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 Walker 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.