Jan 20 2008
Metro Route 17 Open House
Residents of Sunset West condos have worked a possible deal with Metro to modify the current Route 17 between downtown Seattle & northwest Ballard so that it would provide approximately hourly daytime and evening service, along Seaview Ave NW to and from Golden Gardens.
Beginning Sept. 2008, Route 17 bus trips would alternate between running on 32nd Ave NW, as they do now, and running on Seaview Ave NW. While adding new hourly service to potential riders on Seaview Ave NW, this change would decrease the current half-hour frequency of service for 32nd Ave NW riders to hourly frequency, so opposition can be expected from that quarter. The port has three Shilshole employees who have indicated they would use the new service, so some support might come from that quarter.
Please come to an open house with Metro:
where?
- Ballard Senior Center
- 32nd Ave NW
when?
- Thursday, January 31
- 7:00-8:30 pm
4 Responses to “Metro Route 17 Open House”
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The Metro website has a downloadable PDF file that contains all the proposed changes in detail, the community meeting information, and also a questionnaire you can complete and send to let Metro know how you feel about this proposal:
http://transit.metrokc.gov/up/archives/2008/Rt17surveyLTRfinal.pdf
If anyone went to the Open House, I’d love to hear what happened. According to Peggy Sturdivant, a whole busload of people from Seaview was heading that way.
The meeting was very well attended with standing room only. One big surprise was the decision to not split the 17 route at all on weekends. That was news that was not previously known by the Seaview Avenue Transit Coalition. Understandably our neighbors on 32nd were not happy campers. There are some 3200 households in the affected area presently served by that section of the 17. Seaview Ave has roughly 550 including 300 at the marina. So by the math one can see we are up against it. This is by no means a done deal so keep the pressure on.
It is a sad state when Metro turns the choice into one that pits neighbor against neighbor but there is no money for any additional service hours and this was presented as the only no cost option. The audience made numerous alternate suggestions about using the 44, 48, 18 routes as well as some sort of “jitney” circulator route to help funnel people to existing routes. Metro spokesman dismissed all of them as too costly but agreed to restudy the issue.
We have the support of some of the businesses along Seaview who have employees who need the bus for transportation. The city Parks department has been strangely quiet about the need for bus service to serve Golden Gardens. It appears to be the only city park not served by Metro within 1/4 mile.
The questionaires are also available at the marina office and are postage prepaid so no excuses. Questionaires are due by Feb 8 so if you haven’t “voted” do so now.
Another point of view here
http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/articles/2008/02/04/news/local_news/news01.txt