Quote Originally Posted by NbyNW View Post
Seattle's system had peak hour restrictions for a while, I think it was something like no bike loading/unloading in a specific section of the downtown corridor. I always guessed that they didn't want to slow down boarding times, but I think it takes longer for people to board the bus during a busy period than to put a couple bikes on the rack. Could also have been that the buses only had so much space to stack at curbside stops.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details since it didn't impact my commute (I never worked downtown), but I think after the bus tunnel re-opened (sometime in the last 2 years) they began to permit people to use the bike racks downtown at any time.
Indeed - I think there was some fear that there would be a slow down in boarding during peak hours downtown, but about a year or so ago they decided to pilot allowing cyclists to allow loading downtown and apparently it was not a problem at all as its still allowed and doing fine - really it doesn't take long at all to load a bike. If there are even a few people waiting to board you can load your bike up before they even all get on (well... as long as the rack doesn't jam...)