I’m sitting here at Cafe Fiore. Watching the clientele come in and out, here at 85th and 32nd. It’s a nice little coffee shop with seating outside on the side walk in the sun. Outside there is the junction of two bus lines; #17 and the #48. Just the other side of the junction is a road that goes downhill through forrest to a Golden Park along the waterfront. This, is an absolutely gorgeous area. Not for me, but absolutely stunning in so many ways.

Considering the ridership of the #17 and #48, many people in this area ride the bus on a regular basis. I gather this from several observations. There is not much density here, as everything for many blocks is single family homes and there are plenty of garages with more than a few cars here and there. However, just from the ridership numbers one can assume that the express busses probably get 80-90% of their patronage from this area, with another 10-20% along the Market Street area. Further, much further down the street between Market Street and 60th there are a lot more apartments, where I assume a large part of that 80-90% come from. Leaving about half or less of that percentage coming from this area… which concludes with about 1-2% of the households in this area riding the bus. Considering the suburban layout of this area, this isn’t all that bad of a number.

One major positive for this area, is this coffee shop garners heavy foot traffic on a day like this. As does the park below near the waterfront. This is encouraging, as people aren’t riding around in their automobiles cluttering up the streets with traffic and wasting fuel. It is a very community oriented neighborhood, very unlike the far flung suburbs of Bellevue, further north in Everett or other outlying suburbs. This is a more traditional style “streetcar suburb”. Considering where the streetcars used to travel, it once was, so it all makes logical sense that it continues to be this way.

The #17 travels along 32nd avenue down and onto Market Street in Ballard. There it cuts a turn down the parallel to Ballard Street (I can never remember this street) and then travels across the 15th Street Bridge. Here is where it gets tricky. The #17 express continues along 15th, which becomes Elliot or Interbay (I hate it when cities give a street multiple names, or it continues along and just has multiple names for different stretches), and then into downtown. The express only runs on weekdays. The regular local route runs along this same stretch until the southern end of the 15th street bridge where it turns and runs along the canal and onto Westlake, then getting into the city. The whole route, of course, with many more local stops. One trip takes a total of about 35 minutes forms end to end, and the other takes about 45-50 minutes end to end.

The #48 travels along 85th, then cuts south somewhere and heads into the University District. I’ve never ridden the entire length, but at some point I intend to, maybe later today. It has good patronage I hear, from conversation, from the college crowd.

Which leads me back to the excitement and thought, that when Seattle finally opens their extra few miles of light rail to the University District they’ll finally see massive ridership increases on a scale they’re not yet imagining. I at least hope, because ridership on everything else that has been built out like this (the current line, the commuter rail, etc) has been appalling compared to other Northwestern Cities like Vancouver, San Francisco, and Portland (in that order matter of fact).

But again, back to the #48, this route acts as a great local route into the University District area. In the future, when the light rail opens, it could provide as a major feeder along with another dozen lines straight to the light rail. I know some transit enthusiasts will scream at me for this, but they could even cancel some early morning frequencies and replace them with express routes straight along this route to the light rail. The express route could then provide faster travel along 85th and along the north south of its route into the University District, doubling as a fast light rail feeder, university express, and more. Combine both the express and regular route and the area will have one of the fastest methods of getting into University and into Downtown Seattle.

Anyway, onwards route #48. This deserves riding, so now that I’ve pondered it, I’m off to give it a ride. So between now (12:30 on Sunday) and the next time stamp I’ll have given the bus a ride. 🙂

#48 Narrative, A Sunday Ride during the “lowest ridership” part of the week!  😉

1:00pm, departing on time with my “English Driver” as he referred to himself. We chatted a bit about the route, when it is busy and when it isn’t, week days vs. week ends, and more. As we moved along it was a pretty standard Seattle Route (beautiful along the way), with standard Seattle Streets (deteriorated and bumpy).

We got to the 24th Street stop and boarded 7 guys, all appearing with bandannas and such, carrying on and having a good time. I couldn’t help but ponder if they had gang associations with their “cali” style appearance. They also had a standard American disregard for simple speaking etiquette, but one can never really expect that except in the morning when the working America is headed into or out of work for the day. In the end, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m not offended but do make the observation.

Total Person Trips so far: 7 (I’ll be excluding myself and adding me at the end of the trip)

At 15th Street I note the numerous Swedish and Norwegian Flags along the Safeway. It is very interesting the pride in the Ballard area in regards to these origins. The patrons on the bus however seemed completely unrelated to those origins in a number of ways. Fortunately, their slight annoyance left with their presence as the de-bussed.

