WTA votes to expand new waterfront service for 2025

Anticipating greater ridership come spring as the waterfront population grows, Whatcom Transportation Authority plans to extend public transportation by the Harbor and Granary. 

On Nov. 21, 2024, WTA voted to approve 2025 service changes in the county, contingent on the budget which passed on Dec. 5. Included in these developments are increased trips for waterfront routes 46 and 47.

After tabling events, public comment periods and work with the review service committee, the WTA board proposed hourly trips for each route, totaling an increase of seven more trips per day for route 47 and six more for route 46.  

Genevieve Carrillo, community relations and marketing manager at WTA, said routes 46 and 47 have been the quickest implemented bus lines. According to Carrillo, WTA service changes always happen in mid-June but due to the demand for waterfront public transportation, the interim routes were implemented on Sept. 22. 

“We realized this is a demographic where most of these people rely on public transportation to get around, and there is no access that’s anywhere near our accessibility standards down there,” Carrillo said. “If someone wanted to ride the bus they’d have to walk up the hill [from the waterfront] and go to the station. If you’re somebody with a wheelchair or a stroller, that's completely unreasonable to ask.” 

With Mercy Housing Northwest installing 83 units of permanently affordable housing on the waterfront and another 109 units of workforce housing on its way, WTA proposed an increase in trips made to waterfront stops in the June 2025 service changes. 

Cass Melissa-Jordan, a Bellingham resident, said before the bus lines were implemented, she had to walk miles in extreme pain due to arthritis to get to the Lighthouse Mission Ministries Shelter on F Street. 

“It’s improved my mobility over on this side of town,” Melissa-Jordan said. “It helps me a lot to get where I’m going later at night.” 

Melissa-Jordan said she and many of her friends will greatly benefit from hourly departures.

The proposed service changes impact 11 routes, with four new routes among them. Still, concerns arose about the viability of the plan amid issues with a highly contentious budget. 

Scott Korthuis, a WTA board member and Lynden mayor, brought his worry before the board that funding the new projects will result in needing to cut services by 2027. Kortuis said the WTA budget relies on a 3%  per year sales tax, which would be insufficient to cover new expenses and maintain pre-existing operations. 

At the Dec. 5 meeting, the board addressed this concern by deciding to use already in-service vehicles for the waterfront instead of purchasing new vehicles and delaying the service of vanpool vehicles. 

With the confirmed passage of the budget, all service changes are on track to begin on June 15, 2025. 

“It’s great that WTA is trying to be responsive to people’s needs while working within their own limited capacity,” said Tammi Laninga, professor and planning program director at Western Washington University. “Hopefully, the service is helpful for people and can be expanded in the future to more hours of operation.”

Izaiah Elis, founder and CEO of rolled ice cream company Cryo Rolls located in the Granary building, said half of his employees use public transit and though he hasn’t seen a direct impact on sales yet, he has no doubt that more public transportation will support the growing economy at the waterfront. 

“We have the vision for [the waterfront] to be kind of like an extension of downtown eventually,” Elis said. “The condos got done, tracks got more popular, the Granary building got more businesses. So I think adding the bus line is an extension of what we hoped for.”

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