Seattle’s Route 8 study assumes bottomless motorist demand, no mode shift to transit with bus lanes.

The infamous Route 8 is King County Metro’s slowest and least reliable bus in its entire system, stymied by I-5 traffic that turns Denny Way into a glorified parking lot. Riders have been calling it the “L8” (late) for decades and even raced it in July, outpacing it while walking, jumproping, leapfrogging, conga-lining, dancing the cha-cha-slide, and more. The Fix the L8 campaign has long been asking for a bus lane to be painted in each direction of Denny Way to fix this, with thousands of emails sent in support.

However, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has recently ruled bus lanes out, saying it would lead to untenable congestion. This was surprising as bus lanes are proven to reduce congestion by incentivizing drivers to take transit with a faster, cheaper, and calmer commute. So, we asked SDOT: “How many drivers did your study assume would switch to taking the bus?” 

Their answer: Zero.

This analysis is completely absurd and cannot be used to guide policy. Route 8 is a vital connector in the city as the only east-west transit connection between downtown and the ship canal. As a testament to this, it still manages to be one of the top-ten busiest bus routes in Seattle with 7,000 daily riders despite also being the least reliable. 

If a bus lane allowed buses to average 10 mph, then they could cross Denny Way from Seattle Center to I-5 in just six minutes. That’s over twice as fast as driving today and would be certain to attract hoards of drivers to leave their cars at home and take the bus instead. After all, Commute Seattle surveys have consistently shown that the number one reason why people drive over taking transit is time.

Buses are so much more space efficient than cars that this exodus of drivers would more than make up for the loss of a general travel lane by painting it red. In fact, a single Route 8 bus could fit the driver of every car in an entire lane full of traffic along Denny Way. This would leave the remaining lane wide open for I-5 traffic, whose main bottleneck would still be the light to get on I-5.

SDOT’s traffic model ignored all of this and assumed that drivers heading to Capitol Hill would rather spend an extra 34 minutes in traffic than set foot on a bus that would be faster than their current commute. SDOT Director Adiam Emery and Mayor Bruce Harrell have repeatedly claimed that Seattle is “transit first,” so why do we think people will put transit last?

SDOT’s announcement of the study results claim that they “encourage transit use,” but they completely disregarded the number one way to do so. Why did we spend nearly two years of time and taxpayer money studying a bus lane SDOT thought nobody would use? What was the point of a transit analysis that ignores transit? How did leadership approve a study under such distorting assumptions? There’s such a flagrant lack of due diligence that it makes me wonder if this study was intentionally designed to scuttle bus lanes on Denny and suppress public support for them.

We’re not alone in these concerns as Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck has called for a formal inquiry into how this decision was made, and the Seattle Transit Advisory Board described the study as “theater from SDOT and the Mayor’s office in claiming to take a closer look at improving Route 8.”

This morning @councilmember-amr.bsky.social called for the council's transportation committee to pursue some type of formal inquiry into the decision to rule out additional bus lanes on Denny Way's most congested blocks to get the Route 8 out of traffic.

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— Ryan Packer (@typewriteralley.bsky.social) September 16, 2025 at 11:33 AM

It’s not like SDOT doesn’t know how to account for mode shift either. Their 2015 Madison Bus Rapid Transit study did so and found that curbside bus lanes, like the ones proposed for Denny Way, would actually improve travel times for westbound drivers. There is no reason that SDOT could not have performed a similar analysis for Denny as it has extremely similar traffic conditions to Madison at the time: a chronically congested arterial vital to both local and I-5 traffic.

If SDOT had squandered its Madison study the same way that it did for Denny, then this visionary project would have been dead in the water and Madison would still be just like Denny Way. Instead, the study allowed them to be ambitious for the RapidRide G Line, which can only be described as a massive success. Community members love it so much that they are even bringing drivers baked treats, noodles and egg rolls at their rest stop.

The G Line finally gave transit riders a fast and reliable commute while enticing thousands of people in cars to hop on board a bus. This has nearly quadrupled the ridership of the previous Route 12, with no signs of slowing down. If we applied this same multiplier to Route 8, then it would become the highest ridership bus route in Seattle by a factor of two.

So what solutions did SDOT propose in their announcement? Their main tactic is to mitigate I-5 traffic by installing five new signs for “improved routing and wayfinding,” which will be laughably ineffective. It’s not all bad though as they do plan to add some new bus lanes next year, but only on Queen Anne Avenue south of John and eastbound on Denny Way west of 2nd Avenue. This is extremely welcome, especially if they can be installed before the World Cup’s Fan Zone at Seattle Center, but they unfortunately are nowhere near the most congested section where we outwalked Route 8.

SDOT is also blocking right turns from northbound Westlake Avenue to eastbound Denny, which will be transformative for the C Line, Route 40, and SLU Streetcar, but will only have marginal impacts on Route 8.

The inconsistency in their reasoning also extends to their commentary on the study’s results. SDOT expressed concerns that delays on Denny could have severe consequences on surrounding streets as drivers seek alternative routes, but SDOT’s proposed signage would promote those alternatives. How did they not consider the alternative of taking a bus that would be flying past traffic?

It is shameful that SDOT is essentially saying that the best use for Denny Way is as a parking lot and this fails to consider what we’d gain by making a different choice. Fewer cars jammed onto Denny Way would also make the street more pleasant for people walking — and the many thousands living in new homes that have been added along Denny over the last decade.

The eastbound bus lane that SDOT studied doesn’t make sense either. It only extended as far west as 9th Avenue, and SDOT claimed that buses would get snarled in traffic leading up to the bus lane. If we’re going to extend the existing eastbound bus lane, why would we stop at 9th instead of connecting to the one planned at 2nd?

SDOT is also worried that even after reaching the bus lane, buses would be delayed due to “continuing to encounter heavy traffic at Westlake, Fairview, and nearby streets.” We question where this “heavy traffic” would come from if there is a bus lane in place. If it’s coming from turning traffic, we’ve already detailed how the impacts of turning traffic can be mitigated on those intersections by blocking turns at controlled intersections in favor of a turn immediately before them. These alternate routes don’t have traffic signals, improving traffic flow, and have much shorter crossings with curb bulbs, which greatly increase pedestrian safety and comfort.

Cars are responsible for nearly two-thirds of Seattle’s emissions and traffic congestion is worsening as the region grows. The answer to both those problems is to provide fast and reliable alternatives to driving. Seattle has slowly been making progress towards this, and as a result, car ownership rates have dropped by 10% between 2017 and 2023. But that momentum will stall if the department continues to assume that drivers are inextricably tied to their vehicles and treat non-drivers as an afterthought. SDOT must revisit their traffic study while breaking that assumption, if they ever want to learn how to make a bus faster than jumping rope.

If you agree, please consider sending an email to our local leaders.

SDOT Rules Out Key Denny Way Bus Lanes, Dooming Route 8