the police (who were cool as cucumbers) and protesters figured out a way to let buses through without leaving the intersection.

Story here.

(the following map has been included for entertainment purposes only)

Not a pretty sight!  The reason for these delays, typically, is the fact that the bus heads East over I-5 via Spring street, stuck in traffic with all the cars trying to get on I-5 S in the evening.  Once it passes I-5, it moves over to Seneca and heads up First Hill (since Seneca is one-way West of 7th Ave), as you can see in my lovely map below:

The red arrows show car traffic entering and exiting I-5.

One way to solve this mess would be to create a transit-only Eastbound lane on Seneca between 3rd and 7th.  Then the bus would avoid the I-5 entrance and Spring St. altogether.  The transit lane, in my awesome rendering, might take up the yellow space below:

Of course, this would mean one fewer lane for cars exiting I-5 at Seneca in the morning.  Maybe you could mitigate this by removing parking on Seneca, and thereby retaining capacity.  But if not, well, I won’t shed a tear.  The city may not control the bus system, but they do control the road right-of-way, and it would be nice to see more efforts to use that right-of-way in favor of transit, not cars, especially cars coming in from outside the city.

I write about this not to try to over-generalize wildly from personal experience, but to show an example of where the priorities of transit riders and the priorities of auto commuters collide.  If the city’s serious about increasing transit ridership and decreasing auto dependence (i.e. “Walk, Bike, Ride”), these are the sorts of moves to make.  A more frequent, reliable No. 2 could also help revitalize the languishing corner of 23rd & Union.

This is all easy to say as an armchair planner.  Still, I can’t help but think there’s some merit to it.  After all, the No. 2 appears to have had a more direct route back in 1941 before I-5 was built.  Perhaps it can be that way again.

This bus, the 2X, is often one of the more lively buses I take.  Almost all of the drivers are friendly, and one even announces daily trivia as he drives, to entertain those without books or iPods.  But I watched the driver today (admittedly new to this route, or I haven’t seen her before) and the only word I heard her say was a “goodbye” in response to the lone “thank you” as a passenger exited.  Normally there are dozens of “thank you”s and “good morning”s, if not more interesting chatter.  Is this the fault of the plastic barrier?  We’ll probably need a sample size larger than one to find out, but it certainly didn’t feel as friendly.

Regarding safety, I’m not sure this route requires a plastic barrier to feel safe.  Around 70% of the riders onboard were attractive young women in summer clothing (single guys should seriously consider moving to Queen Anne and taking the bus), and almost all were business commuters.  If these are the mean streets that we’re trying to protect drivers from, then Seattle is the most gentle city on the planet.

Eastside Rail Now! has some great photos along the route if you’re interested in getting a better feel for it.

Interestingly enough at least one of the rail overpasses is coming down. WSDOT is taking down one of the rail overpasses over I-405 to widen the freeway. This brings up one of the major problems with the corridor: lots of overpasses. Before we bend over backwards to turn it into a trail, keep in mind that there are at least a few points where you’ll be jogging or biking on an old train trestle as it crosses I-405 or I-90.

Sims, along with the environmentalists and transportation advocates, signed a statement of Principles of Dual Use for the corridor. The principles include the promise to work with local, state and federal agencies for money to build a rail line on the 40 mile corridor being sold by the railroad. Trail advocates from the start have advocated the dual use of this critical public asset and the statement of principles signed today emphasize their absolute commitment to this goal.

“All of my documents and all of my staff presentations are about dual use. But let there be no doubt to anyone about our intention to include a rail line if we are able to secure public ownership of this corridor,” said Executive Sims. “If the money were available, we’d build modern commuter or high capacity transit rail immediately.”

Some transit advocates feared that once it became a trail, no one would tolerate building rail on it. But the rail advocates don’t have the money or the ridership numbers to justify a train. The PSRC study recommended trail now, rail later. But Sims wants to reassure us that rail is still a priority.

Although the Port Commissioner is explicitly mentioned, there’s no talk of the infamous trail-for-airport swap that the kids were crazy about back in the day.

Update: The P-I’s spin: Sims is trying to buy time until he can come up with the dough.

The trail would be designed as a “dual-use facility” that could accommodate a high-capacity passenger rail line sometime in the future, said one of the architects of the deal, County Executive Ron Sims.

If a final deal is reached in the coming months, the Port would pay $103 million for the rail line, then swap it with King County in exchange for county-owed Boeing Field.

The Port would also give the county $66 million to build a biking and hiking trail south of the Snohomish County line. Freight trains would continue to run between Woodinville and Snohomish.

So the Port is paying $169 million for an entire airport, or roughly one-tenth of the cost to add a third runway at Sea-Tac. Not a bad deal! The county gets to divest itself from the airport business, which makes sense, and it gets to preserve the right-of-way for transit use down the road.

The P-I adds:

Operations [at the airport] would not change at least until 2022, when SeaTac Airport, which is owned by the port, is expected to reach capacity, Sims said.

That’s when the pedal hits the metal. Remember that Sims was able to halt Southwest’s proposal to build a passenger terminal at Boeing Field in 2005. The Port objected to Southwest’s proposal, mainly because Alaska Air would have moved to match it, and the resulting decrease in gate fees at Sea-Tac would have hurt the Port’s funding for the afore-mentioned third runway.

Now, with the Port in control of Boeing Field’s destiny, it will be able to dole out passenger service as it sees fit. And, wouldn’t you know it, 2022 is just about the time Sea-Tac, third runway and all, is expected to reach capacity. Georgetown residents probably ought to get ready to fight again.