Comments on: Tweaking Metro’s Homepage

By: Comment of the Day: The Wife’s Cell Phone - Seattle Transit Blog

Comment of the Day: The Wife’s Cell Phone - Seattle Transit Blog — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:20:14 +0000

[...] been harsh on transit websites recently, but what about Link’s speaker systems? Link’s still working out its kinks but [...]

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:31:25 +0000

For me, it’s a straight shot from NE 8th near Crossroads to Microsoft :)

By: Brendan M.

Brendan M. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:59:53 +0000

I agree, a popup calendar would be a useful addition. When I type in the date (I’m on Firefox & Windows) I always get an error page telling me to re-enter the date in the right format. My work-around is to navigate through Rider Tools, to the Trip Planner page, and then to the actual “Plan Trip” tab (where today’s date is already entered and ready to go).

By: Oran Viriyincy

Oran Viriyincy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:21:47 +0000

Well to the person who boards at Kingsgate P&R and riding it all the way to Redmond, it is. I guess it’s not the correct word but anyways, thanks.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:05:10 +0000

(sarcasm) You’re calling my home bus a “Milk Run”?

(end sarcasm)

Seriously, I like the ideas

By: Adam B. Parast

Adam B. Parast — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:58:35 +0000

You know how I get around this? Just use google to jump directly into the webpage you want. For example try to find Rapidride information through the navigation menus. I tried it once and it took close to 15 minutes. This is ridiculous. I mentioned that to Kevin Desmond to no avail.

By: Randay206

Randay206 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:30:54 +0000

I completely agree. Someone could type in “Wallingford” and all of the buses through there would show up – that’s pretty dope.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:26:34 +0000

I would love a pop-up calendar. For some reason with Linux and Firefox it doesn’t like the dates I type in even they’re valid. Even the default sometimes doesn’t work. Maybe that’s fix now with the new code?

By: Oran Viriyincy

Oran Viriyincy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:21:06 +0000

I would also add that not everyone is going to the end of the line so that kind of description would be useless for them.

By: Oran Viriyincy

Oran Viriyincy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:15:36 +0000

The problem is with some routes that such a description would be too vague, especially the suburban routes. For example, if I started in Kirkland and wanted to go to Redmond I wouldn’t take the 230 because it’s a milk run through Bellevue and Crossroads. I’d take the 248 instead. Or the night owl routes that go in a loop through multiple neighborhoods.

Sound Transit’s express routes are pretty much point-to-point so they can get away with just the terminals.

I second adding a pop-up calendar. That’s easier than typing the date in for some people.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:54:41 +0000

Also, I don’t think it was mentioned here, but a big website no-no is changing your URL without URL forwarding and an interstitial page to notify users that they are being redirected and that they should update their bookmarks.

KC forwarded metrokc.gov URLs to kingcounty.gov for about a year, but at no point did they notify users that they were being redirected, so most users had no idea anything had changed or that they should update any bookmarks. Then, about two weeks ago, they stopped the URL forwarding, leaving users with nothing but 404 errors. After an earful, they finally added a disambiguation page of sorts, but it’s not very helpful. In all, they’ve done a really bad job with the transition.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:45:09 +0000

In addition to telling folks the proper date formatting, an airline-style calendar pop-up would be great, though I imagine the only way to do that is with more Javascript (cf Alaska’s website).

Also, if a transit website’s drop-down list for routes was that wide & detailed, it would annoy the hell out of me. Anything more than beginning and ending of route, except for maybe major landmarks/destinations (e.g. downtown, stadium, airport), is overkill. Sound Transit’s website does this well.

By: Oran Viriyincy

Oran Viriyincy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:44:46 +0000

No, it’s only offered in English. The only multilingual content on Metro’s site is the How to Ride a Metro Bus. And it isn’t very obvious. They are links at the bottom of that page to Cambodian, Chinese, Korean, Laotian, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tigrinya, Ukranian, and Vietnamese language version PDFs of that page.

Sound Transit only has links on where to get more info in that language and I find that inadequate.

By: Oran Viriyincy

Oran Viriyincy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:36:10 +0000

I was going to write something about EOYMC but I left that for a later time.

By: Mike B

Mike B — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:22:29 +0000

Wow, you guys have put Metro in your cross hairs.

BRAVO!!!

As usual, great transit agency site
http://www.trimet.org/

By: Joseph Singer

Joseph Singer — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:18:45 +0000

Thanks for all your work!

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:51:08 +0000

I like Chicago’s website better. I like that their routes on current alert is on the main page, and I like their mystery shopper program.

By: Max Jacobowitz

Max Jacobowitz — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:28:47 +0000

Metro is stealing from Chicago!

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:24:04 +0000

King County Metro Transit’s main page seems to be missing foreign language links. Orca’s main page has them. So does Sound Transit’s. Am I missing it on the main page, is it buried within the website somewhere, or does Metro online not even offer its site on other languages?

By: Erik G.

Erik G. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:11:12 +0000

Now that Proof of Payment has come to service other than Sounder, a direct link to fare and ticket rules plus a link to code 0f passenger conduct would help.