Metro Transit is adding trips to the new RapidRide C Line during the evening commute between downtown Seattle and West Seattle they announced today, Nov. 5.

Two additional trips will be added during the evening commute, and two more trips will be added starting Tuesday, November 13.

In a press release Metro explained:

These four additional evening trips will target gaps in C Line service that occur when buses are delayed - primarily due to traffic conditions - between 5:15 and 6:45 PM. Three of the added trips will start from Belltown in order to avoid traffic delays in the lower Queen Anne area.

Metro has been monitoring and making operational changes to address challenges that emerged with the RapidRide C and D Line service since they began service on September 29.

Last month, Metro first tackled reports of overcrowding due to an increase in West Seattle ridership, adding two trips to the C Line during each weekday commute starting on October 8.

On October 29, in order to address crowded buses, four peak commute trips were added to Route 55 – which complements the C Line – and four peak commute trips were added to Route 120, which travels between Burien and Seattle via Westwood Village and the Delridge neighborhood.

Traffic in downtown Seattle poses a daily challenge for bus schedules on the best of days. Metro schedules its RapidRide buses for 10-minute service during the peak commutes – even higher at 8-9 minutes during the highest ridership times about 7- 8:30 AM and 4:30-6:30 PM. But traffic, bridge openings, events and other factors can cause buses to be delayed. Buses might bunch up and arrive together when riders are expecting more frequent, evenly spaced service.

The new PM trips will be added as needed in order to help maintain the expected 8-9 headway between C Line trips. Visit Metro's online Trip Planner for the scheduled times of C Line and other service. In addition to planning a trip, you can use the Find Stops, Find Routes, Find Schedules, Commute Trip or Point-to-Point features in the Trip Planner for a variety of ways to look at and use regional transit service.

Metro is drawing on a limited contingency reserve of transit service hours for the additional bus trips.

The contingency was created to address any operational issues that might arise as part of the September 29 transit service revisions, the largest for Metro. The reserve hours were also used to add the other C Line, Route 55 and Route 120 trips on October 8 and 29 respectively.