Route 8 serves thousands of riders per day, with the highest ridership per service hour out of all routes King County Metro operates. Demand for the workhouse route is rising, but reliability has not kept up, and it is also the most delayed all-day bus route in the entire system. Buses are chronically mired in traffic on Denny Way, and the odds of an eastbound bus arriving within 5 minutes of its schedule drops embarrassingly close to 30% during the evening rush hour. To make things worse, once your bus finally does arrive, the same traffic means it takes over 17 minutes on average to travel a mile, which is essentially walking speed.

It’s unacceptable for such a vital connection in the city to be allowed to languish like this and bus lanes must be added on Denny to fix it. Fortunately, Mayor Wilson has issued an executive order directing the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to add bus lanes on Denny Way. However, we need to make sure that SDOT executes quickly and is bold for these bus lanes while KCM runs enough buses to meet the unprecedented demand that will come with those bus lanes.

There is money available for this already from a line item in the 2024 Seattle Transportation Levy for transit improvements on Denny and Olive Ways. Cost and construction impacts will be minimal as the Denny Way Paving Project has already completed the pavement overhaul that typically comes with bus lanes. Red paint would finally bring a fast, reliable, efficient, equitable, and sustainable transportation option to Denny Way and it must be prioritized with urgency.

Tell our city and county leaders that we need to give Route 8 the priority it deserves to achieve our climate goals and improve the city!

If you want to get more involved, make sure you check “Keep me in the loop for actions and events!” to the right! We will also be posting regular updates to FixTheL8.com!