"White Female Mamdani"?
Seattle mayor Katie Wilson added a BUS LANE.
Daily Mail is pure garbage.
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
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That’s my mayor! On the campaign trail, she raced the eight (the bus she is adding a lane for) by walking while holding her child, and beat the bus to the end of its route. The bus lane is very needed, and she is cool as hell for delivering on her campaign promises.
If you can best a bus in a footrace, that bus route needs to be improved. As simple as that.
My rule of thumb is: taking a cycle should be slower than bus (when starting at the same time) but the waiting time should not make the bus slower.
Edited: wording
With all the stops, cycling is usually faster unless the route is uphill or you really don't have a lot of stops and probably need more.
How far apart are you stops? It'll they are too close, I can see this happen. ~5 minute walking?
Bus routes are not always straight, that may also contribute. But yeah, I think stops are 5–7 minutes by foot apart here
Maybe I'm just a dumbass, but I think your rule of thumb is busted?
X should be slower than A, but should not be faster than A + B.
Isn't slower the same as "not faster"? I think it should be slower than A, but faster than A + B. So between A and A + B.
Or "the bus should be faster if it's already here, but cycling should be faster if you'd have to wait for the bus". I think that's what you were going for.
Okay, I'm not the only one who was confused there for a sec
Yeah, almost. Cycling shouldn't be much faster than having to wait. If it is, either the route has too many stops or a low frequency.
My average cycle speed at around 10 kmph (minimal effort, no hills, some red lights) and if a bus can't match this...
Give it better signalling, dedicated lanes to skip traffic, etc.
My 'can't hold attention long enough to read all the words' brain auto-converted it to
which must be what they meant.
Its a good rule of thumb. I ride an hour in to work (on an e-scooter) because it is faster than that bus during rush hour. Outside of rush hour though, the bus beats me every time. It'd be cool if I could become mayor to add a bus lane for that route. And all the other routes that need it tbh.
My rule of thumb is that within a city, a bus (other than BRT) is likely roughly the same speed as a bike, assuming good bike routes.
If the bikes are stopping regularly because of red lights, that will obviously change.
Bike with parkin can and often should be faster start to destination than walking+bus+walking at least comzared to city buses, it’s different with buses who are allowed to go faster than 50 km/h
Some cities have abysmal frequencies. So you would be waiting for 20 minutes or more
if a bicycle is slower than a bus, then it is definitely slower than waiting+taking a bus
no?
counterpoint: cycling takes 10 minutes, bus takes 5 minutes, at this point cycling is slower than the bus. waiting for the bus takes 8 minutes, now cycling is faster than waiting + ride time
that makes sense and now that i reread it idk what i was thinking. sounds like a few people were confused though loll
Think you got yourself mixed around there.
It was quite a popular race!
https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/07/12/race-the-l8/
As someone commuting to the city from the Eastside (now taking the train every day), I was unfamiliar with the sad state of the 8 line before this post.
There's a dedicated website: https://fixthel8.com/
I learned from that site that all-girl punk band Tacocat wrote a song called F. U. #8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRFlROqgFwo
Tacocat were great, but I'm pretty sure one of them is a dude. Sad the band is on indefinite hiatus last I heard.
Whoops... I saw a grainy promo photo and listened to the song and jumped to conclusions. Thanks for the correction!
I have done similar in my city (sans baby). I had like a 3 mile commute and while usually the bus would get a ahead of me before I got to work I had a thing where if I got to 2 miles in im not taking the bus for the last mile. That situation was not uncommon. I would stop and look behind so if it was close to two miles and I saw it I might still take it.
I have done something similar on Oxford Street.
I suspect this is not the same.
Hell yeah.
We have a dedicated lane for our streetcar line here in KC and it is glorious.
My mayor too! She was the first politician that I canvassed for. I had a blast.