FIX ROUTE 40

Our coalition has come together over strong concerns about SDOT’s proposed changes to bus Route 40, which will dramatically squeeze traffic lanes down to one car lane in each direction for some neighborhoods, challenging our ability to move people and goods through our communities. SDOT is proposing these squeezes through road diets, lane restrictions and new bus-only lanes in all directions for primary neighborhood arterials in Ballard, Fremont and along Westlake Ave N. (See map)

According to King County Metro, prior to the pandemic, Route 40 was one of Metro’s highest ridership routes with ~ 13,500 weekday riders. 

That number has dropped to an average of 7,400 weekday riders – a little more than half of the pre-pandemic ridership levels.  

While this number is touted as strong, it is still drastically less ridership than when the Route 40 changes were originally studied in 2018 - 2019. 

As small businesses continue to recover from the global pandemic – and are now facing historically-high inflation – we are deeply concerned that the proposed Route 40 changes do not account for the fact that commute and office work patterns have forever changed. 

We share SDOT’s transit and multimodal goals for Seattle’s neighborhoods and are advocates for connecting our north-end communities with reliable transit service. But these changes must be grounded in reliable, targeted, real-time data that includes an evaluation of current ridership and traffic patterns.