Following last week's demise of the monorail, Mayor Greg Nickels ordered the Seattle Department of Transportation to conduct a transit study for West Seattle, Ballard and the rest of the western half of the city.

The study will compare buses, bus rapid transit, light rail and streetcars, said Patrice Gillespie Smith, Seattle Department of Transportation chief of staff. Neither subways nor monorail will be part of the new analysis, she said.

The study will consider transit that mingles with street traffic, such as buses. The study also will cover transit modes designed to run on a "grade-separated" line that does not commingle with cars and trucks, such as trains.

The city study will use some of the information generated in a city transit study that was done in 2001. That analysis compared monorail, streetcars and bus rapid transit on 45 potential routes throughout Seattle.

Researchers whittled down the options to two routes recommended for more detailed analysis. One went from West Seattle to downtown. The other went from downtown to Ballard, Northgate and Lake City.

Bus rapid transit would mean buses traveling in bus lanes making fewer stops and using special traffic signals to move through intersections. On wide streets, bus rapid transit buses would use the outer lane. On narrow streets, the buses would run in regular lanes of traffic.

The 2001 study proposed a bus rapid transit route nearly identical to the proposed monorail route. It ran from the West Seattle Bridge to Morgan Junction. The only exception was the bus route would've come up Avalon Way to Fauntleroy Way and then west on Alaska Street to the Junction and then south on California Avenue.

However, in 2001 planners recommended bus rapid transit service continue from Morgan Junction eastward on Morgan Street to 35th Avenue Southwest. It would go south on 35th Avenue and east on Holden Street to Delridge Way. From there it was south to Roxbury Street.

For an alternative, the study suggested Fauntleroy Way could be used instead of California Avenue to reach Morgan Junction.

The streetcar route from the 2001 study recommended the same route to the Junction, with tracks going south on either California Avenue or Fauntleroy Way. They would continue south on Fauntleroy Way to the Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal.

The new study will update the 2001 study's population figures for the West Seattle-Ballard corridor. The new effort also will add new development projects and changes in land use since the previous study was done, said Gillespie Smith.

Different modes of transit might need somewhat different routes and station locations, she said.

The mayor asked the City Council to include money to pay for the transit study in the city's next budget, McOmber said. Private consultants will be hired to do much of the research.

Tim St. Clair can be contacted at 932-0300 or tstclair@robinsonnews.com