More Frequent Buses Can Unlock New Housing and Transit Ridership Opportunities in Bellingham

The Whatcom Transit Authority’s network of GO Line frequent service corridors — the Blue, Gold, Green, and Plum lines — recently marked their 20th anniversary. When they were introduced in 2005, the GO lines, which offer service every 15 minutes for most of the day on weekdays and Saturdays, were innovative for a city the size of Bellingham. 

In recent years, WTA has been studying what it would take to upgrade one or more of the GO Lines as a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor with bus-only lanes and other features that would speed riders through congested areas, offer frequent service every 10 minutes, and upgrade stops and associated street and sidewalk infrastructure. 

This spring, amid uncertainty around the future of federal funding support for transit, WTA put forward an augmented approach to upgrading transit service in Bellingham. As I noted in May, this development wasn’t necessarily bad news as WTA has instead shifted toward the idea of rolling out targeted transit improvements across its GO Line network versus concentrating improvements along a singular BRT corridor.

The “Enhanced GO Line” approach, as WTA describes it, would include spot improvements (instead of dedicated bus lanes as envisioned in WTA’s earlier Rapid Transit Study), feature stops every quarter mile (vs. every half mile, which is the norm for BRT), and enable transit-supportive development (instead of transit-oriented development). 

But there’s an important commonality with the two approaches: Like the Bus Rapid Transit approach, WTA is envisioning Enhanced Go Line improvements that feature service frequency with buses every 10 minutes. 

As someone who has lived car free (or mostly car free) for more than two decades, including 7 years living on or near a bus route with service every 10 minutes — King County Metro’s crosstown Route 44 between Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood and the University of Washington — I can attest to the value and utility that comes with that level of frequency. While service every 15 minutes is very good, buses every 10 minutes remove much of the remaining guesswork about when the next bus is coming. Basically, you walk out to the nearest bus stop without needing to check the schedule since the next bus is coming soon.  

Over the weekend, the Urban Institute’s Yonah Freemark observed on Bluesky about transit ridership in Raleigh, North Carolina: 

Raleigh increased bus service from every 30 min to every 15 min on its route serving Glenwood Ave. Ridership then doubled in the year that followed.

Over last year, city’s high-frequency routes have had 89% ridership growth.

People will ride when you give them service that they can rely on!

While Bellingham and Raleigh are very different places, local decisionmakers in the City of Subdued Excitement should remember that “frequency is freedom” and is something that unlocks the necessary ingredients needed to support the development of badly needed new housing and make car-free or car-lite living an easier choice in Bellingham. 

An Enhanced GO Line approach in Bellingham would also lay the foundation for future upgrades toward a more built-out BRT corridor. As WTA lays out on its Engage WTA website: “A phased approach could begin with enhanced transit service featuring more frequent buses, optimized signal operations, improvements at congestion points, and bus stop balancing and could transition to full Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) if federal funding is awarded.”

So what comes next for WTA and City of Bellingham stakeholders charting the path forward for future transit improvements in the city? Decisionmakers are currently soliciting public feedback via engage.ridewta.com, including which current WTA GO Line should be the first in line for Enhanced GO Line upgrades and the types of improvements that should be prioritized. That feedback will inform a Locally Preferred Alternative that will be formally adopted by the WTA Board of Directors and the Bellingham City Council later this year. 

Here’s my assessment of the pros, cons, and other considerations around potential Enhanced GO Line opportunities with each line.

• Plum GO Line (Lakeway): The Plum Line buses — Routes 512, 525, 533, and 540 — each currently see one bus per hour Mondays–Saturday that combine to a 15-minute service standard along part of Lakeway Drive. While the shortest of WTA’s GO Line frequent service corridors may be relatively low hanging fruit given its modest length, opportunities to improve service may be limited along the Plum Line compared to other GO Lines.
  • To boost the corridor to a service standard of a bus every 10 minutes, WTA would either need to increase the frequency of one of the Plum Line routes or boost the frequency on more than one of them.
  • There’s already a transit-priority queue jump for westbound buses at Lakeway Drive & Lincoln Street, among the worst intersections in the city to navigate on foot to reach the existing bus stops.
  • There’s not much that could be done to change the existing configuration of Lakeway Drive between Ellis Street and Lincoln Street to better accommodate bus service, especially under Interstate 5.
  • Compared to other GO lines, especially the Gold Line, the number of transit-supportive development opportunities along the Plum Line — largely clustered around the Lakeway Drive & Lincoln Street shopping area — are limited. If the Blue Line is chosen for early Enhanced GO Line development, it’d connect this shopping area directly with Western Washington University, apartment-dense areas along Bill McDonald Parkway, Downtown Bellingham, and the Sehome Village shopping area with more frequent bus service.
  • Although transit access has largely been an afterthought in the City of Bellingham’s ongoing planning discussions for the Civic Athletic Campus redevelopment, Enhanced GO Line improvements for the Plum Line, coupled with additional pedestrian safety improvements for crossing Lakeway Drive, would nicely complement the city’s future sports and indoor recreation investments, including a desperately needed expanded aquatic center.  

