A planned extension of Seattle’s most heavily-used bus corridor is officially on ice, after being delayed several times and coming under fire from a city councilmember. The upgrade, which would have extended existing bus-only restrictions along Third Avenue three blocks north into Belltown, would have saved bus riders a collective 230 hours every single weekday, according to traffic modeling completed by the City of Seattle.
Touted jointly by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and King County Metro in early 2024, project construction had been slated to start last summer in conjunction with a planned repaving project in the area. But after District 7 Councilmember Bob Kettle came out opposed to the change, asserting it would interfere with revitalization work happening along Third, the project was tentatively pushed to after the 2026 World Cup. Now, City websites have been scrubbed of any references to the project, with SDOT telling The Urbanist that the city is “not advancing the transit priority extension into Belltown at this time.”
Newly obtained records show SDOT and King County Metro laying out the justification for the project in emails sent last year, but not the reason for its cancellation. An internal SDOT presentation noted that the idea of extending the Third Avenue transit mall had been paused during the pandemic but restarted in response to the return of traffic congestion issues downtown.
“Today, transit currently experiences similar delay as pre-pandemic levels, with 10-15 seconds delay per trip,” one slide noted. “Proposed changes would reduce travel time of buses by 10-15 seconds. Over 80,000 riders per day will benefit from these changes.”
Transportation officials flagged the high ridership buses that use Third Avenue to transverse downtown.
“The goal of the project is to reduce delay experienced by routes serving Third Avenue, including high ridership lines like the Rapid Ride C, D, E and H lines (more than 32K daily riders in total) as well as 23 transit routes serving a variety of neighborhoods, such as Delridge, Roosevelt, Magnolia, South Lake Union, South Park, Queen Anne, Burien, and Ballard (~50K daily riders),” an internal SDOT email from last year notes.
“[T]here is a detailed study that was put together by a consultant hired by SDOT, the study focused on impacts to alternate traffic routes and access for all the driveways and parking/load zones along this segment of 3rcl Ave,” the email continues. “The study came up with an estimate of 10 sec savings per trip with the proposed improvements. When multiplied by the 83K weekday riders through here (2023 ridership), that comes to about 230 hours cumulative time savings each weekday for our riders.”
After the change, drivers using Third Avenue for local access would have been required to exit the street at the next block, with general purpose traffic restricted from turning left onto Third from westbound Lenora Street or eastbound Virginia Street. Transit advocates have been pushing for increased bus priority through the area for years, with a Move All Seattle Sustainably (MASS) Coalition campaign for the rapid expansion of bus lanes in 2018 explicitly including Third all the way to Denny Way. (The Urbanist is a member of the MASS Coalition.)
Third Avenue has been an intense area of focus for Mayor Bruce Harrell’s Downtown Activation Plan, but that focus has largely remained fixed on improving the public realm rather than improving transit. High profile commenters — including Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat — have blamed problems along the corridor on the street’s transit priority, despite little evidence that the issues are directly linked.
While the idea of extending transit priority clearly had support within SDOT and at King County Metro, it didn’t seem to have the same level of support among the city’s top decision-makers. (The Mayor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on this story.)
Kettle, who represents the district that includes Downtown Seattle, called the project’s need outdated in June 2024. Despite this claim, his office had received 2023 ridership data showing that more than 83,000 daily riders were utilizing routes that traverse that section of Third Avenue.
“We cannot be, essentially, changing the facts on the ground like in terms of bus service on Third Avenue, in terms of the idea of extending it into Belltown,” Kettle said at the time. “I’ve been speaking with members of the Department of Transportation, SDOT, and obviously this idea from 2018 is not really applicable today, and in fact it would be kind of a step backwards.”
The internal SDOT presentation from around the same time notes that initial public outreach on the change outlined feedback that “businesses [are] concerned about being more challenging to reach and that this will cut down traffic and impact revenue and ability to operate.” Officials also reported “concern that the project is not needed, and this would make access complicated for residents.” On the other hand, SDOT has cited support from the Downtown Seattle Association, which had been communicated to the City at a briefing in 2023.
Despite the removal of the project from SDOT’s Third Avenue improvements website, that page still touts the fact that [e]xtending dedicated bus only hours on 3rd Ave also supports the Mayor’s Executive Order on climate justice in transportation.” The project was also removed from the Transit Spot Improvements page, which now doesn’t list anything more recent than 2021.
With all eyes on the 2026 World Cup right now, the long-term question of what Third Avenue will look has been put on the back burner, even as the downtown business community has shone a strong desire to re-envision the street and attract more upscale storefronts. The new Seattle Transportation Levy includes $15 million for Downtown Activation, a pot of funding that explicitly includes direction to advance work on longer-term vision for the street. For now, there’s no telling what that could include.
“Transit improvements will be a key component of our vision for the corridor, and we will continue to explore opportunities for future planning and coordination as we move forward,” SDOT spokesperson Mariam Ali told The Urbanist.
When contacted about the reversal, King County Metro declined to throw the City under the proverbial bus. “Third Avenue continues to be Metro’s busiest bus corridor in our system,” Metro spokesperson Elaine Porterfield told The Urbanist this month. “Metro and SDOT will keep partnering on projects to improve speed and reliability and we look forward to an ongoing collaboration as well as consideration of future changes there once SDOT paving work is complete.”
Ryan Packer has been writing for The Urbanist since 2015, and currently reports full-time as Contributing Editor. Their beats are transportation, land use, public space, traffic safety, and obscure community meetings. Packer has also reported for other regional outlets including BikePortland, Seattle Met, and PubliCola. They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.