RapidRide G Bus Ridership Starts Strong and Is Trending Upward

Initial ridership on the RapidRide G, Seattle’s newest bus rapid transit line, is strong and growing, according to data provided by King County Metro. Since its launch on September 14, riders have taken more than 150,000 trips on the G Line. The 2.5-mile bus line runs on Madison Street, connecting Downtown Seattle to Madison Valley via Capitol Hill and the Central District.

Over the first 26 days of October, average weekday ridership reached 4,111 daily riders, a 15% increase over initial weekday ridership in September. That’s more than twice as many riders as were riding the former Route 12 along Madison Street before the G Line’s arrival.

That ridership boost was powered by service that is more frequent, fast, and reliable — improvements that top the wish list for transit riders. With 328 daily trips six days a week, the G Line features the most frequent service that King County Metro offers and its highest level of transit priority roadway, aided by dedicated lanes along most of the corridor and center-loading bus platforms through First Hill.

However, the $144 million line has experienced some hiccups over its first few weeks as Metro has grappled with delivering a brand new type of service, including a unique fleet of coaches with doors on both sides and GPS technology that determines when it’s okay to open on the left side. Riders have reporting bunching, where two buses arrive in close succession. With buses scheduled every six minutes, it’s easy for one coach to pick up most of the passengers waiting at a stop and the coach coming behind to quickly catch up.

The G Line’s six-minute service can be traced back to an agreement between Metro, the City of Seattle, and the Federal Transit Administration to secure a $60 million federal grant that pushed the project across the finish line. The agreement stipulates six-minute service from 6am to 7pm Monday through Saturday. But that promise has proven to be a major undertaking for Metro, with 101 operators alone qualified to drive the G Line in order to meet promised frequencies.

Metro spokesperson Al Sanders told The Urbanist that a greater percentage of trips are arriving close to their scheduled time as the agency has attained more experience operating the G Line. October saw 76.1% of weekday trips arrive on time compared to 72.9% in September, and 78.4% of trips on Saturdays compared to 77%. But with close to one out of every four trips still off-schedule, the brand new line remains below Metro’s target of running at least 80% of trips on time.

As the G Line’s reliability increases, its popularity only continues to grow. With overall ridership up 19% in October compared to September, riders seem to be figuring out the benefits that the G Line has brought to a corridor where buses used to be infrequent and would regularly get caught in I-5 traffic. Metro has also been touting the G Line via a widespread advertising campaign, including signs on the side of G Line coaches.

Notably, ridership on Sundays — when buses arrive every 15 minutes compared with six minutes on every other day — was up 18% month-over-month and is at 70% of ridership levels on Saturdays.

With such a short route, much depends on the traffic signals along Madison and Spring Street to keep buses moving. Since construction continued at bus stops until hours before the G Line launched, Metro had a fairly limited window to test operations along the full corridor before going live. Post-launch, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), which handles the traffic signal infrastructure, has been making tweaks at numerous intersections.

“SDOT continues to coordinate with Metro to fine tune signal timing for the RapidRide G Line to improve traffic flow and reduce bus delays,” SDOT spokesperson Mariam Ali told The Urbanist. “During the first weeks of operation, we have closely monitored performance and made adjustments at key intersections, including Madison St & 6th Ave, Madison St & Boren Ave, E Madison St & 12th Ave, E Madison St & 15th Ave, E Madison St & 23rd Ave and E Madison St & MLK Jr Way E. We’ve also implemented new signal timing along the corridor from 8th to 22nd avenues.”

While initial ridership is modest when compared to some of Metro’s other workhorse RapidRide routes, the G Line is the first ever RapidRide line that created a brand new transit corridor, instead of simply upgrading an existing route. And it’s the shortest RapidRide line in the network. Compared to the E Line, the most popular bus route in the county and one that saw over 13,600 boardings in September, the G Line has fewer than one-third as many stops. The H Line, the most recent RapidRide line to launch prior to the G Line, has been seeing over 8,000 riders per day on its route between Downtown and Burien, getting close to the pre-pandemic highs of the former Route 120.

That being said, the G Line has significant capacity to grow ridership as it settles into its new position in the region’s bus network. That position is all the more vital due to Sound Transit’s failure to successfully build or plan a light rail station serving the neighborhood.

Sound Transit passed over First Hill for a light rail station, as had originally been planned as part of the 1996 Sound Move package, citing soil concerns. The agency again snubbed First Hill with Sound Transit 3 by shifting the planned Ballard Link station around Madison Street further south. As such, the G Line will remain the frequent transit connection to one of the city’s fastest growing neighborhoods.

So far, the ridership data shows the G Line is already providing big gains for riders, and it’s serving as a model for what happens when agencies boost frequency and get buses out of traffic.

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