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by testfrequency 37 days ago
Seattle was the worst city I’ve ever lived in and not owned a vehicle. It actually made me appreciate Portlands transit even more given the size of the region. LA has even more reliable transit than both, despite how prevalent and necessary most times a vehicle is in SoCal. In LA I was able to get around quickly and further with no drama. Seattle transit I know has been improving, but your routes, frequency, and speeds made me want to pull my hair out. This is also as someone who lived in Capitol Hill which is apparently the transit heaven of Seattle.
1 comments
danielhep 37 days ago
Interesting! How long ago was that? Seattle has higher transit ridership than both those cities and is rapidly expanding its transit system. I believe we are still leading the pack in transit ridership growth yoy. Maybe you were here before it got good? I’ve only lived here 5 years.
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testfrequency 37 days ago
Pre pandemic. Seattle has more riders than Los Angeles? That’s…not right? I recall needing to rent a car to get nearly anywhere around Seattle, like if I wanted to get from home in Capitol Hill to Golden Gardens, that’s nearly an hour to go 8mi with multiple transfers. The issue with Seattle is it’s a small city with a giant body of the water in the middle of it, with not many bus lanes or hard rail.

Conversely, you can get from downtown LA to Santa Monica in the same amount of time, which is nearly twice the distance, direct. This was not to cherry pick a route either, just a popular dense neighborhood to somewhere scenic.

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danielhep 36 days ago
Sorry, I meant ridership per capita. In Seattle about 15% of people commute via transit (and I believe it’s the fastest increasing in the country), but LA is 6% and flat.

Seattle’s geography is conducive to transit, because there are many bridges where all traffic is constricted. That means point to point trips by car are often taking a similar route to buses. It also restricted the city’s ability to sprawl (although even suburban Bellevue is above LA at 8%).

The standard of service for nearly every bus line that operates in Seattle is 15 minutes frequency, even on weekends. Many lines operate every 10, and the new G Line that opened last year in fully dedicated bus lanes runs every 6!

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