This was good since a small girl with a soccer ball, her mother, an elderly gentleman, and one other boarded at the 15th Street Stop. This makes for a much more comfortable ride for them, since these faux gangsters left (I say faux, since they obviously don’t live in poverty, northern Seattle isn’t exactly poor).

Total Person Trips so far: 11

Just a few streets further we have two elderly asian ladies board, with big smiles on their faces. They were speaking a language that I could not identify in any way. It struck me odd, as I can usually identify languages with a fair amount of accuracy. After a few minutes though, I realized what language they were speaking, which struck me as really odd, German! Yes, these two ladies were speaking German!

Total Person Trips: 13

Another man boarded, another man with his mother boarded, and several got off along the next few blocks.

Total Person Trips: 15

We reached Palatine Avenue North and one could see a number commercial establishments, little dives and grocery stores, basically a small town center of sorts. It appears to be a nice area that has at least a half dozen or more decades of history behind it. Again, another one of those “streetcar suburbs” which becomes very appareling with its character and presence. These suburbs always tend to go in stark contrasts, either beautiful and lively, with character or violent, downtrodden, with character and barely scraping by.

Getting into the core of this town center just a bit we boarded another 5 young people and another fella. This got our person trips up to 21.

While boarding one of the individuals, who was handicap and thus takes a minute or two, we boarded another 2 gentleman, which again bumped us up to 23 before we even pulled away from the stop.

We passed more streets; Dayton, Evanston, Fremont, Linden, and more. Along the way we picked up another 5, all younger people. Giving us a wide age range of people on this bus.

The bus finally arrived at Aurora, the major arterial to downtown where the #358 runs frequently (every 10 minutes? not sure how often but it is often). We moved on thru the light at Aurora with a few more boarded while passing another dozen or so higher density residential areas. The Aurora Corridor always kind of trips me out. It’s busy commercial and then quickly goes from moderate density to practically single home density within 4-5 blocks, with very little walkability, or enjoyable walkability along Aurora. However the residential areas are beautiful with sidewalks, small parks, schools and more.

Total Person Trips: 28

We rode further and I noticed another strange bit, the ladies speaking German behind me where also speaking Chinese now. Wow, my mind was being blown away by these two ladies just chatting away. It was really cool to hear them both switching between languages like that.

We arrived at Green Lake via Wallingford, turning onto the street slowly while dozens of people crossed. Another individual boarded the bus at this intersection stop. We then rolled on with the gorgeous lake view and hundreds of beautiful people jogging, walking, and families enjoying the Green Lake and surrounding park area.

The route was easy going along this segment. The trees stood still with no real wind to speak of, except as the bus passed we caused a slight stir. As we headed into the town center area near Green Lake along the eastern side of the lake, the route cuts onto Ravenna. In the median of Ravenna there are more jogging and bicycling on this gorgeous day. Very few cars are out at all, one of the beautiful things about the northwest. When it is nice out, in areas like this, people actually get out and get going within their communities.

We then cut onto 65th and pass underneath Interstate 5, the blight that it is here. Even though it poses all of the problems to a community and neighborhood that an Interstate does, the city and community has done its part to clean up, and keep clean, underneath the Interstate. Making it as appealing and as negligible an impact as possible. Just a few blocks further the town center area of Green Lake, even though divided by the Interstate, continues on into the University District Area. There we board another 2 people.

Total Person Trips: 30

A short ride further and we board another 3 after a turn onto 15th heading south into the University District core. Passing Cowen and 15th we get another person, a let off one person who travelled a whopping 1 stop with us.

The buildings in this part of town are interesting, with an almost European Elegance to them. Interspersed with College Dormitory style apartments that show a slight wear and tear. The route continues on 15th, heading uphill into the area. Another 1 person boards.

Total Person Trips: 35

We arrive at 50th, which gets us about as close to the core of the University District to make a walk around easily done. The bus clear 47th, 45th, and so on. It appears some of the blocks just skip altogether in this part of the city. Another 1 person boards.

While heading down 15th street through the University District I note that the construction of the bus stops is going well. They look nice, open designs, easier to keep clean and unmarked by the mischievous. It doesn’t appear they’ll be completely enclosed, green style stops as is traditional in Seattle like King County Metro has built them in the past.

A bit further on, another rider boards. The sun shines in brightly as we come down to Pacific Avenue. One of the riders that boarded earlier continues, after more than 10 minutes already, to frantically put on lotion. I suspect, considering her light complexion that she’s preparing to be outside for a while. However I keep noticing since she has this frantic gusto about her efforts to get this lotion on. In a way, it’s sort of comical, and even though she doesn’t realize somewhat awkward for her activity. Others are watching her every few moments, her activity triggering an instinctual response to look and see what the frantic action is about!

