of us have jobs that require us to be mobile during the day, catching the bus is just not feasible. Stop pretending, Seattle is not London or New York or like any other major city for that matter where a vast train network and underground tunnel system exists to connect to outer suburban areas. The small mindedness of the City Council and the sheer ineptitude of SDOT and every other government department for that matter will ensure that the current problems we face will be with us for a long while yet. 

• Kathy September 24, 2019 (12:41 pm)

  All you car drivers who hate traffic and backups, you should get together and take a poll. How many really have no other choice but to to drive a single occupancy vehicle into the downtown area?  Then those who do put some pressures on those who don’t to leave their cars at home. By the way, all the pushback from car drivers on the installation of safe bicycle infrastructure is not working in their favor. If the city had more connected safe bicycle routes more people would choose that travel option which is definitely faster on a day like today (e-bikes zooming by on the Alki Trail past the backup on Harbor Avenue).

  • wetone September 24, 2019 (1:32 pm)

    What makes you and many others with your style thinking believe most WS residents work downtown ? Born and raised in WS, went to school 60’s-70’s here. I know only a few people that work downtown……….

  • Olafur September 24, 2019 (5:52 pm)

    Sorry, Kathy, but your position simply doesn’t hold water.  As Seattle has increased bicycle infrastructure, ridership has actually decreased.  Not to mention that there are all kinds of non-infrastructure reasons many can’t ride bicycles to their destinations.  And I think you’ll find that the majority of car drivers are not commuting TO downtown, but rather THROUGH or PAST downtown, often to areas not well served by buses or for reasons not conductive to bicycling, regardless of infrastructure.  

• Oh, the humanity September 24, 2019 (1:14 pm)

  I concur about adding in the bus-only routes.  Maybe coincidence, but the backups returned immediately as soon as they re-designated the 99NB right lane as bus only.  This causes the merge, which causes the backups, which then the buses can’t even get through anyway.  And just imagine when the tunnel tolling starts and there will both be the forced merge onto 99 and more people trying to get out of those lanes again before the tunnel.  It’s going to be lovely.Personally, I hate driving my car and bike in when I can (~twice a week if I can), and REALLY want to be able to take the bus more.  However, let’s get real – most people aren’t going to bike in even with more bike lanes and e-bike privileges.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d support adding in as much as is feasible as a beneficiary but given our hills, distances to cover, weather, and the general inconveniences of cycle commuting there is a pretty low ceiling to how many people will do this.  As for buses… there are simply too many delays and uncertainties, and even if they are adhering to schedules means that quite often you might get to/from faster ONCE YOU ARE ON THE BUS, but you have to add in the time to get to a stop and wait for it to arrive.  If I’m ready to leave my house at 7:15 but have a 15 minute walk to get to a 7:30 stop and then there are 10 more stops before getting on the the highway, guess what?  I’m probably going to get to my destination faster if I drive.  And for those with kid pick-ups/drop-offs we often don’t have the luxury to either leave early or take the risk of running late.We (and Seattle transportation “leadership”) need to acknowledge the reality of how all this plays out for people and make pragmatic decisions.  Traffic is getting absurd and the $ billions spent on that tunnel didn’t seem to help address the mess.

• newnative September 24, 2019 (1:59 pm)

  I didn’t see any difference in my commute this morning. I bussed from Admiral District to lower Queen Anne. I saw that immediately after I arrived to downtown there were back ups on the bridge due to an oil spill. Yet here, everyone is complaining that it’s the bus lane, it’s Lisa Herbold, it’s the construction in West Seattle and it’s the tunnel to blame for the slow commute? Oh, West Seattle. 

• Wendell September 24, 2019 (9:09 pm)

  A little late, but here’s a rainy helmet-cam view of today’s crash and fluid leak.

• Wendell September 24, 2019 (11:15 pm)

  https://youtu.be/A05pp5FB67o

  • Kathy September 25, 2019 (10:02 am)

    That video is a great testimony to why we should be weaning ourselves faster from fossil fuels. https://tox-ick.org/

• Wscommuter September 25, 2019 (9:00 am)

  As someone who sometimes drives to work (downtown) and sometime bikes to work (for my health and happiness), I find your comment detached from reality.  I’m all for anyone who is on a bike and I support bike infrastructure.  Good on people who choose to bus and for whom bus commuting is possible.  But this “SOV people are bad” theme that you and others love to run out will ultimately work against you.  Cars – and those driven by one person – aren’t going away.  There are a myriad of reasons for that and frankly, SOV drivers don’t need to justify or excuse that choice.  Whether it is job location or child issues before and after work or scheduling realities or physical ability or impractical bus routes … some people just need to drive.  Deal with it.  And our infrastructure needs to serve that need.  Deal with that too.  

  • Kathy September 25, 2019 (9:54 am)

    I said connected safe bicycle routes, not safe sections  here and there with unsafe sections in between which render the safe sections useless. And I wasn’t commenting on people who have to drive, only those who don’t, but drive because it is more convenient for them. And those who have no other choice than to drive just need to get used to long commutes plan ahead, allow plenty of time and don’t be demanding that bus only lanes should be removed to make more room to fill up with cars because it’s only going to get worse as the population grows unless more citizens demand alternatives to driving. 

• Chris September 25, 2019 (9:10 am)

  I take the bus, it’s completely full!  And now the commute is worse because people are doing crazy things in their cars to try to avoid the totally unnecessary backups!  Try again!

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