Starting soon, Microsoft will start offering a bus system for employees within the region. (Full disclosure: I am a full-time Microsoft employee). This is part of a broader effort Microsoft has undertaken to recruit talent with different lifestyle choices, since not everybody wants to live in the suburbs on the Eastside. For another example, Microsoft is expanding its Seattle office space.
It will be interesting to see what sort of effect this has on the 545 service and ridership numbers. Right now 545 gets about 5,300 riders a day, making it one of Sound Transits most popular routes. I ride the 545 almost every day (the others I work from home) and sometimes it can be very very crowded, especially on morning buses that are not-articulated. Most of the riders who get on at the last Seattle stop at Mountlake have to stand, and often bike riders have to wait a bus or two to find rack space to hold their bikes.
I don’t think many Capitol Hill Microsofties will take the company bus if only because it will not come often enough (545 comes every ten minutes), but I am sure this is going to move a lot of Queen Anne/Belltown commuters out of their cars.
I am confused. Why do you think that the residential area which is closest to Microsoft is not being targeted by the proposed MS bus service as the place to serve?
Your stats show that the most MS employees live in Redmond and yet the entire West Lake Sammamish area is left off the MS bus route. Why hasn’t anyone realized that people like to live close to work and will use the bus to get there if it serves their needs?
Neither Metro nor MS will admit that people who must travel by bus will live where there is good bus service with livable hours of availability.
If you question my assertion, try to get from W.Lk.Samm. to Microsoft by bus on any Sunday or on any day after 7pm.
You have a good point. Why send an MS bus to Capitol Hill when the 545 goes there anyway?
Why not send it to Redmond and West Sammamish where most of the employees live?
Simple. Because the bus is a recruiting tool. And the people they’re trying to woo are recent college grads who want to live in the city and want to have commutes unencumbered with the need to pay attention to the road.
Google and Yahoo already offer this kind of bus service to tote these same kinds of people out of San Francisco to the offices in Silicon Valley. Microsoft is just matching benefits.
EBay and Apple also offered similar bus service from San Francisco to the South Bay.