Seattle Bus Service, as described by the Seattle PI. I do agree with the general premise, that the current bus system is woefully inadequate. Full busses and infrequent trips just means less “new” riders, forcing more people to drive.

However, it seems to me that if Seattle really wants better bus service for their residents, they should create their own bus system, and let the King County system concentrate on the outlying areas and bringing people in to and out of the city. That should mean more frequent routes for Seattle residents (since the trips are shorter), and less overcrowding on the routes that leave the city.

I’d love to see the pseudo-anonymous “Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Board” writer attempt to get in to town, riding the bus, from outside of town — they’d get to learn how to deal with full Park & Rides, late (or worse: early) busses that run once per hour, standing room only *every day*, etc. If Seattle funded their own bus network, perhaps King County could improve our service.

Seattle was already interested, at least at one point, in creating an incredibly expensive monorail network, with very few stops. That same money could have bought a lot of busses that could have served thousands of stops, without major construction efforts.