Future Water Taxi, Rapid Ride and improved Metro service

Many of you (or all) will have read about the King County Ferry District and the increase in local real estate and other taxes which will fund a longer-term run of the popular West Seattle Water Taxi, moving it to at least hourly service every day for the entire year beginning roughly in 2009. That same new Ferry District will also run some experimental taxis between some or all of these new water-accessible Seattle-area points: Ballard (Shilshoal/Pier 91 or both) to downtown; the UW boat dock area to Kirkland; Des Moines to downtown; Renton-ish to downtown via some area in Madrona-Lechi area; and possibly even an Everett/Shoreline to downtown run.

At the same time, a tax which was voted for in the Transit Now initiative will pay for the planning, development and implementation of five RapidRide routes - RapidRide being the brand which King County Metro is giving to their upcoming Bus Rapid Transit service. The West Seattle RapidRide service will begin in 2011 (two years after the more-permanent, year-round Water Taxi service begins). This service will provide a new generation of greener and cleaner/leaner double-articulated buses running every 10 minutes (plus or minus probably 4 minutes - busier routes more, less busy less) 18 to 20 hours a day, seven days a week. This new BRT service will serve (at this point in the planning) mostly the southwest and central areas of West Seattle. The expanded Water Taxi service will serve mostly the central and north-northeast areas of West Seattle.

The transit service to the southeast and east and central-east areas of West Seattle was recently improved by the same Transit Now initiative by making the Route 120 15-minute service Monday through Saturday (30-minute service on Sunday). West Seattle transit service has been and is being improved substantially. What is still missing are local circulator routes and the time and service level requirements.

It is time for us to begin thinking of what one or more circulator bus systems could be like here in West Seattle. There are significant barriers between the ridges on the west side of Longfellow Creek and the ridges on the east side, but these are not insurmountable. Where should these circulator buses go - i.e., what neighborhoods should they connect and should there be one single figure-eight style route, two or more intersecting circle or oval routes around particular geographic sections of West Seattle. What kind of bus and what frequency of service.

If it takes four buses in each direction to accomplish a four-or-five square-mile area of West Seattle, that would make that circulator service require either eight buses for bi-directional travel or only four for single-direction travel. Do we want bi-directional routes. This question gets to the root of how to define our circulator systems. Where do the 60-30-10 percent of us want to go here in West Seattle. Are there three loops and three frequencies.

Lots of questions to begin to ponder, but, with the activity happening around us with respect to improved transit and the definite and near-term reality of the Viaduct, First Avenue South and portions of 99 being unavailable to us for years on end, it's important to create a useful, logically planned and implemented West Seattle-specific transit system - and by system I mean the "plan" which King County implements here on the peninsula for our use.

Ideally, it should take no more than 20 minutes from anywhere in West Seattle to reach the Water Taxi dock, or the Fauntleroy dock. That's what it takes in West Seattle morning or evening rush hour by car, with all the traffic and lights. The advantage of West Seattle is that our grid - the surface transit network we have as streets and sidewalks and stairways, is more than adequate for the present and reasonable future population of West Seattle in terms of allowing the local residents to get from and to anywhere on the peninsula in a short time - but it's by car.

For public transit to be effective it should take no more than half-again the amount of time it takes by car. Otherwise our use of cars will never be trumped because the one thing we don't have is time. Am I willing to waste an hour just to use public transit to get somewhere that if I drove would take 15 to 25 minutes? The logical answer is no. And that's what we need to work on - planning a public transit system here on the peninsula that connects us with ourselves and all of us with the rest of Seattle and especially the other neighborhoods and areas where we have friends or destinations and visit. Now, we do this with our cars because it's still easier than by transit (mostly!). Here in West Seattle we have an opportunity to look at our own transit future and help design it ourselves based on our needs and requirements and - yes - wants.

Getting downtown is only going to get easier and faster. That's never been an issue. It's the rest of the city and particularly West Seattle. Start throwing ideas on the table. One new advantage King County Metro has, through a Council amendment, is that individual service areas can self-tax (or use general funds) to partner for additional individual area service which is outside of the jurisdiction of the equal area parity funding. It wouldn't be Seattle Transit, or even West Seattle Transit, but areas which can provide either the infrastructure improvement (quid pro quo) or the funding can get additional service. So, even outside of the county funding constraints, there are opportunities. There is also a fund pool for Viaduct-99 out-of-service mitigation and it's conceivable that a form of mitigation could be the funding for a frequent shuttle service between West Seattle's docks, its business centers and recreation/cultural/educational assets and its neighborhoods.

Go for it!