By Anna Zivarts
Back in 2021, I went to visit one of the young people I was organizing alongside. Abby Griffith lived in an affordable housing complex in Vancouver, Washington, and she kept on telling me how difficult it was for her to access transit because of how far the bus stop was from the complex.
I remember looking it up on a map, and thinking, pfft, that’s not really that bad—what is she complaining about? But then when I met Abby at her apartment and we walked the distance together, I realized how long it took her, as a blind person who uses a white cane to navigate, to cover the distance to the stop. What had seemed like no big deal to me added enough extra time to every trip that it created a significant travel barrier for her every time she wanted to leave her apartment.
I keep coming back to this walk with Abby when I think about the proposed Rapid Ride R. What would it mean for Rainier Valley residents who rely on transit to lose access to their local bus stop as stops are consolidated and cut in order to reduce travel times along the route? Will the Rapid Ride R be a positive change for the many seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families who rely on the bus for our travel needs?
The Rapid Ride R is proposed as a replacement to the 7, which is Metro’s second busiest route, moving 11,000 transit riders daily through some of the most transit-dependent neighborhoods in the region. I’ve never ridden another bus where there’s more competition for the flexible space in the front. Between walkers, wheelchairs, strollers and grocery carts, space is a premium. And for many of these users, longer trips along Rainier Valley’s cracked and crumbling sidewalks to get to more-distant bus stops would make travel significantly more difficult.
It’s not just people with disabilities and seniors that will experience these proposed changes as a new barrier. Parents with young children will understand this, as will anyone who has tried to carry something heavy or unwieldy (a melting paper bag of groceries, for example) home from the bus stop.
In 2020, Metro estimated the Rapid Ride R could save 7-12 minutes of travel time compared to the 7. But since then, the Seattle Department of Transportation has installed most of the planned bus-only lanes, meaning that much of the anticipated time savings have already been realized. Frustratingly, because of a rushed timeline (Metro wants the King County Council to approve the alignment by the end of this year) the agency hadn’t had time to do any new analysis, so it’s hard to know if, eliminating stops as proposed will meaningfully improve travel times compared to the 7 bus today. Even a 10-minute faster trip isn’t faster for you if you have to walk an extra 10 minutes to get to a further bus stop.
There’s also the bigger question: Is a slightly faster route from Rainier Valley to downtown Seattle the best investment, compared to other potential transit priorities for Southeast Seattle? The downtown-centric alignment of the Rapid Ride R was based on pre-pandemic destination data. Despite profound changes in commute patterns since then, there hasn’t been time or resources to examine whether Rainier Valley’s transit needs have evolved.
When I talk to other transit riders, I’ve heard people say they have plenty of transit options to get downtown—light rail provides a direct and express route already. What we’re missing are direct routes to Tukwila, Renton and First Hill, as well as east-west connections to places like Georgetown and South Park. Perhaps Metro thinks there is an untapped market of currently-driving downtown office workers who could be enticed to start riding the Rapid Ride. But for the rest of us already using transit in Rainier Valley, I doubt many of us would pick the Rapid Ride R alignment as our top priority.
There’s also the issue of what happens to transit riders who rely on the 7 in the area south of Henderson Street, since the proposed R would head towards the Rainier Beach light rail station instead of heading further south. This area has seen a lot of recent apartment construction and is also home to the Rainier Beach Safeway and the older Lake Washington Apartments complex. Metro seems to be suggesting that transit demand in this area can be met by Metro Flex, an on-demand transit service, but my own and other users’ experiences, trying to use Flex in this area is frustrating, impractical and not at all comparable to a regularly scheduled, fixed-route bus.
There are parts of the Rapid Ride investment proposal that make a lot of sense. Bus priority signals would allow buses to queue jump at intersections (let’s hope this can fix the delays at the Jackson/Rainier interchange). There are still places where the bus gets caught in traffic and bus-only lanes should be extended.
Most critically, if you’ve ever walked along or waited at a bus stop along Rainier on a rainy day, you’ve probably been soaked as passing cars splash you with gutter puddle juice. Rainier needs drainage upgrades and there are a lot of places that desperately need new sidewalks. Level boarding platforms at bus stops could potentially ease the boarding process for the many Rainier Valley transit riders traveling with wheelchairs, walkers, strollers and grocery carts.
But right now, it’s unclear whether the funding for this full suite of improvements exists and where it would come from. The 2024 Seattle Transportation Levy contains funding for repaving on the northern section of Rainier from Walden Street to Jackson, which will include sidewalk improvements. But who and what funding source would pay for other pedestrian infrastructure upgrades remains unclear.
Metro’s timeline for community engagement ends August 31. So far, the proposal has received very little media coverage, aside from this detailed Seattle Transit Blog piece, and I worry that many transit riders in the Rainier Valley haven’t had a chance to learn what’s being proposed. I called into an online open house on Saturday where I was one of three community members in attendance.
