Fix the L8: Long W8s

By JASON LI

This is part 3 of a 3-part series on route 8. Part 1. Part 2.

Even if Denny Way is solved, frequency for the route is subpar, especially at night, where it drops to 20-30 minutes.

A table of Route 8's headways

At peak, theoretical 12-minute headways are rarely met as Route 8's schedule only allocates 60 minutes to go from Queen Anne to Mount Baker, but oftentimes this trip takes more than 90 minutes. This means buses don't arrive at their base on time, resulting in cascading delays as buses start their next trip late. Riders are often left waiting 20 or even 30 minutes for their next bus, especially during periods of bad bus bunching.

However, once bus lanes are added, the opposite would happen as buses speed through the route but spend the time savings sitting idle at their base until their next scheduled departure. Metro must be ready to adjust schedules accordingly and increase frequency to more efficiently utilize their existing resources to meet the exploding demand that would accompany bus lanes. Luckily, it seems like they are working closely with SDOT and will be well-poised to respond immediately to maximize benefits from any infrastructure improvements.

At night, current frequencies make relying on Route 8 to get you home at night untenable, especially if making a transfer, and also leaves it wholly unable to serve evening events in Capitol Hill and Seattle Center. Additional service hours during these periods is not only relatively cheap given low traffic conditions, but also extremely effective in improving frequency. Only one additional round trip bus per hour is required to bring headways from 20 minutes to 15 minutes, and only two buses an hour are required to to bring headways from 30 minutes to 15 minutes.

One method to resolve Route 8's frequency issues without needing to invest large amounts of service hours into it is to re-route Route 11 onto Denny Way, fully overlapping Route 8 west of Madison. For most Route 11 riders, this wouldn't even result in a slower commute after the full opening of the 2 Line, because doubling Link's frequency to 4-5 minutes would make it always faster to get off the bus and board a Link train than to stay on a bus to Westlake. Although not ideal, routes 49 and 3 can also serve as transfers for the subset of riders doing more local trips between the two stations.

Map of Route 11

This may sound far-fetched, but it's already in Seattle and King County Metro's long-term plans. The Seattle Transportation Plan's Frequent Transit Network assigns the lowest tier of frequency for MLK and Madison before Routes 8 and 11 intersect but gives the rest of Route 8's corridor the highest frequency tier, including along Denny Way. The Metro Connects 2035 Interim and 2050 networks also show the 11 being re-routed to serve South Lake Union via corridor 1061, which is slated as a RapidRide corridor in the 2050 network. While we would love to see this corridor prioritized for RapidRide in the 2035 plan, there does not seem to be any feasible path to doing so based on our discussions with the County Council. However, all of this is likely dependent on Denny Way getting bus lanes as this would both extend Route 11 and pull it away from dedicated transit lanes on the Pike / Pine, requiring exceptionally high service hour costs if it has to fight traffic on Denny.

The Seattle Transportation Plan calls for the highest tier of frequency on Denny Way

Even without a re-route, Routes 8 and 11 already overlap on Olive and John, which is a mutual source of headache for both routes. Adding bus lanes to this corridor would speed them up, with Route 3 getting some minor benefits as well. However, doing so would not be a simple task as these streets are dotted with bus and curb bulbs, whose removal would simply throwing down some red paint to convert parking lanes into bus lanes would result in buses needing to merge with traffic every block, reducing their effectiveness. A full redesign of the corridor may be warranted to ensure they can run at full speed without harming pedestrian safety. Fortunately, the Seattle Transportation Plan includes multimodal improvements that will be able to completely redesign the entire Route 8 corridor west of Madison as a Large Capital Project, which calls for at least $10M in funding. In fact, transit improvements for Denny Way and Olive Way are included in the 2024 Seattle Transportation Levy, although it is not included in the 2025 Levy Delivery Plan and we urge SDOT to prioritize this transformational project.

The Seattle Transportation plan includes large-scale improvements for the western half of Route 8

Unfortunately, John Street and Thomas Street's exclusion in the Levy means we will need to wait at least 8 years before design for that corridor even starts. Although not nearly as bad as Denny Way, westbound John St also serves as a major headache for both routes and we would encourage SDOT to look into possible spot improvements to mitigate traffic impacts in the meantime. For example, the existing westbound bus-only left-turn lane at John and Broadway for Route 43 could be extended a few meters to reach the nearby bus bulb to double as a queue jump lane for routes 8 and 11. Furthermore, that signal is currently triggered by personal vehicles and is extremely sensitive, often activating with an empty lane. Adjusting it so that it can only be triggered by buses would improve traffic flow continuing straight with fewer turn phases.
Either way, we are excited that Seattle has so many plans in the works to make meaningful improvements along much of Route 8. We just wish that they would come sooner. If you want to help the Fix the L8 campaign's push to prioritize these changes, send an email to our local leaders and consider joining the campaign! We are also hosting a Race the L8 event on July 10th at 5 PM to highlight the issues that Route 8 is facing, more details here!