Columns Nov 18, 2015 at 4:00 am

Bus Butt

Steven Weissman

Comments

1
Maybe its the city's way of saying you need to take alternative transportation. It wont be long before the city center gets shut down entirely to vehicle traffic anyway with the exception of emergeny vehicles. Seattle is an isthmus and with all the development, and overpopulation there wont be any other choice. So, get used to parking you car in Snoqalimie and walking in from the central district. I, for one am SO glad to be leaving these issues behind to the taxpayers that can afford them in 2016. A-Lo-HA! HA! HA!
2
Anon has it right blindly crapping couches. 80% of the buses do not pull in. And 60% of the drivers don't yield to buses trying to merge back into traffic. BOTH illegal. Cops do your job?
3
I agree with @2, but man is it a pain in the ass when they leave their ass hanging out. Violence leads to violence and crappy driving leads to crappier driving by others.
4
Drivers are the problem. If people want to drive their cars in Seattle, they should understand the consequences. Otherwise, they can park at the many transit centers in the outlying areas and take an express bus into town and back home at night.

It may be annoying when a bus doesn't pull all the way in to stop, but it's also dangerous when a bus tries to merge back into traffic lanes filled with aggressive drivers who are thinking about nothing more than getting their selfish butts wherever they need to go in their single occupancy vehicles.
5
Tough shit, anon. Buses have transit priority, especially over whiny putzes such as yourself.
6
Calm down, leave earlier, don't be in such a hurry. Seriously, why stress over non-issues like this?
7
Reading SOV drivers whine and bitch about their "rights" reminds me of Christians whining and bitching about being "persecuted". Oh, I'm sorry...you no longer have 100% complete domination over society anymore? Boy, that must really smart. Here's my virtual violin.
8
Getting stuck in a crosswalk? That means you are an idiot who went through an intersection without making sure there was enough space on the other side for you. Also, illegal.
9
why can't we all get along?

really, there's worse things buses do - they do what @8 notes - gridlock an intersection they couldn't make it through.
10
@9 I have no problem with buses who do that. Cars will be dicks and fill that lane giving buses no chance. I had a driver who refused to do that on 2nd and Columbia trying to turn to get on the viaduct. We sat at that intersection for 15 mins before all of us started yelling and convincing him to just go. He's a bus. Fuck the peons in their car.
11
cars are supposed to yield to transit. That means that when the bus turns on their signal you fucking STOP and let them into the traffic lane. The reason the cops let you get away with failure to yield is because they don't want to make the traffic jam worse by pulling your scofflaw ass over.
12
If anyone from Metro is reading this...the turn signals on the bus are the same as the hazards that flash when the bus is stopped. To a car alongside the bus you can't tell the difference so a lot of the people who understand that they're supposed to yield to the bus don't, simply because they don't realize that the bus has switched from "blinky-blinky I'm picking people up" to "blinky-blinky I'm pulling out".
How hard/expensive would it be to get a different blinky light on the back of the bus for when you're picking people up so that you can use the turn signals when you're..you know..turning?
13
Seattle has shown that they absolutely, positively, do not want an elevated rapid-transit system. Seattle wants more traffic on the streets, and that's it. Live with what you asked for, folks.
14
Typical selfish driver logic.

No one forces you to block the crosswalk or intersection, you should not enter unless you can clear. Well, except sometimes when an even more selfish driver cuts off your space at the far side of the intersection as you are pulling through. Either way the problem is too many selfish SOVs, not the buses, not the bikes, not the pedestrians crossing the street. You and your fucking car are the problem and the stress is from the cognitive dissonance of wanting to blame someone, anyone, else for the traffic. But deep down you know; the problem is you.
15
I assumed that the "bus butt" maneuver was due to not having enough room to pull in to the bus stop and have the long back end of the bus "catch up" with the front.

