To give more history about this route, there is a annual “race the 8!” event scheduled by seattle urbanists where people start off on its route and do increasingly outlandish activities on foot while still beating it. Folks have beat it juggling, waling backwards, etc. Katie and her kids participated before she was the mayor, and you guessed it, beat it.
It is not just prioritising car commuters from outside vs locals, it is simply an extremely wasteful use of limited traffic capacity. The bus, not clogged down in traffic, has a way higher capacity than probably even two full car lanes at the highest performance. A bus lane is the only rational thing there. If that makes the highway off ramp redundant because there is no capacity for cars left to justify it, simply tear it down. It is fake capacity anyway if the traffic cannot be supported further down the road and it would even benefit car drivers, as it would remove a clogging point and free up capacity on the highway.
I agree with everything you say until the end. It’s disingenuous to say that residents do not take the highway. It runs through the middle of the city! We all take the damn highway.
To give more history about this route, there is a annual “race the 8!” event scheduled by seattle urbanists where people start off on its route and do increasingly outlandish activities on foot while still beating it. Folks have beat it juggling, waling backwards, etc. Katie and her kids participated before she was the mayor, and you guessed it, beat it.
It is not just prioritising car commuters from outside vs locals, it is simply an extremely wasteful use of limited traffic capacity. The bus, not clogged down in traffic, has a way higher capacity than probably even two full car lanes at the highest performance. A bus lane is the only rational thing there. If that makes the highway off ramp redundant because there is no capacity for cars left to justify it, simply tear it down. It is fake capacity anyway if the traffic cannot be supported further down the road and it would even benefit car drivers, as it would remove a clogging point and free up capacity on the highway.
I agree with everything you say until the end. It’s disingenuous to say that residents do not take the highway. It runs through the middle of the city! We all take the damn highway.
Ehh, way more residents take or would take that bus then would use that on ramp. Its mainly an ingress point to the freeway for people who commute.
The ramp isnt even closing, its just being sanely re-routed to not cause such a clusterfuck.