Footage from the aftermath of Thursday’s tunnel debacle:
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Watching the video, it is kind of amazing that ST/MT don’t have a pre-defined route for the shuttle – the supervisor is kind of making it up on the fly as she talks to the driver. If there is more than one shuttle running, they could make different stops. And how would riders know where the catch it?
Seems like MT/ST need to design and publish procedures for what they will do when either the tunnel is shut, or some other segment of Link is shut – and maybe post that at the Link stations – it could include directing riders to alternate regular bus service, and what shuttles will be run for what disruption.
The shuttle should follow the Link routing. From Stadium Station to 5th Avenue (via 6th/Airport) to IDS, left on Jackson, right on 4th, left to Prefontaine to North on 3rd. Make all requested stops. Signage should read “Drop Off Only” after leaving Stadium. Bell gets pulled – stop at the next zone (red or yellow).
Southbound just the opposite. Pick up only, make stops at zones nearest Link entrances (Pine; Union; Seneca; James; IDS). All yellow zones with the exception of Seneca (3rd and Seneca entrance to tunnel).
The shuttle has a routing, but since operators don’t drive it often they may forget after they’ve qualified.
It’s very common for a supervisor to read reroute instructions over the air to an operator. I think they’re reading from those poorly written text documents that Metro puts online (L STREET N, STOP FS OTHER ST) so they have to decipher them as they go. And the coordinators are multitasking, so that helps add to their apparent “making upedness”
Actually most Operators are “automatically qualified” on certain shuttles rarely run once they’re assigned to a base. I was surprised to see a number of shuttle routes on my qual list (given on request by Training) and it was explained that since the runs are fairly simple and overlap a number of others, drivers are automatically qualified on them once they qualify on parallel routes.
Supervisors often read re-route instructions over the air either because the re-route was initiated after the start of the day’s work in response to an emergency situation (fire, police activity, blockage by an accident, unforseen construction that the City of Seattle forgot to tell Metro about) or – and in this case the driver is in trouble – the re-route was announced at base but the driver didn’t pay attention to the re-route board before leaving to drive their route.
Coordinators HATE reading re-routes in the latter case, as it’s a matter of drivers being negligent that takes up their time unnecessarily.
“Coordinators HATE reading re-routes in the latter case, as it’s a matter of drivers being negligent that takes up their time unnecessarily.”
Which results in the old “All operators who do not have the X reroute, please give this office an RTT” trick. You hit that RTT button and ask for the reroute – in return you get the reroute and a PR for not checking the reroute board. – Busted.
The next time that there are signal problems or communication problems like this, would it not be better to do the following:
shift all tunnel bus routes to the surface
continue to run Link through the tunnel, possibly with supervisors with radios controlling the train movements. With 7.5 minute frequency, it might be sufficient for one supervisor at ID and one at Westlake – and treate the tunnel route as having 3 segments – northbound ID to Westlake, the turnaround stub, and southbound Westlake to ID. Train can’t enter one segment until previous train clears it. Operators need permission to enter each segment.
Seems like this would be better for riders and probably less costly than running shuttles, and should provide for safe operations, since train-bus collisions are not possible if no buses in tunnel and the trains can be manually signaled this way.
A while back I asked about the Microsoft Commute Mode; specifically, what percent used the Connector vs Metro vs ST. The information is hard to come by. The closest thing I could find was a pie chart in this PDF. The number 3,000 used for daily riders (I’m assuming they mean commuters and don’t double count “trips”) is the same as was reported back in 2007 shortly after the system was instituted and the number of routes has increased 2-3 fold )report is Dec. 2008). Best I could make out from this though is that of the 13% commuting by bus it’s split fairly evenly between Metro/ST and Connector. It also confirms my observation that very few MS employees use the Van Pool option which is strange because the larger the employer the higher the van pool use generally becomes. And, the 2% bike mode share is about what I would have guessed. Actually it’s probably less of a factor since I think some people like to put down bike when they’re really only fair weather riders and don’t even cycle the majority of commutes over the course of a year (hint, anyone without a good lighting system is not really a bike commuter around here).
I think that chart only counts the FTEs. Contractors get a free Puget Pass, but aren’t allowed to use the Connector. The various Metro, CT, and ST routes serving the Main Campus are still packed and still have plenty of blue-badges on them.