But yes, always yield to transit. The needs of the many, etc.
16
@10: if you were on the cross street being gridlocked you might have a problem. I've sat through several light cycles waiting, waiting for the bus to GTFO out the intersection. meantime, traffic is stacking up for multiple blocks behind.

and I'm in an HOV so I get to complain.
17
What kind of idiot drives a car downtown?
18
Get a motorcycle or scooter and filter around it. :)
19
The solution to bus butt is currently being implemented. Curb extensions are part of the current city traffic calming plan. Once in place, you'll never have to worry about the bus not fully pulling over ever again.
20
Dear morons: If you could be bothered to follow the law, which states that you SHALL YIELD to a transit bus that is signalling and merging back into traffic, you might find that thing that you're complaining about (which is not particularly illegal-- the bus is IN the lane that it's IN, and if there's no pull-out for it to pull completely out of the roadway, it's under no obligation to split the difference), would happen a lot less. What is illegal is driving with your fucking eyes crossed and trying to pretend that there's two lanes where there is only one. It's real simple-- if you want to pass the bus, CHANGE LANES. Don't cross your eyes and hold your breath and hope you can squeeze down the fraction of a lane that the bus isn't using. If that other lane happens to be the oncoming lane, then you might want to check for oncoming traffic, because passing safely is YOUR responsibility, and if you get fucked up or fuck someone else up because you couldn't be bothered to obey road law and simple survival-skill level common sense, it's on YOU and not the bus driver trying to do his damn job in the middle of a bunch of scofflaws and idiots.

21
@17, The kind of idiot who lives in a Seattle neighborhood that is not properly served by transit regardless of how many times she votes to fund it.

@4 "The many transit centers"...riiiight...I'd literally have to drive to a different city to get to the nearest transit center and then take two different busses to get from my home in Seattle to my office in Seattle. Some of us simply have to drive to get from home to work because Metro all but ignores certain neighborhoods. And while bus butt is definitely annoying, I'd gladly put up with that if the damn accordian busses would stop blocking entire intersections to traffic in both directions for two to three signal changes. The law about not blocking intersections should certainly apply to them as well and the only reason they can't turn into their bus lane is because other busses are loading passengers so they just need to fucking chill until that bus moves on before pulling into the damn intersection.

At least I carpool so I have company as it takes me 40 minutes to go the two miles to the viaduct entrance.
22
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?…

anonymous sweety you're wrong.
23
Is this actually illegal? Can we get a fact check here?

At any rate, in a world where drivers actually followed the law and yielded to buses entering traffic, anon might have a point. Not yielding to buses is a dick move, and 90% of drivers do it. Fuck em. Buses are slow enough, if they've got to inconvenience the drivers who'd gleefully inconvenience them given a chance, they absolutely should do so.

Seattle has shown that they absolutely, positively, do not want an elevated rapid-transit system.

Uh, no. Seattle votes for every Sound Transit option it gets the chance to vote for. It voted for the freaking monorail several times, until it was painfully obvious it was a disaster. Seattle badly wants it.
24
Why be in such a hurry to go around them? It's an excellent time to pause for checking one's mascara or FaceBook while buses need to do what busses do.

The time you pause will be made up with later green light karma.
25
You're not in traffic ,you are the traffic.
27
Oh, is this something that happens? I never noticed when I'm passing all of you on my bicycle. Must be a drag.
28
I agree. It's a crime that you can't enjoy driving your Porsche Carrera in downtown Seattle, what with all the PC morons holding you up.
29
@21 IF ONLY THERE WERE ANOTHER WAY TO GET THERE BESIDES THE BUS OR DRIVING.
30
@29, and what way is that? Teleportation hasn't become a reality yet and I can't afford a boat or helicopter. A bicycle? From my neighborhood there's not a safe route (especially now that the roads are wet or icy) even if I wanted to show up to work sweaty every day, which I definitely don't.

