Metro Transit is gearing up for possible snow this afternoon by chaining up buses and planning to move from regular routes to snow routes.
Metro buses will move to snow routing as travel conditions change. When buses move to snow routes, it will be announced through Transit Alerts and on the Metro Online website. Check the status for your route before you travel.
Metro is using an online color-coded map to keep riders informed of the status of its bus service. All bus routes are assigned into one or more of seven geographic areas within King County. When there is snow or ice on the roads, the service status of each area will be color coded and displayed on the online map. Green indicates buses are operating on normal routes; yellow that some – but not all – routes in the area are on snow routes (primarily in higher elevation areas); and red tells you that all bus routes in the entire geographic area are on snow routing.
People without online access can call the Customer Information Office at (206) 553-3000. General information about service will also be sent out via the kcmetrobus Twitter account.
Expect buses to be crowded and significantly delayed when on snow routes and travel is difficult. Also, many people may leave work early today, so take that into consideration in deciding when to travel. Metro encourages people to limit travel if possible if roads become snowy and icy.
What snow? Does the “First Snowflake Freakout Lady” drive a bus?
I guess they’re trying to quiet the obnoxious statements that follow every snowfall in Seattle. Such as, “back in [insert city where it snows a lot], they know how handle snow–unlike Seattle.”
THanks god for the 4×4….enjoy the buses suckers!
The obnoxious really live up to that adjective, don’t they? Karma shall surely find them.
Ha ha only poor people take the bus!
I prefer to pay someone to do the driving for me. Hence the bus. I’m not so poor I have to own a car and drive myself.
THanks god for the grammar too!
“I prefer to pay someone to do the driving for m”
Ahh, so the bus driver is your ‘chauffeur’ and the homeless guy wreaking of pee is your…’valet’?
Keep up the fantasy. Got home in 15 minutes. WIne glass is ready….ahh.
BTW, usually when I ‘pay someone to drive for me’ I don’t let them stop 20 times to let psychos share my ride.
So you’re drive takes as long as my bus ride (it’s called the Express bus)?
It’s luxurious to be able to read a book and have someone announce when they are stopping at my location, rather than having to deal with traffic problems, car insurance, car maintenance, gas, parking, car accidents, etc.
I don’t know who you are, but your disparaging comments about bus riders is both offensive and indicative of your own self worth. Your package, shall I say, need not be mailed by UPS, but by regular mail (in a small envelope). Make yourself known if your so proud of your POV. Come on lets see how much of a hot shot you really are! We’re waiting.
Okay, tough guy.
I hate snow days on the bus. Not because it takes longer, but because it brings out all of the crap tards that never ride the bus normally. They have no concept of bus etiquette.
Like little pigs, they whine whine whine all the way home, and then try to ram their chubby butts up to the front as soon as the bus stops at market. Have some patience you lug nuts.
I’m sure it must also be luxurious to stand out in the rain and snow for 15 minutes reading your book while you wait for the bus.
I took the bus one time – to the airport. A bum puked on the bus and we were 30 minutes late because we had to get off while a replacement bus was sent out. No thank you.
As you said, you’ve only ever ridden one bus in your life, but I would still expect you to know that bus stops (that’s where people wait for the bus to stop) have this tiny buildings called “bus shelters.” These bus shelters provide protection from the rain and the tiny-tiny snowflakes.
Also, two points: (1) there are homeless people in cities. It’s a fact of nature. Get over it or move back to the midwestern suburb you came from. And (2) if something goes wrong with your car, you’re often in for more than a 30 minute delay (e.g., battery dies you have to wait an hour for AAA, plus deal with replacing it).
I’d rather take the intelligent option and ride the bus.
Or get confused that bus marked 15X with several signs that say “Express” skips stops. If only there was some warning (such as the announcement that bus driver makes at 1st & Denny announcing that the next stop will be 15th and Market).
Anyhow the arguments they have with the bus driver are a bit amusing. “What do you mean this doesn’t stop until Ballard? That is so inconvenient! Why would the bus do that?” If only there were a bus load of people there to explain how convenient it is for them.
That seemed to shut him up…thank you.
I don’t mean this accusingly, Robotspider, and I have no idea if you’re a transplant from a “midwestern suburb” yourself, but it’s pretty clear that Seattle is the only major coastal city you’ve ever lived in and Metro the only public transit you’ve ever used.
Metro IS worse than transit systems in comparable cities.
It IS slower, less frequent, less reliable, more inconvenient, and less resilient in the face of disruption.
It’s vehicles ARE grosser than most, and it DOES let drunk, disorderly, and disgusting rule the roost more than its peers.
As a lifelong public transit user who has never owned a car, I’m still not sure I can stomach seeing “Metro” and “intelligent” in the same sentence.
p.s. Ultra-express one-way commuter buses to downtown are actually an enormous waste of resources and one of the reasons that the contrasting ultra-locals are nightmares in all other directions (especially the peak counter-commute) and the other 18 hours a day.
The key is to make all routes run quickly, frequently, and reliably so as to reduce the disparity between express/local and eventually make transit work for all trips. And neither Metro nor the self-congratulatory express-bus commuters (who drive the rest of the time) have shown particular interest in that necessary change.