Is it more important for local buses to serve more people in densely populated Bellingham or to provide transportation to the large rural areas of the county?
With limited funds to adequately accomplish both, the Whatcom Transportation Authority is trying to find a balance.
By July, the authority will determine how to weigh these two competing priorities. Currently, WTA staff classify roughly 40% of existing routes as focused on high ridership. The other 60% are routes that cover a wider area, but with far fewer riders.
Transit consultant Jarrett Walker coined the terms “ridership” and “coverage” for these two models. A maximum ridership system would concentrate all routes in areas with the most people, while a maximum coverage system would spread its resources to serve the entire region.
The ridership model would help WTA reduce carbon emissions, alleviate congestion and allow buses to run more efficiently, said Maureen McCarthy, director of community and government relations, at a WTA Board meeting Thursday, Jan. 16.
A focus on coverage, meanwhile, would aim to provide equitable access to transit, she said.
“We hear all the time that people see empty buses and they think there’s something wrong with our system,” Whatcom County Council member Todd Donovan said.
However buses with only a few riders could be a feature, not a failure, McCarthy said.
In December, two Cascadia Daily News reporters each took a different bus route — one with higher ridership, and one that provides wider coverage — to observe these differing models.
The ‘people’s route’: High ridership and most boardings
Early on any given Tuesday morning, transit operator Brian Miller drives Routes 331 and 232 from downtown to Cordata Station and back.
Leaving the downtown Bellingham Station in the dark and deep fog on a December morning, people boarded the bus, heading to school, work, and the hospital. For some, it was just a chance to rest in a warm space for an hour or so as the sun rose in shades of pink and orange.
They’re riding what Miller calls the “people’s route.” It’s WTA’s busiest route — perhaps the best example of a route focused on “ridership.” The 331 travels from downtown through Barkley Village, Sunset Square and Bellis Fair to Cordata Station and back.
The 232 heads over to Dupont Street and stops at Birchwood Center, Northwest Avenue and Bakerview Road, and Whatcom Community College.
The two routes had the highest ridership hours and most boardings of all the WTA routes in 2023, according to an annual performance report. Route 331 had 574,445 boardings, and 232 had 367,222.
Riders on that Tuesday morning in December had different purposes: One man was headed to the hospital to visit his ill mother. Karen Smith, 36, got on at around 7:20 a.m. to take the bus to her job at Home Depot.
“I don’t have a car, I don’t drive,” she said. “If I didn’t have the bus, I’d be screwed.”
Others on the bus also don’t have cars, for various reasons, making them dependent on the transit system.
Ben Davis, 25, takes the bus to work every weekday, to an insurance company. He said his car broke down a couple of years ago, and due to plans to move abroad, he didn’t feel the need to buy a new car. Sammy Loch, a therapist at SeaMar Behavioral Health, also takes the bus to work every day; Loch doesn’t drive due to a disability.
Corentin Valles, a Whatcom Community College student, takes the bus from Birchwood Center to Whatcom every day. An international student from France, he said “without the bus, I couldn’t go outside of campus.”
For others, it’s a more intentional choice.
Barry Maxwell, a political science and history professor at Whatcom Community College, commutes “just about daily” from his home outside of Deming to the campus. He takes Route 72X from Deming and then transfers to the 331 to take him the rest of the way.
Miller said drivers do their best to communicate with each other when a bus is running late so riders dependent on a connection don’t miss their next bus.
Maxwell rides the bus because it’s “cheaper” and “better for the environment,” and it allowed his family to drop down to one car. He said he’s taken this route for about 15 years, and it takes him about 50 minutes each way.
Despite less ridership, Route 72X is essential, Maxwell said, because it allows those who live out in the county access to public transport.
That’s also the case for Route 75, with service to Blaine.
Bellingham to Blaine: Countywide coverage despite fewer riders
At 7 a.m. on a Wednesday in December, just a couple of people were waiting in the darkness at Bellingham Station to catch the Route 75 bus.
Alexis De Young, 35, hugged her partner goodbye and boarded the bus. De Young’s partner accompanies her to the station on her morning commutes to substitute teaching jobs in Ferndale so she doesn’t have to walk the mile and a half from home alone in the dark.
“The bus is part of our routine,” she said as the bus rumbled on.
De Young, who doesn’t have a car, gets up at 5:30 a.m. for a work day that starts three hours later.
“Anyone who relies on the bus shapes their lives around the bus routes that exist,” she said. Even a small change, like Route 75’s recent shift from 7:10 to 7 a.m. at Bellingham Station, can be a disruption.
This is a sparsely traveled route, one that prioritizes countywide coverage despite limited ridership. WTA saw 36,719 boardings on that route in 2023 — Route 331 had about 15 times as many riders.
In the mornings, Route 75 travels nearly to the U.S.-Canada border, stopping in Ferndale on the way up. On the way back, it takes a detour along the water in Drayton Harbor and Birch Bay.
At different times of day, however, the route will go first through all the Birch Bay stops and then up to Blaine and back to Bellingham. It’s a complicated schedule, confusing for a newcomer. But it’s part of a strategy to better cover the large area.
On that Wednesday in December, Darlene Wortley, 70, got on a few stops after De Young. She’s a janitor at the Peace Arch Border Patrol buildings.
Wortley said she likes not having to worry about the expense of a car, though she’s considering getting one as she expects walking to the bus stop will get more difficult as she gets older. On the ride north, she laid back on her seat’s headrest, resting.
Tony Kilbert, 38, boarded the bus at Ferndale Station. He was headed for the border, too, for the shipping and receiving job he started a month and a half ago.
On the debate between ridership and coverage, “everybody should be treated the same,” Kilbert said. “Even if there’s not that many people on this route, there’s still people that have to get around on this route.”
The sky lightened as the bus headed further north. Inside, never more than a handful of people were onboard.
Kyler Zimmerman, 24, got on in Blaine to return to Bellingham after a 12-hour shift preparing boxes for shipment.
It takes him about an hour and a half to commute to work — he arrives an hour early “just so I’m always on time” — and about two hours to get back.
“All sorts of people take this route: people going to work, people want to go sightsee up at the border,” Zimmerman said. “It’s really important that people get where they need to go, no matter if they can afford to have a car to travel or not.”
After Blaine, the bus turned back toward Birch Bay. Rider Lorrel Cooper, 35, was heading to Bellingham for a job.
Her one complaint? Rural areas “kind of get the shaft,” she said, in terms of bus frequency.
Going north, “if you miss the first bus out, you’re usually waiting another couple of hours,” she said.
Without the bus, “I wouldn’t have (a) career, I wouldn’t have freedom,” Cooper said. “Without buses going all the way out, you’re not servicing your whole community.”
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.