[Transit] Route 47

[Wes Mills]

I have a letter I wrote for myself to councilmembers Dembowski and Zahilay, but haven’t yet sent.  I think it would be a good idea, if TRU is game for it.  I know another community group—but I never found out which one—put up flyers along the closed bus stops of the 47 (I don’t know for sure if Metro did or didn’t) and that’s how a friend of mine who just moved from there found out their bus wasn’t coming back.

This is the report I linked to, for those who don’t want to browse Twitter: https://kingcountymetro.blog/2023/12/14/madison-street-area-bus-service-change-project-phase-2-progress-report/

What I would use to make a letter (and I’ll kick out a draft this weekend if at least one other person thinks we should give this a go):

The three big reasons in support of the 47 I know of:
 • It’s the only all-day, all-week Seattle bus route that hasn’t been restored from pandemic suspensions, and it should be running while we debate whether or not to keep it.
 • The 47 is, quite literally, on the side of a hill and getting to or from destinations along it involves walking either a moderately steep or very steep hill.
 • There are no more than a handful of detached houses on that route; the entire route is the kind of mixed density we say we want across the whole city (including two multi-building, multi-story condo complexes).  If we don’t serve this by transit—*electrified* transit, I might add, since the 47 is a trolley route—what are we doing?
In the end, I don’t think it’s fair for Metro to pit a survey about the 47 against “or, do you want more frequency on these other routes that don’t go to the same place as the 47” or to leave it to community feedback on a route that the community hasn’t been able to ride in four years.  Even the restoration plan would only be 11 hours a day, but my philosophy is get a route on the map and we can push to expand frequency and span later.

Wes

On Fri, Dec 15, 2023, at 19:09, Katie Wilson wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I haven’t been paying close attention so only learned about this survey from Wes’s tweet: https://twitter.com/oowm/status/1735778121079759214
> 
> I know we have a new member who depended on the 47 and now has to drive to work. Maybe we should write a letter or something?
> 
> Katie
> 
> Katie Wilson
> General Secretary
> Transit Riders Union
> https://transitriders.org
> 206-781-7204
> 
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