Turns out Metro does listen sometimes. Metro announced it's shifting five bus routes of Olive Way and onto Pike Street, and to make this work, it's also moving a stop on Fourth Avenue and making some other changes.
The change comes about a month after Metro changed the routes so that they would travel along Fourth Avenue and along Olive Way. But it turned out the new route was too congested with all the other traffic and pedestrians downtown. According to its press release, it sounds like riders complained. Metro said the change "comes after a month of observations and rider feedback that identified lengthy travel times on Olive Way during the evening commute." The revised routes are 301, 306, 308, 312 and Sound Transit Express 522 – routes that carry several hundred riders on 21 trips during the busiest hour of the evening commute. Making the changes also means shifting a couple of stops downtown and on Capitol Hill.
· Release: Metro Transit continues to refine congested bus routes downtown [kingcounty.gov]
· Metro Tweaks North King-Seattle Routes [STB]