The Downtown Bellevue Microsoft offices seem to have a fairly good transit and bike mode share. I’m not sure how it compares to the main campus, but I’m willing to bet it is better than the other MSFT office clusters except for maybe the Seattle sites.
Given the way people work at tech companies I can see why vanpools aren’t terribly popular. Most people aren’t working on a fixed schedule where they are going to and from work at the same time every day.
Another factor is Microsoft doesn’t really promote vanpools or carpools the way they promote biking, public transit, or the Connector.
It would be nice to find more recent data than Dec. 2008. I doubt DT Bellevue has a higher bike share. Riding to DT Bellevue sucks. The Main Campus has the 520 trail which connects with the SVT which connects with the Burke Gillman and East Lake Sam. Software workers can work a fairly fixed schedule; especially when they have the flexibility to work from home or while commuting. Besides, there’s a huge number of employees working for MS or under contract (like Grubb Ellis maintenance facilities) that do work fixed hours. With the intra campus transportation provided I still find it very strange King County VanPools don’t make up a much larger portion. MS knows it’s costing them a fortune to park cars; I find it strange they aren’t promoting this essentially free (to them) solution. Maybe it’s the military mentality; don’t get too friendly with your co-workers and move people around frequently to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Well, I don’t know what the Bellevue bike share is but there are a lot of bikes in the CCP bike room (a 26 story all-MSFT building in Downtown Bellevue).
I know my hours vary too much to make a vanpool practical for me, but with a free pass and having to cross 520 riding the bus is pretty much a no-brainer for me.
I don’t see that many vanpools heading to Eastside employment destinations at all, at least as compared to how many there are going to the UW or to Downtown Seattle. I think the fact that most Eastside workers enjoy free parking might be a factor.
Microsoft and other subrban employers might see an uptick in the share for carpools and vanpools if they reserved the best parking spots for the carpool and vanpool users. Otherwise there really is no incentive for the employee other than the ability to use the HOV lanes.
The really sad thing is even with being located right next to BTC the employee garages at both CCP and the Bravern fill up quickly and even with valet parking run out of space on many days.
Frankly MSFT needs to start charging their employees for parking if they aren’t on a motorcycle or part of a vanpool or carpool. I’m not sure if the city codes in Bellevue or Redmond would let them do that though.
“Frankly MSFT needs to start charging their employees for parking if they aren’t on a motorcycle or part of a vanpool or carpool. I’m not sure if the city codes in Bellevue or Redmond would let them do that though.”
I don’t know why it would be a problem in Bellevue; there’s plenty of paid parking in downtown Bellevue. If the building has paid parking, then there has to be a cost to the company of providing parking passes.
Since they provide a transportation benefit, they could price a transit option more attractively than a parking option. Also, they could do a better job encouraging carpooling.
Microsoft *does* reserve the best spots for carpools and vanpools, at least at my building. But there’s just so much parking that it almost doesn’t matter.
Also, HOV doesn’t help as much as you might think. In the morning, there’s no HOV lanes until you get to 405, and at that point traffic has generally let up anyway. In the afternoon, the 3+ lanes are very nice, but they end once you get to the bridge.
The biggest thing, though, is that most Microsoft employees, by far, live on the Eastside. For many of them, the closest they could get to transit is driving to a park & ride and taking the Connector, and considering that the suburban Connector routes often run only 2-4 times each way, that’s not a very appealing option. (Microsoft runs these monster buses on the Eastside routes, and yet they always seem to have about 5 people on them…)
I bet that if you broke down the commuting method share for Microsoft employees by where they lived, you’d find that about 95% of non-SOV-driving employees live in Seattle.
Perhaps you’re right about the 95% of non-SOV employees living in Seattle. But that still doesn’t explain the dearth of VanPools. MS knows it costs a fortune to park people. They’re doing valet parking not because it’s a service but because they have to park in cars due to construction. Employees don’t like it because they have to call ahead to get their car and nobody wants to keep their car so clean they are willing to hand it over to a parking attendant.
The really weird thing is; it seems that overwhelmingly the vast majority of MS employees have no interest in using transit. Maybe that’s why the campus was located where it is or maybe the location has attracted that demographic of employee. I don’t know.
I have to confess I don’t understand why anyone would take a vanpool into downtown Seattle. The transit service is excellent from basically anywhere, so you’re not getting much in convenience while losing any flexibility in start and end times.
