Bus lanes stay intact in RapidRide H 30% design
Route 120 in RapidRide Branding by Zach Heistand on FlickrSDOT and Metro are still hoping for a 2021 opening date for RapidRide H in Delridge, but some potential utility work could delay things until 2022, according to a presentation (PDF, video) to the city's Sustainability Transportation Committee on Tuesday.
Staff seemed hopeful, however, that an agreement with Seattle Public Utilities to move the stormwater facilities off of Delridge Way could let the project proceed as planned.
Otherwise, the 30% design is looking good for transit, though not much has changed from the 10% design in December. Proposed improvements include:
- 1.5 miles of 24/7 bus lanes
- 1.2 miles of peak-only bus lanes
- 13 station pairs being updated with RapidRide branding as well as bus bulbs
- Signal priority and two queue jumps
(Since this was a City of Seattle presentation, it was focused on the city's side of the route. Burien will be seeing improvements as well.)
As usual, the messy tradeoff between bikes, buses, and on-street parking leads to some compromises. Parking will be removed in some areas, especially where SDOT is adding both bus and bike lanes. There will be some protected bike lanes and some diversion to neighborhood greenways on either side of Delridge. The (generally high quality) greenways themselves will be improved.
SDOT is responding to the community's desire to extend the northbound bus lane further south, to reduce delays in the AM peak. We'll know more at 60% design (this would be a good thing to advocate for if you go to one of the spring design presentations).
Finally, SDOT is interested in working with Sound Transit to coordinate capital improvements with a future Delridge link station, though it's still very early in the ST planning process.
The long, narrow nature of the corridor and lack of major cross-streets means that there's real potential for speed and reliability improvements with dedicated lanes, in-lane stops, and queue jumps.
The next round of outreach will happen this spring, with a goal of construction in 2020 and opening in 2021. Route 120 is the 10th busiest in the system, with 9,000 daily riders. The $70M project budget includes paving and stormwater as well as the bus & bike infrastructure.