When the Whatcom Transit Authority introduced its plan in August to jumpstart bus service to Bellingham’s Waterfront District and Squalicum Harbor, the agency noted that the additions should be considered an “interim” situation with “more robust and likely expanded service” potentially in the works next year.

A route diagram and schedule for Route 46 (Granary).
Route 46 (Granary) connects Bellingham Station with the Millworks Building at Cornwall Avenue & W. Laurel Street. (Image via WTA)
A route diagram and schedule for Route 47 (Harbor).
Route 47 (Harbor) connects Bellingham Station with Squalicum Harbor. (Image via WTA)

The new Route 46 (Granary) and Route 47 (Harbor) serving the waterfront, which launched Sunday afternoon, both run seven days a week but only with a handful of roundtrips in the morning and afternoon with a noticeable midday service gap. Given the limited “interim” service for these two routes, it’ll be good to carefully understand the schedules before venturing to waterfront destinations via transit. 

A sign pointing the way to where the new Routes 46 and 47 operate out of at Bellingham Station.
The new Routes 46 and 47 operate out of Bellingham Station. (Photo by Michael Grass / BhamByBus)
  • Individually, Routes 46 and 47 only have once-hourly service in the mornings and afternoons, but when they’re in service, there’s a bus roughly every 30 minutes in the section where they overlap between the Bellingham Station terminus and Granary Avenue near Waypoint Park. So for purposes of going to or from the Millworks Building, Portal Container Village, Waterfront Pump Track, Granary Building, and the Acid Ball, think of Routes 46 and 47 as a pair, with one of the buses, the 47, continuing out to Squalicum Harbor.
  • Heading to Squalicum Harbor? Route 47 essentially runs express along Roeder Avenue with no stops between Granary Avenue and the terminus on Coho Way at Squalicum Harbor. Hopefully there’s a way to find room for a future pair of stops on Roeder Avenue near F Street – to provide some connectivity to the Old Town Urban Village and the Lettered Streets neighborhood – though BhamByBus recognizes the challenging rights-of-way adjacent to the BNSF railroad tracks paralleling Roeder Avenue.  
  • A downtown-bound stop for Route 47 near the Harbor Center or Bellwether Way should be considered to allow riders the ability to loop around from the Coho Way terminus and back to a point where they can alight from the bus closer to those destinations instead of having a long, but scenic, walk along the harbor.
Near the end of Route 47, you get nice views of boats in Squalicum Harbor.
Near the end of Route 47, you get nice views of Squalicum Harbor and Downtown Bellingham. (Photo by Michael Grass / BhamByBus)

For transit connectivity, Routes 46 and 47 help fill in a gap along the waterfront and are a new way for Bellinghamsters and visitors to reach some of the city’s popular waterside destinations car-free. Let’s hope they prove to be fruitful additions to WTA’s bus route network in Bellingham, lay the foundation for better service to and from the waterfront, and fit in well with other potential future transit improvements in the city as envisioned in WTA’s 2024-2029 Transit Development Plan.