I think something similar applies at Overlake, which also has really good service. Coming from Seattle, Snohomish County, or South King County, you’ve got pretty good bus options. From the Eastside, if you really want/have to take the bus you can, but for a short hop like that you might as well us the abundant parking Microsoft provides you.
My building is close enough to the Overlake Transit Center that I just hop on the 230 and ride it on in. The 230 drops me off and I can wheel myself straight on in (yeah, I bought a house along the 230 – long before East Link discussions started – for a reason)
Jessica, in case you didn’t want to wheel over to your building, are the campus shuttles accessible?
When our company was located in Overlake one of our employees used a vanpool from Monroe. Relying on transit would mean driving to a P&R to catch a bus at 6:30AM to be at work by 8:30AM and paying $9 a day in fares (with ORCA, $17 with out, ouch) for the privilege of spending over four hours a day commuting. Same commute time if he’d been trying to get to DT. Overlake and DT have lots of transit but most of the areas people are coming from don’t (areas, not population). Even if you have the option of taking the bus a vanpool is faster (less stops) and cheaper. In fact it’s cheaper than driving alone even if you have free parking. Plus, most people don’t have flexible hours; they have to be at work during “business hours.”
Regarding Bernie’s post about MS employees interest in using transit. I’m one of those that would love to use transit more, but it just doesn’t make sense for me. Taking the Connector from N Seattle to OTC and then shuttling to my office takes about 1h 15m on the way in and it’s about the same on the way back home, but usually maybe 5 to 10 minutes less. Taking Metro to ST Express is even worse, 1h 30m or more each way. Driving each way takes me maybe 35 to 40 minutes, with the occassional hour long mess. I’m trading in money for time. I can make more money, I can’t make more time. I think a lot of Seattle-resident Microsofties are in this same situation.
As Aleks states, the state of HOV on 520 is a big part of this. Frankly it’s a joke. To Redmond you get stuck in the lineup getting onto 520 and then there is no HOV until you are across the bridge. By that point there’s no traffic so there’s no time benefit. And on the way home it’s a little better, but not much. Since they decided to put the HOV lane on the right (why would they do this???), the on and off-ramps slow up the traffic and make it just as backed up as all the rest of the lanes. Not till you pass Bellevue Way do you get a benefit.
I’m hoping the new ST542 helps this for my personal situation. But I haven’t really seen any schedules or anything yet, so I’m not sure it will. This is mostly due to its limited hours of operation. I also think it makes A LOT of stops in the U-district (what’s Express about that?). It’s due to launch in Sept, right? With tolling coming next year it will most likely be a whole different story though.
IIRC, the HOV lanes on 520 were one of the first HOV lanes installed anywhere. Because they were a new thing, they didn’t know where to put them and thought the right side would be OK. It does eliminate a lot of weaving for HOVs. But why they haven’t moved them I’m not sure.
The HOV lanes are being moved to the inside as part of the Eastside Transit & HOV project.
The 520 lane is on the right because it used to be a breakdown lane. That’s why it’s HOV 3+ 24/7: that part of the road simply wasn’t engineered to hold the kind of traffic that it would get at even HOV 2+, let alone part- or full-time SOV. The move to the middle will be accompanied by rebuilding that entire section of roadway to modern standards.
As far as stop spacing goes, it’s important to distinguish between rapid and express. Almost without exception, express buses in Seattle are express *to* somewhere, but local from there.
The 542 is supposed to launch in October, when the fall service changes go into effect.
You should ride the 66 or 358 and then talk about express.
But I’ve heard some MS employees can “punch in” as soon as they sit down on the bus and connect via their laptop. In that case you’d gain about an hour a day. I guess that’s one huge advantage of Connector over Metro; unless you have a really good 3G wireless modem. Plus, it’s not just your drive time but you have to make that many more trips to the gas station. Sit around and wait for tires to get rotated/replaced more frequently, oil change, etc.
Tim: I realize that “express” in casual conversation means “fast”, but in terms of transit, I (and many transit planners, of which I am not one :D) use it to mean that there is a long segment with few/no stops.
Bernie: Only “blue badges” (e.g. regular employees, not contractors or temps) can take the Connector, and as a rule, we don’t “punch in”. In terms of shortening your workday, there are two factors. First, will you be able to get enough work done on the bus that you can feel like you’ve put in a day’s worth of work even if you arrive late or leave early? Second, will your manager be okay with the fact that you appear to be in the office less than other people? Note that neither of these are Connector-specific; the 545 has wireless internet as well.
