Downtown bus stop closes under Seattle police and mayoral crime initiative

The city of Seattle and King County Metro will temporarily shut down the northbound bus stop on Third Avenue between Pike and Pine Streets, beginning April 2. The stop will move about a block down the road to Third and Pike, in front of the Ross store.

The intention is to quell criminal activity along that corridor in keeping with Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s recently announced public safety plan involving targeted police presence along known hotbeds for crime, as a metro spokesperson confirmed with MyNorthwest.

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The decision follows the placement of a Seattle Police Department mobile precinct in the downtown area, intended to add more visible police presence to an urban stretch where a 15-year-old boy was recently shot and killed. That shooting prompted at least one local business, Piroshky Piroshky, to shutter its doors indefinitely.

In late February, a similar effort was made to suppress visible drug dealing in Little Saigon at the 12th Avenue and Jackson Street intersection.

“Mayor Harrell is working closely with Chief Diaz and SPD to develop and implement additional strategies addressing crime downtown. Replicating promising early results from 12th and Jackson requires concentrated effort to show noticeable improvement in the short term and a comprehensive approach in the long term — integrating social services, community engagement, economic activation, and more,” a statement from Mayor Harrell reads.

Aleksandr Butowicz, founder of the security company Iron and Oak, which contracts with the Downtown Business Association, tells MyNorthwest that the mobile precinct “has had a significant impact on the safety of the Pike/Pine corridor.”

The problem, as Butowicz sees it, is that the obvious indicators of crime, such as fencing of stolen goods and selling of drugs, have only been displaced.

“Once you get outside the coverage of the mobile precinct, the environment becomes far more dangerous. It’s clear that we didn’t actually solve any problems — we just kicked the can down to the next block.”

That has left his security team in the position to patrol a wider area of the downtown area.

“With the additional resources now deployed on 3rd Ave, we are starting to move our security teams out to other parts of downtown,” he said. “We are hearing from many businesses and clients that the problems from 3rd Ave have resurfaced on their doorsteps.”

Shifting the location of the bus stop is intended to calm foot traffic and congestion in the area.

KIRO Newsradio’s Nicole Jennings contributed to this report.

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