I used to use the bus all the time. I grew up north of Seattle, and when I started going to UW, I took the 372 to the 331 to get home. That route necessitated a transfer at the LFP Town Center, midway down the line. I always cut through the mall, crossing Bothell Way by the Starbucks and emerging up top at Third Place Books.
I noticed that there was always another person making the same transfer. I caught the bus at the HUB at 3:48pm, and she was sometimes also at the stop. One particularly drizzly October day, I did my usual cut-through of the mall. When I got back outside on the north side of the mall, she remarked to me that it was smart to be cutting through the mall. I (being a poor representation of a Seattlite) offered her my umbrella. 22 years later, she’s still my partner. (You can hear about this story for a segment we did for KBCS for Valentines’ Day, starting at 3:10!)
The 372 was my lifeline to and from school. It wasn’t just for me — my father used it too, back to when it was the 307. In fact, for 20 years, he used it constantly. I remember calls that he’d make home, asking for a particular pick up time from the mall (this is before the 331, hard to depend on the 308/342 to transfer). The absolute worst was missing the last 6:00p bus from UW. If that happened, my mother would pile all the kids in the car and make the trek down to UW to pick him up. In the event that he forgot to call home, he would use the pay phone just outside Albertsons to request a pickup! I even remember using that same pay phone once or twice for that same purpose.
The 372 was always a bendy bus. The older ones with the back window were particularly memorable. I remember just zoning out the window and watching the urban landscape change from day-to-day; it’s still immensely fascinating to me when I ride the bus today.
I remember being so annoyed at the inevitable gaggle of students we’d pick up just before we got to campus at both Blakely and 47th along 25th just before we got to campus. It was always the buses that were just perfectly timed to get to campus during class change. Then I moved to an apartment close to UW and understood the desire to “cheat” up the hill instead of walking up Pend Orille!
I moved away from Seattle soon after school, but the bus always elicits memories whenever I saw it. I moved into Seattle, and still see it today while biking around the city.
Thanks for all the rides you’ve given me, my friends, and my family. I will miss the late night rides chatting with operators, listening to smooth jazz, and gossiping about desires. Scurrying across the mall property will forever be linked to this route. I hope this route’s demise won’t be in vain.
Route 372 is being eliminated in the August 2026 service revision (King County Ordinance 19751).
As the lyric from Joe Metro goes, “I grow weary from the way we just sit there and stare.” I wanted to put pen to paper to immortalize one part of my story, and to see if others have parts to share about those (now) bygone routes that they also depended on. If I’m as quarter as good as writing as Nathan Vass, I’ll be happy. I figure there’s no way to develop then to do!