I was not aware of the fact that “express” was local up to a point and then a long uninterrupted segment. I’d argue that’s the wrong word to use, especially since you even state that express is generally interpreted as “fast” by people. It similar to (us) Microsofties using all sorts of god-awful jargon/acronyms expecting others to know their meaning implicitly. But that’s left to a blog about the usage of the English language I suppose.
Oh yeah, the WiFi on the Connector is dreadful. I just read a book. The gas station’s across the street from me. I take my car to Costco to rotate the tires, eat lunch and shop. Changing oil? Yeah, people keep telling me you’re supposed to do that. I personally think it’s a conspiracy. :)
The thing is, many of the services described as “express” are explicitly relying on that ambiguity. The “ST Commuter Bus” just doesn’t have the same ring to it… ;)
I think the shuttle should not be signed “97″. It should just be signed “LINK” or “LINK SHUTTLE”. Or maybe it could be signed “SEATAC/AIRPORT” or “WESTLAKE” and alternating with “LINK SHUTTLE”. This could be done regardless of the segment which is being served by the shuttle because I think the shuttle should just be viewed as a seamless connector for the train. Announcements should also not mention “route 97″. Announcements should only mention “Link Shuttle” or “Link Shuttle bus”.
By showing “97″ on the bus, it implies that it is regularly scheduled bus service, and it attracts other riders who ask the operators where the bus is going.
It would also help if the shuttle only used ST branded buses to give a visual cue to uncertain riders that the shuttle is related to the train.
They are signed as “LINK SHUTTLE”. I disagree with them being signed as “Westlake”, since they won’t actually be serving that stop. FWIW, here’s what the signs were programmed to display in September 2009.
Also, ST doesn’t have that many coaches. You’ll often see a Metro coach running a ST route because all the ST coaches are in the shop or are otherwise out of service. Nor do I think the color of the bus has anything to do with the service–I often ask non-transit nerds various things about the bus to determine what coach they rode on, like “how many steps did you have to take to get in the front door” and “what color was the bus” and they usually don’t remember either.
Really, *all* Metro coaches should have the ST colors. And the ST fare structure. But that’s neither here nor there.
Disagree. King County Metro should not merge with Sound Transit. It would be a nightmare.
I agree, Metro and ST shouldn’t merge. But it is possible to adopt the same branding and fare structure without merging the agencies.
Politically I’m not sure CT, ET, MT, and PT would like losing their “brand” to a regional one, but it certainly would present less confusion to passengers.
I dunno, I find it very convenient to be able to tell a bus that might get me where I’m going from a bus whose next stop is in Lynnwood.
First, what Chris said. I don’t care whether the buses are operated by one organization or 20, but the branding and fare structure differences are actively confusing to newcomers.
Second, the fact that a bus has Metro colors does not mean that its next stop isn’t way the hell out there. Even leaving aside the fact that Metro buses are often used on ST routes, what’s the meaningful difference between the 271 and 540? They both run local to Montlake, then don’t stop until Evergreen Point. Conversely, the 586 and 540 both have the same colors, but getting on the 586 instead of the 540 could potentially be a 2-hour mistake.
I would be 100% on board with using branding to differentiate frequent arterial service from peak/commuter service, but differentiating ST from Metro routes is a very poor proxy for that.
Ah, like LA Metro. I found the fare differences between different types of service more annoying than anything.
I agree that it shouldn’t be given a number, just a LINK SHUTTLE name or something like that. I also think there should be a change to the destination sign on the trains. There are commonly short turn trains (typically to Mt. Baker or SODO), so people at Tukwila Internationl Boulevard, for example, might not board a train signed STADIUM STATION, assuming the meaning was equivalent to a train signed MOUNT BAKER STATION.
Even when the tunnel’s electronics are functioning well, the tunnel is still a mess. It’s especially bad during peak periods. Something as simple as loading a wheelchair can cause significant delays, and a stalled bus can disrupt service for 30 minutes or more (usually with no customer service announcements). I think that happened on Wednesday. A few weeks back Kevin Desmond wrote an article in which he admitted there are problems with tunnel operations, and Metro is working on making things better. I would like to know what specifically is being done to make things better.
It’s a sad state of affairs when a portion of Link is down so often that a special bus route, which even has its own route number and name, is created to step in and provide reliable service when Link is unable to.
Recall though, that the route was invented on Link’s opening day to provide additional capacity since Sound Transit only has so many trains.