I want to see transit and infrastructure dollars go to Rainier Valley. I’m thrilled that there’s political momentum behind doing so. But I want to make sure we’re taking this opportunity to make the investments that community members need today.
Anna Zivarts is the founder and executive director of the Nondrivers Alliance, which has launched a petition to question the elimination of local transit stops on Rainier.
Editor’s note: This piece originally said a repaving project went from Rainier to Walker Street; in fact, it goes from Rainier to Walden street. The post has been corrected.
I live in the RV but I’m not a 7 rider. Just looking at the plan though it seems like the loss of service south of Henderson is the hole in this plan that metro doesn’t have an answer for. I kind of understand the rationale for connecting to Rainier Beach station but since the station barely serves rainier beach in the first place it just seems like throwing more good money after bad.
Also, I’ve seen no details in the plan about stringing new catenary wire to RB station, so are they just going to end trolley bus service altogether? Replacing dozens of daily trolleybus trips with diesel buses seems like a huge downgrade for local air quality.
Metro could operate a one standard ETB route serving the Prentice loop oriented to the RB Link station, Route 7P. The residential tail is less important than the commercial district.
Metro could be planning to extend the ETB overhead. There were attempts in the aughts and the teens. They seem to be slow about it. Route 2 was disrupted by the G Line construction and it took a long time to restore. The direct Link connection is more important than rebranding the service. Riders want to reach Link as it provides speed, short waits, and connections with urban centers.
Anna’s points are sound. The speed advantage of RR has come from all-door boarding and alighting and faster fare collection. Metro intends to use that faster fare collection network wide. Will they employ more fare inspectors? Route 7 is already on the inspected list of routes. Faster boarding and alighting and the presence of inspectors could be a triple win: better speed, security, and ridership. Operators would have fewer fare disputes. A bit of the RR speed advantage is gained from longer stop spacing; that is already agency standard; it was implemented on Aurora and SR-522 in the late 1990s. Is the Metro R Line suggestion to have even longer stop spacing and rely on routes 48 and 106 to serve intermediate stops? All the routes should have the standard spacing and the shorter waits provided. If Route 48 becomes an ETB, the routes could not easily pass one another anyway. Is Metro considering the network? Should routes 8, 9, 48, 106, 107 be improved?
Riders will not care much whether the bus is red, purple, or green. It is important that it remain ETB and connect with the Rainier Beach station. Will the SDOT rechannelization of South Henderson Street leave transit service behind in congestion?
Anna noted the Link stations: Rainier Beach, Mt. Baker, Judkins, and the DSTT. Should the R Line be Route 7 redux? Or should a different route structure be employed that provides better crosstown service while Link carries the loads to/from downtown Seattle? The turnaround loop for routes 7 and 36 using Virginia Street seems to use quite a few minutes, hours, and operators. SDOT and Metro are relying on a phasing of the seven Seattle RR lines suggested by Kubly in about 2015; it was infeasible at the time; it failed; RR is even more delayed than Link (hard to believe).
Thank you for this important piece. As your petition mentions, this R line proposal is reminiscent of the 42 fight back when Link opened. We desperately need improvements to the pedestrian experience on Rainier (including improved stops), but we don’t need *another* “rapid transit” option between Rainier Beach and downtown.
They might not involve shiny red buses, but local routes are still a critical part of our transportation infrastructure.
Thanks for writing this Anna. I attended an open house for the R at the Beacon Hill library, and I was somewhat dissapointed by Metro’s response to my concern around local bus stops closing between Mount Baker and Jackson. The 106 does provide service, but it’s not strictly fungible (since the 106 and 7 serve different parts of RV, etc.). And there’s been so many new apartments near Judkins Park — making people walk to a freeway overpass instead of catching the bus outside your front door seems awful to me.
Plus, this decision to remove so many local stops on Rainier with the 106 providing back-up means much less flexibility on where to send the 106 in the long-term. Those stops need service in one way or another, if the 7/R isn’t doing that well enough then doing something like sending the 106 to First Hill/Broadway doesn’t make sense anymore.
The network would be stronger if Route 106 was shifted to 23rd Avenue South and Yesler Way from Rainier Avenue South and South Jackson Street. It would serve the more assessable entrance to the Judkins station; there is more distance and elevation to negotiate to/from Rainier Avenue South than to/from 23rd Avenue South. The fall 2016 change was overtly political; it cost hours; it attracted fewer riders; productivity fell further; see routes 9, 106, 107, and 124. ACRS championed the change; they borrowed it from the terrible reductions networks of 2012-2013 that would have also deleted routes 14 and 27. The new and current Route 106 duplicates Link and routes 7, 14, and 36 too much. Yesler Way is underserved; it now has a dense Yesler Terrace; such a Route 106 would serve Jackson Square and density along Yesler Way that once had a cable car.