• Green GO Line (Northwest Avenue): This GO Line frequent service corridor, formed by Route 232, connects Downtown Bellingham and Cordata Station via Northwest Avenue and skirts the western edge of the Fountain District Urban Village, offers a fairly direct route with few twists and turns compared to other GO Lines, especially the Gold and Blue Lines.
  • While there are some transit-supportive development opportunities along Northwest Avenue, Elm Street, and Dupont Street, there aren’t as many compared to Gold Line.
  • Because buses serving the Green Line are interlined with the Gold Line, meaning Route 232 buses turn into Route 331 buses — and vice versa — at Bellingham Station and Cordata Station, their existing service patterns are intertwined. Boosting service to every 10 minutes on the Green Line would either mean the Gold Line would need the same or else they’d need to be decoupled.
• Gold GO Line (Alabama Street/Barkley Village/Sunset Square): Route 331, which forms WTA’s highest ridership route, is a prime candidate for Enhanced GO Line improvements given the number of shopping destinations, employment centers, and transit-supportive development opportunities along its route.
  • While this route has no shortage of turns — something that isn’t necessarily great for an improved transit corridor — it connects many of Bellingham’s shopping areas, including Barkley Village, Bellis Fair Mall, Sunset Square, and Sunnyland Square. However, buses on the existing Gold Line sometimes get bogged down at congested intersections, including Alabama Street & Woburn Street, Woburn Street & Sunset Drive, and Sunset Drive & Orleans Street. Spot improvements at these intersections, including special turning lanes for buses, could potentially ease some of the congestion buses experience.  
  • The City of Bellingham has envisioned more growth and housing in Barkley Village, an expansive 259-acre mixed-use urban village along the Gold GO Line on Woburn Street. Given Barkley Village’s massive underutilized parking lots, there’s lots of potential for a more vibrant, housing-dense community here. Frequent transit to and from Downtown Bellingham and Cordata Station makes sense and is a vital ingredient for coaxing more people out of their cars and onto transit. 
  • There’s an existing queue jump for westbound buses at Alabama Street & James Street.
  • Like the Green Line, any higher service frequency on the Gold Line would need to be matched on the Green Line since Route 232 and 331 buses are interlined. Otherwise, the current Green and Gold Line service pairing would need to be rethought.

• Blue GO Line (via WWU) Since Western Washington University is WTA’s most important ridership destination, it would make sense to introduce Enhanced GO Line upgrades to the Blue Line (Routes 14, 105, 107, 108, 190, 196, and 197) along Billy Frank Jr. Street, High Street, and Bill McDonald Parkway. WTA’s previous rapid transit planning efforts have identified using the existing Route 190 as the backbone of the Blue Line, which would extend the frequent service corridor from the Bill McDonald Parkway & Samish Way stop at Sehome Village shopping center to Lincoln Street & Lakeway Drive shopping area, near Fred Meyer and Whole Foods. In recent years, the City of Bellingham, WTA, Washington State Department of Transportation, and the Whatcom Council of Governments have studied transportation improvements along the Lincoln Street corridor and implemented certain upgrades along Lincoln Street in 2024.
  • When Western is in session, WTA buses serving the Blue Line can be very crowded and the boarding and de-boarding process can sometimes take longer than it ideally would. Since WTA can’t easily add 60-foot articulated buses to the Blue Line due to the size of some bus stop turn outs along the route, the only way to meet the ridership demand to and from Western is by running more buses.
  • The expansive Lincoln Creek Park & Ride gravel parking lot presents a significant opportunity to add more transit-supportive housing to an extended Blue GO Line corridor. Although Sehome Hill Arboretum and the footprint of Sehome High School limit options to add more housing along Bill McDonald Parkway, cash-strapped Western could potentially leverage its C Lots near the Wade King Recreation Center to build more transit-adjacent housing. 
  • Upgrading transit service along an extended Blue Line to Lincoln Street & Lakeway Drive would be a productive use of the City of Bellingham’s planned new roundabouts at Lincoln Street & Potter Street and King Street & Potter Street, which would make it easier for outbound buses on Route 190 to turn around and start the inbound trip to WWU and Downtown Bellingham.

• Upgrading the Blue Line to an Enhanced GO Line corridor with higher service frequencies lays the foundation for rethinking and realigning part of the existing Route 105 between Downtown Bellingham and Fairhaven, which currently follows the Blue GO Line corridor along Bill McDonald Parkway and through Western’s campus. A previous WTA Rapid Transit Study noted that Route 105 could take over the Samish Way portion of the Route 107 and 108 loops through the Samish Way Urban Village, allowing for a more direct connection between downtown and Fairhaven via Sehome Village and 32nd Street. To facilitate better transfers at Bill McDonald Parkway & Samish Way, a realigned Route 105 could skip the Fielding Avenue and 36th Street pathway along the southern and eastern sides of the Sehome Village shopping center and instead travel via the 300 block of 32nd Street on the west side of Sehome Village. Route 105 currently only sees one bus per hour, so boosting bus service would benefit residents of the apartment complexes and retirement villages along 32nd Street and Old Fairhaven Parkway.

The current transit fiscal landscape in other cities and states isn’t exactly uplifting with transit agencies in Chicago, Oregon, Philadelphia, and Rhode Island are among those staring down looming deep service cuts. New buses, transit operators, and service hours don’t grow on trees. Hopefully, WTA can buck those national trends and find ways to sustain and bolster the existing system in the years to come. 

There’s plenty that Bellingham’s civic stakeholders and the community they serve could gain by better centering the role of transit development in supporting new housing growth and economic opportunities.