The crunch happens each afternoon.
Cars and buses leaving South Lake Union get caught in traffic jams around Mercer Street.
Mike Mulligan was walking on a recent afternoon because the bus he would have taken could only inch forward.
"Every bus I try to catch is 20, 30, 40 minutes late, it's really bad," Mulligan said.
The South Lake Union Streetcar shares a lane with other traffic.
It moves so slowly, ridership is dropping.
Seattle and King County Metro officials acknowledge transit connections in the neighborhood fall short.
"Right now transit goes through South Lake Union but not to South Lake Union," said Scott Kubly, director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.
The buses that do run through the neighborhood are packed. Metro said ridership in South Lake Union has jumped 60 percent in four years.
Some are so full, they don't stop for more passengers.
All of this contributes to the survey findings by Commute Seattle that nearly 45 percent of people drive alone to South Lake Union, compared to 21 percent in Seattle's commercial core.
"People have shown in Seattle they're more than willing to choose transit when it's convenient, available, reliable, that's what we're trying to achieve," said Victor Obeso, Deputy General Manager for King County Metro.
Plans for transit-priority traffic lights are in the works.
Next March, the city will kick out cars from the lanes where the streetcar runs on Westlake Avenue and make them transit-only.
“Buses are carrying 50 to 100 people when they're full, so buses carrying that many people having priority over automobile traffic, which is carrying a little over one person per vehicle, is a way to move more people, provide more mobility," Obeso said.
Metro's Rapid Ride C Line from West Seattle will extend into South Lake Union, contributing to nearly 230 daily bus trips to the neighborhood.
"A bus every three minutes coming into South Lake Union. That's a New York level of service," Kubly said.
In 2018, when the State Route 99 tunnel is estimated to open, the street grid in South Lake Union will be newly connected, giving cars more options, and creating an east-west transit corridor on Harrison Street.
Long-term, city transportation planners want light-rail stops at Aurora and Harrison and at Westlake and Denny.
Sound Transit's $15 billion light-rail expansion plan will go before voters in November 2016.
"The best thing that can happen for South Lake Union is to get Sound Transit 3 passed," Kubly said.
The city is lobbying Sound Transit to include a new downtown tunnel for light rail in the package, running beneath 4th, 5th or 6th avenues.
KIRO
