Unsticking the ‘Late 8' bus: Wilson will add 13 blocks of red lanes

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson released a bold plan Wednesday to speed up the notoriously slow Route 8 bus by converting a general-traffic lane into a red bus lane along 13 more blocks of Denny Way this summer.

City transportation staff can't predict how much time the corridor's 6,000 to 7,000 daily transit riders can save, but are sure they'll travel more efficiently than before.

As for motor vehicles, numbering 20,000 to 30,000 a day, eastbound drivers heading toward I-5 and Capitol Hill must cram into one general lane instead of two. About 25% of motorists will disperse to other roads or take the bus, project managers hope.

Direct motorist access from Denny Way to diagonal Yale Avenue toward southbound I-5 will disappear. To block that path, the Seattle Department of Transportation will install planter boxes, while encouraging other paths to the freeway. Congestion will shift to different roads.

Lane changes along Denny will extend from Queen Anne Avenue North to Stewart Street, a 1.3-mile corridor, except a three-block gap where cars and buses will mingle near Seattle Center.

Fixing the Late 8" was one of Wilson's two core promises in her winning 2025 race against incumbent Bruce Harrell, along with rapidly adding 500 shelter units for homeless people. She signed executive orders Jan. 15 to launch both efforts.

"This is probably one of my favorite moments so far as mayor," Wilson said, to a small Earth Day crowd of cheering supporters on the corner of Denny and Westlake Avenue, the maw of South Lake Union commuter traffic.

Wilson said that as a Capitol Hill resident who doesn't drive, improving Route 8 is personal to her.

"I've taken that bus to Seattle Center; to watch Shakespeare plays, to take my daughter to day care. … So this is just like a workhorse route, right?" she said.

Only 31% of afternoon-peak Route 8 buses arrive on schedule, and only 67% do so across the entire day, making it one of King County Metro Transit's least reliable lines.

Crews will rearrange the signs, stripes and signals on Denny Way during May and August. Temporary lane closures then should be minimal, because there won't be new concrete, which takes days to cure.

SDOT's timetable straddles the local construction blackout during the 2026 FIFA World Cup in June and July, and should be done by Aug. 29, the next time Metro adds trips countywide. Those will include more Route 8 trips, so a bus will arrive every 12 minutes all day, not just at peak times.

Riders commonly call the bus the "Late 8" or "L8," and the rock band Tacocat recorded a tune called F.U. #8 ("I think I've been stood up, are you ever gonna come and pick me up?"), helpfully reposted this week by the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.

As head of the social-equity advocates' group Transit Riders Union, Wilson helped organize a "Race the L8" event last summer in which transit supporters tried to outrun the bus, often beating it.

How will traffic adjust?

SDOT has revised Denny Way before: in 2018, when the city changed a westbound general-traffic lane into an eastbound bus lane for a couple blocks near Stewart Street. That move helps the 8 bypass car lineups approaching the Yale/I-5 area, and prevents worse transit delays reaching Denny's I-5 overpass up to Capitol Hill.

That red lane, now in the center of Denny, will shift to the right - and replace the long lineup of drivers seeking I-5. Then the westbound side of Denny, alongside the city's spaceship-shaped electric substation, will loosen from one general lane to two. A westbound Route 8 bus stop will be added there in mixed traffic.

Instead of huffing toward Yale, city staff hope drivers peel off sooner, at diagonal Boren Avenue, where right turns are allowed from the bus lane. That strategy could worsen snarls on Howell Street, where drivers coming from Boren mix with drivers from downtown, competing to make a buttonhook turn at the I-5/Yale onramp.

SDOT's answer: the Howell-to-Yale signal near I-5 will be retimed to allow longer car flows through the buttonhook, while the shutdown of Denny-to-Yale traffic will take some pressure off the Howell-Yale intersection.

History-minded commuters will notice SDOT's novel strategy to benefit from the follies of pioneer land barons Arthur Denny, Carson Boren, and Doc Maynard, who devised three conflicting downtown street grids in the 19th century. Even today, the arterials kink while crossing Denny - providing an avenue for drivers in 2026 to turn right and still sputter toward I-5.

That strategy raises an obvious problem: Car commuters may dart in front of a Route 8 bus, especially if drivers swerve from their interior Denny Way lane and turn diagonally (right) onto Boren. Or they'll block the new bus lane while waiting to turn.

Laura Wojcicki, SDOT traffic operations supervisor, said cars should be able to make an orderly right turn from the Denny bus lane into Boren without causing bus conflicts, because there's ample room on Boren.

"There's a lot more storage space on Boren than there is at Yale," Wojcicki said. "There's a lot more space for that kind of queueing and storage to happen."

During a favorable "little bit of a trial run" earlier this year, tower construction equipment blocked the Denny-Yale access, yet the diverting traffic didn't overflow back at Denny-Boren, she said. (Private contractors recently installed a retired Boeing fuselage between two towers.)

Besides promoting diagonal Boren, the city will keep three blocks of Denny near Seattle Center as general lanes, and help some 30% to 40% of drivers make the soft right-turn onto Fifth Avenue, where I-5 entrances await in the distance downtown.

Another phase of the project will change how buses turn from Queen Anne Avenue North into eastbound Denny. That part of Denny will change to have two general-traffic lanes westward toward Elliott Bay, and eastbound two general lanes plus one red bus lane.

Greg Woodfill, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587, said bus drivers can't wait to try out the new lanes. "When a bus is stuck in gridlock, a transit operator's day becomes even more stressful," he said. They miss their break periods and bear the brunt of passenger frustration, he said.

Wilson declared, "This is going to have a massive improvement in the way traffic flows in this whole area." SDOT itself takes a more sober view: "A significant reduction in eastbound PM peak general traffic is necessary to maintain operations on Denny Way," director Angela Brady's memo said.

City staff say they started researching Route 8 improvements during the Harrell administration, and Wilson's arrival added urgency and a faster timeline.

Their studies found that roughly half of Denny Way traffic approaching I-5 is continuing up to Capitol Hill, even though it's loaded with mass transit and tight for driving or parking, said Chris Saleeba, transit corridors program manager.

"One of the goals is that with improved reliability of the 8 - there's another mode people can use to get up to Capitol Hill, Saleeba said.

SDOT plans a commuter-education campaign, along with outreach to South Lake Union employers, aimed to develop new travel habits.

Project officials couldn't furnish a cost estimate for this year's makeover, but said $4 million in city levy funds are available for Denny Way improvements generally. Possible uses include traffic monitoring and reduction, pedestrian safety improvements, or expanding a tiny bus-stop triangle at the Denny-Yale corner, formerly known for its decorative palm tree.

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This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 4:58 PM.