Mayor Katie Wilson announced Wednesday a $4 million project to install dedicated bus lanes along Denny Way and permanently reroute drivers seeking southbound I-5 access — a specific campaign promise from the 2025 mayoral race. Construction begins in May on the Queen Anne to downtown segment; a second phase covering nine blocks on the Fairview-to-5th stretch begins in August. The project is funded by the voter-approved Seattle Transportation Levy and targeted for completion in fall 2026.

The Project

The two-phase work adds Business Access and Transit lanes on approximately 12 blocks of Denny Way. The structural centerpiece is the permanent closure of the Yale Avenue slip lane — a cut-through at Denny Way and Stewart Street where I-5-bound cars queue across the bus lane. Drivers will be rerouted via Boren Avenue and Howell Street. SDOT tested the reroute during a temporary spring 2026 closure and found consistent peak-hour traffic volumes with some off-peak shifts before committing to permanent closure. Construction pauses from June 8 through July 9 for the FIFA World Cup.

The Route’s Record

Route 8 carries approximately 7,000 to 8,000 riders daily between Capitol Hill, South Lake Union, and Uptown — one of King County Metro’s top ten routes by ridership. Its on-time rate was below 58 percent of stops as recently as 2023; it reached 77.8 percent by March 2026 following earlier lane work. A November 2025 count found 321 Route 8 riders traveling eastbound each hour during the afternoon peak, compared to 396 drivers heading to southbound I-5. Starting August 29, Route 8 frequency increases from every 15 minutes to every 12 minutes, funded separately by the Seattle Transit Measure.

The Delivery

Wilson signed an executive order directing SDOT to develop the bus lane plan two weeks into her term, in January 2026, setting an April 17 deadline. The previous administration had declined to add lanes during a 2024–2025 repaving of Denny Way and formally ruled out the Fairview-to-5th stretch in August 2025, citing a study projecting 17 to 34 additional minutes of peak-hour car travel time. Wilson replaced the SDOT director who made that ruling. Fix the L8 — a grassroots coalition pushing to make Route 8 reliable — began campaigning for bus lanes on this corridor in 2009. “Since 2009, we’ve had six mayors,” said co-founder Nick Sattele at the April 22 announcement. “Six mayors that haven’t acted on making Route 8 fast, frequent and reliable.”