Also, be aware that the route is not in operation at all times. It only runs when there’s a problem, and it’s not much different than when a bus breaks down.
Sounds like a good state of affairs to me; imagine how much it would suck if they didn’t provide the bus.
The last southbound train last night hit a man at Pioneer Square Station. The guy didn’t die, so I imagine the train wasn’t stuck there for hours, but as usual not a peep was made by Metro or ST via Twitter about any delay.
As usual? When has there not been a tweet about a delay? There were at least 5 I can remember about the tunnel being closed, 2 about Link hitting the truck and whenever there is a delay, I get a tweet or text from them. Perhaps you would be better served, assuming you want to be, by having the emails go to your phone as text messages. That way you will never miss one.
I can just see the comments if the reverse had happened:
“Why did ST decide to wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me a train that nobody rides was going to be delayed?”
Did you get 5 notifications last night? Were they emails, texts, or tweets? If ST is going to use Twitter to notify users of any train delays, they should use it for all train delays. There needs to be consistency. A user shouldn’t have to subscribe to Twitter, email alerts, and check the website every 5 minutes to be assured of being notified of all train delays.
It would seem to me that problems in the middle of the night are the best time to use Twitter, because it requires minimal staffing to do so (you don’t need an IT guy to put out a tweet, but you might to put a notice on the website), and because the middle of the night is a time when a lot of folks aren’t going to have access to email or an agency’s website. They will, however, have their cell phones. Moreover, major delays during the day usually get major media and word-of-mouth coverage. Even if you subscribe to none of ST’s notifications, you heard about the train/truck collision. But a delay at 1 a.m. will get no such wide coverage. Twitter is the quickest and easiest way to get word out at such a time.
I sent an email to SDOT about the same thing a few months back after a fire shut down the Ballard Bridge for a few hours on a weekend night. This was the response I got:
So rather than waste a tweet, they opt for not relaying any information to the public at all by any means? I’d bet the vast majority of SDOT’s twitter followers don’t care about the dozen or more Spokane St bridge openings each day, yet they dutifully tweet about every single opening. As well they should, as a matter of consistency. But a bridge closes for 2 hours, and not a peep.
As for being woken up, Twitter has a specific setting so that folks won’t be woken up by tweets in the middle of the night, and you can also turn notifications on and off via SMS on the fly.
If ST’s attitude is that they’re only going to put out notifications when “most people” will be affected by a delay, then why are they even bothering to run the train when “most people” aren’t riding it? They need to provide consistent and reliable notifications whenever the service is running. Inconsistency and unreliability at any time means inconsistency and unreliability for the service as a whole.
I got a tweet when the bus tunnel closed the other day. It said that if I wanted to catch a bus that all tunnel buses were being re-routed to the street above, and that I should “hoof it to the surface”. The message was clearly intended for passengers in the tunnel.
Problem: no cell reception in the tunnel.
The tunnel needs to become TRAINS-ONLY. Buses are slowing down the light-rail incredibly causing major incoveniences.
Those buses won’t just disappear – they’ll be back on surface streets causing slowdowns up there, and more of them. On the surface, the buses also have to interact with traffic, pedestrians, and signals. As trade-offs go, you’d be pumping more carbon into the air and incoveniencing far more commuters by ejecting buses from the tunnel than now.
But the bus ridership in the tunnel is still twice that of rail ridership. One could more easily argue that the train system is inconveniencing the bus riders.
Given that there is heavy transferring between buses and trains in the tunnel, both groups of riders are actually being convenienced by joint use.
There are lots of problems to work out, but rail ridership only stands to decrease if transferring is more difficult, and bus ridership stands to decrease if pushing all the buses upstairs now leads to gridlock on all the bus streets.
The above comment was intended as a response to Andrew. Sorry.
Walk Score introduces Transit Score and some new improvements…
http://www.walkscore.com/transit-score.php
Walk Score team unveils Transit Score and two more apps
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-08-16-transit-score-walk-score-commuter-report-affordability/
seattle transit score heat map
I’m not sure I agree with their methodology, but here is a larger scale and slightly more inclusive heat map.
Yes I know it’s not Sunday, but for those who haven’t heard, the Intercity Transit ballot measure in Thurston County passed last night.
Really good example of Vancouver frequency mapping, where thickness of lines is used to distinguish frequency, could be learned from in Seattle. Link: http://buzzer.translink.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/fsn-map-vancouver.jpg