Metro has turned down a request by residents along Second Avenue West to reroute the No. 3 bus at the top of Queen Anne Hill on weekends, when electric buses are replaced by diesel models.
The switchover to diesel is necessary because construction downtown and at Harborview Medical Center forces Metro to shut the power down for the entire route, according to Victor Obeso, Metro Transit's service-department manager.
Metro allows the construction-related shutdowns to take place only on weekends to minimize disruption to the system, he added. Sometimes the power has to be cut for only a couple of hours, but it's not cost effective to put a diesel bus in service for such a short time, Obeso said.
That has left residents who call themselves Citizens for Trolley Buses fuming and frustrated, according to Bob Berg, one of the members.
The problem has surfaced only in the last decade, said Berg, who has lived in the area for 36 years. The bottom line is that 41 diesel buses operate on the route on Saturday and 36 on Sunday, starting at 6:02 in the morning and continuing until after 1 a.m., he said. "And they're really noisy."
Exhaust fumes are also a concern for the group, but noise is the main sticking point, said Berg, who denies the group is driven by NIMBYism. "It's not like people who moved near the airport and complain about noise," he said. Worse, according to Berg, nobody takes the No. 3 bus on weekends. "It's nuts," he complained.
Following the submittal of a petition with 55 signatures, the group met with Metro staff and King County Council member Larry Phillips last summer to come up with a solution.
The result was a proposal to have the bus turn onto West Smith Street from Queen Anne Avenue North, to head southwest on West McGraw Place and east on West McGraw Street back to Queen Anne Avenue North, which the bus takes back downtown.
The existing route follows Queen Anne Avenue North to a left turn on West Raye Street, a turn to the south on Second Avenue West and east on West McGraw Street to Queen Anne Avenue.
Not surprisingly, 20 of 22 residents along the proposed new route objected. Besides a lack of fairness, the concerns included pedestrian safety, elderly residents having to walk much farther to catch the bus, reduced parking on West Smith, decreased property values, traffic congestion and noise and fumes, according to a summary of comments Metro prepared.
Metro did switch the buses' weekend layover location from West Raye Street to Queen Anne Avenue North and McGraw Street, Obeso said. But that's going to be the only change.
"Given the concerns expressed during the public outreach, we determined that this alternative route was not feasible," he wrote in a letter this month to affected residents.
"It's pretty amazing to us," Berg said of the decision. "This is not a trivial matter. It's ruining the neighborhood." He also said Citizens for Trolley Buses is not giving up the fight to reroute the No. 3 diesel buses on weekends. "They don't belong here."
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