I should just move, right? Working on it though a house closer to work is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more than our current house. It's simply ridiculous that that's the price of having realistic transit options after continually voting to fund more and better options. We need to focus on adding service to under-served neighborhoods and add more crosstown routes but that's not at all what's going on according the the latest announcement from Metro about adding another route up Madison despite the hill and CD being way better served that many other neighborhoods already. It's simply insulting, quite frankly, and I just really don't understand why they would make that the priority even if it truly is needed while there are still neighborhoods in Seattle that only have service a few times a day during peak hours.
31
Rapid growth gridlock really sucks, doesn't it? How are pedestrians getting around on busy streets sans sidewalks? I read a disturbing recent article in The Seattle Times. Jesus, the sidewalks are so crowded (especially in South Lake Union) they look like out of New York City, anymore!
@17: It wouldn't be I.
@13 & @23: If I still lived in or near Seattle and could vote for Sound Transit, I'd forever be saying hell yes!
32
Sounds like a transplant to me. Sorry it took you another 30 seconds to get to Amazon.
33
I hate to break it to you dickheads saying that if a person ends up blocking an intersection or crosswalk due to this, it's their fault by definition, but you're wrong. You can follow someone through an intersection if you can see that the road ahead is clear, and if they just decide to be a huge asshole and block you from exiting the intersection because they have their head up their ass, the fault is theirs. The gridlock fault comes into play when you enter an intersection that you know (or should know) you can't clear.

Try this sometime: go through an empty intersection with someone right behind you, then just stop for no fucking reason at all so they can't clear it. Guess who's at fault for them blocking the intersection? I will give you a hint: it's not them.
34
The notion that it is both a right and responsibility to drive as fast as possible at all times kills people. Slow down. Stop whining. Yield to transit and pedestrians.
35
What @5 said. Stop parking your car "just for a minute" in the bus zone and YIELD TO TRANSIT.

Or turn in your driver's license.
36
Dear Anonymous:

Metro is hiring. You should apply. And after I you've been doing the job for twelve months, return to this fine piece of literature and re-read it. And then craft a response to it.

In the immortal words of one Joe South, "Walk a mile in my shoes, before you abuse, criticize or accuse, Walk a mile in my shoes."
37
Oh who will think of the single-occupant vehicles?!
38
Love how everyone in Seattle is so incredibly stupid they can't think beyond the tip of their own noses to the fact that people live in neighbourhoods not adequately served by buses, or that people have to come from out of the area (They don't live IN Seattle? OH, the HORROR! Pour me another glass of organic, GMO-free, gluten free PINOT, IMMEDIATELY!!!!), or that not everyone, by far, can have a job schedule that runs concurrent to bus schedules. Hell, I live out of the area, and I HATE going to Seattle, not just because of the fucking buses, but the rest of you self-righteous prigs who can't think beyond yourselves, though you THINK you're 'thinking about the planet'. (PS--your focus is FUCKED). Every damned time my doctors find something new that is seriously wrong, they want to send me to specialists in Seattle. Really? "Uh, could this kill me if I don't?" "Quite possibly...." "Uh, yeah, if I can avoid Seattle and the cocksuckers that live there? I'm good with that...." (of course, the self-righteous Seattle says, with nose high in the air, and PBR in hand..."We're good with that, too...*sniff*")
39
Not all bus zones are long enough to slide the whole bus entirely into, especially the articulated "bendy buses". Yeah, sometimes the tail end of the bus sticks out. Yeah we are picking up passengers (that's what buses do) and yeah we want to get back into the lane to continue on to pick up even MORE passengers (that's what buses do). So take a moment, smell the roses, and save your road rage for people who actually deserve it. Meanwhile, Metro is hiring, so why not apply so that you can come back wnd show us how it's done?
40
Bus butt is annoying, but minor compared to the way metro buses routinely run red lights and cruise through crosswalks without stopping before seeing if they can turn right on red.

At the left turn from 4th ave S towards the bus base, buses routinely caravan through their turn light after it turns red, each bus figuring if they stay close to the one in front of them it will keep traffic from entering the intersection. It's not unusual for three buses to enter the intersection after opposite traffic has a green light.

And I have seen so many pedestrians nearly hit by buses crossing Dearborn at 4th. Buses run the left turn red light, and it's such a large intersection that an inattentive pedestrian can be halfway across on a walk sign before the bus is on top of them.

I'm sure commenters here will find a way to blame pedestrians and drivers, but fact is, Seattle metro bus drivers are incredibly aggressive and dangerous. It's going to cost the city (meaning us) a lot of money in wrongful death suits if the police don't start paying attention to the problem.
41
Oh go get hit by a car, LW, and fuck off.
42
@38 sounds like all your problems are gonna solve themselves sooner than later

buses rule

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.