Praise for Route 60 Investments
When more buses are needed during peak hours, and no extra money is available to add more runs, it is usually off-peak frequency, and then off-peak span-of-service, that gets reduced first. Sunday and then Saturday service are at the front of that queue for taking away service.
Cleveland High School, where bus riders will no longer be stranded after 8:00 on weekends (photo by Joe Mabel)
So, I was pleasantly surprised when the route I ride most, if it is in service, got a serious investment, with nearly half of the investment being on weekends. Route 60 is a very dependable, but often-not-close-to-full cross-town route connecting Broadway on Capitol Hill, Madison St, Harborview, Yesler Terrace, Little Saigon, North Beacon Hill, Beacon Hill Station, 15th Ave S, southern Georgetown, South Park, Arrowhead Gardens, White Center, and Westwood Village. It splices together a lot of short trips, and yet shows up on time whenever I ride it (at least since the reliability-destroying loop through the congested Veterans' Administration Hospital parking lot got removed).
Seattle Proposition 1 provided the funding to bring route 60 up to par with a lot of downtown routes, with half-hourly service all day from roughly 7:00-11:00 on weekends, and at least that frequent on weekdays. Service investments added four late-evening trips each way on weeknights and eight evening trips each way on weekends, plus an additional northbound trip on weekends earlier than the previous span of service.
Mid-day frequency got boosted to every 20 minutes a few years ago, with 15-minute scheduled headway during peak, which has since been fine-tuned to headway of no worse than 20 minutes, but as good as 10 minutes for the peak-of-peak period in the peak direction. There are portions of the route where the bus fills up during peak, including at Cleveland High School before and after school.
One of the major stops for boardings and alightings is at Beacon Hill Station, with lots of riders transferring to/from Link. Route 60 is slowly but surely becoming a success story as a Link-connecting route that doesn't go downtown. Indeed, a major draw of the route is that its reliability isn't wrecked by having to slog through downtown. More of this, please!