I just sit there, straight faced as I always do. We pull along, on Pacific Avenue and then across the canal bridge into the Montlake area. While passing one can see the cranes and walls surrounding the future light rail tunnel stop.

As the bus travels along 24th avenue through Montlake, I see a few funny sites. One is a couch, in typical northwest fashion, sitting on the sidewalk with a big sign that has “free” written across it. Further up the way, in the heat of the this sunny day, I see two standard bearing “Goth” kids walking along a sidewalk with big bags of colorful recyclables. It isn’t haha funny, but curious funny, with a little touch of entertaining.

Our current load of passengers slowly starts to trickle away as we move up the hill while still on 24th. We travel thru some extremely rough spots in the road. This bumpiness, another of my frustrations with buses, is frustrating. Flinging the monitor on my laptop forward. The display almost hits its back against the seat wall in front of me. I can’t help but ponder how much nicer this would be if it were light rail, a streetcar, or something on solid, flanged wheels. I’d even suffice to say a nice Mercedes BRT style bus would do exponentially better. But oh well, life will go on, I’ll straighten my display, and I’ll just suffer the bus life with it’s better livability versus the other options (auto-based dependent nooses, I mean lifestyles, for those that may read this and not know what I speak of).

We arrive at Madison, 23rd, and Denny, and a young girl holds her arms out to her sides, as if forming a cross, and rotates her torso. Apparently exercising or doing middle of the sidewalk yoga. Something of the sort, one more funny bit to note.

During these few stops we trickle away a few more riders and gain another 6 over time.

Total Person Trips: 41

As we move further into the core of downtown Seattle, we pass a Church with patrons lined up outside heading inside. We board a few African Americans, taking pride in their church going activities and wearing very stylish proper Sunday attire. Further on we board more youth, a few more elderly, and a loud mouthed mother. She spurts out commands to her child making half the bus look at her. Being she’s a “loud mother” people just look down and ignore her. Not particularly concerned with her or her disruption. Another person boards, we roll on.

To the right, facing west, the city buildings can be seen from about the 40th floor and up. The First and Capitol Hills and the angle we ride upon them, block the view any lower than that. We head thru an African American dominated part of town into another Asian dominated part of town. The divide, in my opinion unfortunate, is clear from one part of town to another. Hopefully the divide continues to decrease over time as it has been. The horrors of Seattle’s past between these two communities, and the Irish and Asian Communities is something to be left in the past.

Riding a long further one yard has the flames of a super hot barbecue alive with the efforts of the cooks. Several in the yard focusing on attaining those tasty morsels.

The route cuts along a S in the road as we draw nearer the end of the route. It makes me wonder, with the ridership on a Sunday like this evenly spaced in this short end of the route equal to that of the long 85th to the University District end. I had thought earlier that this would be a great route that could act as a feeder into the light rail station, and it absolutely can, but this southern end of the route will probably maintain a pretty significant ridership that may or may not feed into the light rail, but instead just in and around the area. It does however serve to some degree as a feeder into the Baker Station Stop of the existing light rail station. This however brings up another thought, “do the bus routes act very much as feeders to the light rail or is the light rail mostly derived from other sources?”

The bus pulls onto Rainer Avenue, where the loud mother and her mother de-bus, a friendly reminder from one passenger asks them, “is this your stroller” under the front seat. To which the mother’s mother replies, “yes, thank you” as they all line up and de-bus. Always nice, that even the noisy, what appears to be uncourteous individuals, can be respectful and polite. Just because they don’t cover the full gamut of what one might think is or isn’t polite, doesn’t mean that individuals don’t have their redeeming qualities and polite aspects.

We arrived, just a few minutes behind the intended arrival. Pulling into the Baker Transit Center stop at 2:08pm. A great ride, interesting sites, beautiful scenery, and a very wide slice of Seattle’s Population. Asian, African American, Philippine, Mexican, and more. Always great to see transit, where the real melting pot of the United States is.

I got off the bus, while some people asked the driver questions about where they were going. I pulled my bike from the bike rack on the front of the bus. Officially, the trip is complete.

Total Person Trips: 41 <- Anyone know the peak person trips per frequency? I’d love to know what the range is.

End Narrative

I walked across the street to the Baker Transit Center Light Rail Station. Up the escalator and along within 2 minutes was my ride back into town… and this is where I leave this blog entry.

Cheers, happy riding!
Transit Sleuth

PS – The geoposition on this blog entry, which is the address for Zeitgeist Coffee (1 of the best in Seattle) isn’t showing up on the Bing Maps properly. It shows like it is in the stupid stadium, it however is clearly in the old town part of Pioneer Square Area! Not cool Bing Maps, not cool.