On Thursday afternoon, Mayor Katie Wilson and Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck made the trip up to Denny Way to paint a bus lane for Route 8 at a major bottleneck near I-5.
The move will fulfill a pledge Wilson made on the campaign trail, which she followed up with an executive order her first month in office.
"When I became mayor, I promised to move quickly and make our transit system move more quickly," Wilson said. "My very first executive order called for the creation of this project to improve traffic flow on one of Seattle's most congested streets, and here we are making another investment toward irresistibly good bus service for the people of Seattle."
The exact timing of the final stretch of bus lane being added this summer had to wait on a neighboring construction project, although other project elements went in over the course of the summer.
Thursday's event took place at the base of the twin 48-story towers of Aero1200 – a $400 million project along Denny Way featuring a retail galleria adorned with a Boeing 747 fuselage suspended over a breezeway. While work is still happening within the towers, utility work progressed to the point the street could be repaved to make way for the new bus lane.
Like Wilson, Rinck has made transit one of her top issues, and frequently notes she's Seattle's only car-free councilmember, as she did Thursday. She said it's a move that Seattleites are increasingly making, with the city leading the country in formation of car-free households.
"I'm proud of the fact our population has now hit over 800,000 people, and we've added 80,000 people in recent years, and only 3,000 cars," Rinck said. "So, people are choosing to live in our city, and they're choosing not to drive. The least we can do is make that choice work."
King County Metro General Manager Michelle Allison attended the ceremony, which she emphasized was hotly anticipated at her agency, too.
"For those of us at Metro, today is sort of like Christmas, where you anticipate something, you wait for something, and you know it's going to be really exciting," Allison said. "Because moments like this – bus lanes, and infrastructure improvements – they help our system, and then they help the region. It is not just buses that are getting invested in today; it's the mobility of the city, and we are delighted to be part of that."
Because of its unreliability and general slowness during peak hours, Route 8 frequently tries the patience of the people who ride it, but bus lanes are expected to be a big upgrade. Rinck noted it's not one of her regular routes, partially due to other transit options like light rail and the RapidRide G Line being far more reliable and fast.
"I'll confess it's not my most frequent bus," Rinck said. "There have been times where I was standing actually the next stop over from the office, where we stood there for about 20 minutes, and I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna walk instead. It's a beautiful day."
In the upcoming fall service change, Metro will be adding trips on Route 8 to ensure the route isn't just more reliable, but also more frequent. That should be another enticement for riders who have given up on the "L8" – as it's known to those who have suffered its traffic-clogged delays.
"Route 8 is consistently one of Metro's most popular routes," Allison said. "It's currently ranked number nine, averaging 7,200 riders every single weekday. Now, we are boosting service on Route 8 with 50 more trips per week, funded by the City of Seattle, and this is part of our major service change that's happening August 29th."
Metro is predicting ridership gains will follow frequency.
"We expect that ridership will increase thanks to this investment in the investment in service," Allison said. "Also across Metro, we are adding 3,000 more trips per week and nine new bus routes. We are boosting the frequency and expanding service earlier in the morning, later in the evening, on weekends, and here we are making transit more convenient, reliable, and better connected to the region, including light rail."
Wilson noted that traffic revisions during recent construction closures showed that the new alignment will not negatively impact motorists, and may actually make traffic flow more smoothly.
"The new route for drivers was tested during recent road closures," Wilson said. "The resulting data showed the same number of drivers entering I-5 South during peak hours and travel times on eastbound Denny Way improving up to 15% This is about making this corridor functional. This project delivers on our commitments to use local funding wisely. We are improving traffic flow, updating infrastructure with funding from the voter-approved Seattle Transportation Levy, and making riding the bus more attractive and more viable for more people."
Bus lanes on Denny are getting painted THIS WEEKEND! Join us and Mayor Wilson to celebrate with another Race the L8 on Tuesday, September 8th at 5 PM at Denny Park! Lets prove that she Fixed the L8 and that it's finally faster than walking!
— Fix the L8 (@fixthel8.bsky.social) August 17, 2026 at 10:29 AM
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Jason Li and Nick Sattele, the duo who cofounded Fix The L8 organized the "Race the L8" event last summer, were among the transit advocates at the event, and clearly excited to see this day arrive. Their group is organizing another race on September 8 starting at 5pm, and hoping to lose to the bus this time around, given the bus lane and traffic reconfiguration's ability to speed up the route.
"This has been an issue for decades, and so many mayors have done nothing about it," Li said. "And it only took Mayor Wilson a few months of her leadership to fix Route 8, and we're really excited about that. Not only for the over 7,000 daily riders that ride it today, but also the countless people who will switch riding the bus once it goes from slower than hopscotching to being, as Mayor Wilson likes to put it: irresistibly good."
Ryan Packer
Doug Trumm
Doug Trumm
