And then the city government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to shut the tunnel down and make it light rail-only, forcing the buses up onto the surface and clogging up the street grid.
Clogging up the rail grid was somewhat acceptable when it was a few end-of-line terminal stops, but now those tunnels are in the middle of the rail network. A bus breaking down and blocking the tunnel was bad enough when it affected end-of-line service, but would be an absolute nightmare when it affects middle-of-line service.
Sorry, downtown single-occupant vehicle drivers, you're just going to have to deal with the consequences of spending tens-to-hundreds of thousands of dollars on your choice of the least space-efficient, gridlock-inducing form of transportation.
2. If getting through downtown by bus is slow, getting through it by car isn't any faster.
Anyways, Seattle's transit problem isn't bad downtown bus service, it's godawful spoke-and-last-mile coverage, which eviscerates ridership, makes the overall network less efficient, and forms a negative-feedback-loop that blocks transit improvements.
Nobody likes sitting around for half an hour waiting for a bus that will take them to another bus.
Not many people per bus are needed for a bus to be better than the equivalent number of cars. And no, carpooling is not a useful option to rely on to reduce the impact. At least not until some of the occupancy rules are enforced.
If the buses and cars are on the same roads, going the same speed, the car will get you to your destination faster, and everyone will go by car. Buses only get ridership if they have dedicated lanes where they can go faster than regular car traffic:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22143...
This isn’t true at all.
Busses stop continuously along the route, which adds a ton of time. Cars go straight to the destination.
You also have to add the time spent waiting for the bus, and the time to walk to the bus stop.
Busses usually aren’t going to take as direct a route as a car can. You will likely have to walk once you get to your destination, too, or switch buses.
I am all for public transportation, and take it all the time, but let’s not pretend it is always faster than cars.