The Seattle Department of Transportation proposed modifications on 15th Avenue Northwest to support RapidRide bus service if Metro pursues to replace the Metro 15 route, rather than the Metro 18 route through downtown Ballard and up 24th Avenue Northwest. The announcement met with positive reactions from members of the Ballard and Uptown communities.

Representatives from the Ballard District Council, Crown Hill Business Association, 15th Avenue Northwest, BINMIC, Ballard Chamber of Commerce and Sustainable Ballard were a few of the groups that attended the March 25 presentation.

“We were there to talk to the community about what we see happening to 15th,” said Bill Bryant, planner for the Department of Transportation. “We see designing bus bulbs on the segments of 65th and 80th, and we’re designing queue jumps to let the bus jump in front of other traffic in three locations, Prospect, Market Street and 67th.”

The kinds of roadway improvements the department is looking into for the RapidRide are transit signal priority, queue jumps and sidewalk extensions.

Transit signal priority and queue jumps are similar because they both give RapidRide buses the priority to receive a green light sooner and longer when driving through a signal.

They’re different because transit signals give everyone traveling in the same direction as the bus the green light. Queue jumps however, give a bus it’s own lane and the possibility for a separate signal on the mast arm giving them a green light sooner and longer than the rest of ongoing traffic.

Controlling green lights for the RapidRide could mean using a device similar to the signal pre-empt system used by fire engines, where a radio dispatcher can override the timing of traffic signals to keep the green light on longer so firefighters can speed through intersections on their way to emergencies.

As for sidewalk extensions, they will prevent buses from having to pull in and out of parked cars.

The plans for Ballard are to push the sidewalks out from existing bus stops to where the bus normally gets in and stops, Jonathan Dong, senior transportation planner for the Department of Transportation, previously told the Tribune.

He said the bus would then be in the traveling lane and rather than having to go into the bus stop and come back out it stays in the travel lane.

“We’ve met with these different groups starting in September and I actually wasn’t too sure about how they’d perceive some of these improvements,” Dong said. “But, what we’re finding is that it supports a lot of their neighborhood goals.”

Dong said three things the community favors about the RapidRide improvements are improvements of service on 15th, reverting back to increased and all-day on 15th Ave Northwest, and sidewalk extensions that improve sidewalks by giving more room and allowing easier navigation for riders.

On 15th between 65th and 80th, 24-hour parking would be returned, Bryant said. Currently parking has been restricted during peak periods.

“That section of the street would start to look a lot more like the section of 15th between 65th and Market,” Bryant said.

He said that changes have been made to address the questions about traffic flow, such as widening the lanes and modifying street parking from 10 feet to eight feet of street space.

“The inside lanes now are too narrow for a truck,” Dong said. “The parking lane now doesn’t need to be as wide. s\So we can shrink them down to a point where it’s still safe for freight and trucks to go through without side swiping cars.”

Dong said the Ballard community has been very supportive and the department understands that a lot of people ride both the 15 and 18.

“We all recognize the community is going to grow and the only way to accommodate that growth is to improve the transit service,” Dong said. “There’s little disagreement but concerns are things such as how is this going to change the fabric of the neighborhood and will there be any negative effects on general traffic, it’s very marginal.”

Dong said those will be issues they will work out later after the RapidRide has been implemented.

Bryant said RapidRide should be operational in 2012 in Ballard, and these improvements will most likely be finished by 2011.