In case in snows again tomorrow, here’s some advice:
- Wait for buses at the bottom of hills, never at the top. The bus is less likely to get there.
- Buses might be on altered patterns for severe weather, check here for updates and information.
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Be patient, your bus will likely be late.
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Telecommute if that’s an option.
What am I missing?
If you know of a good way to confirm for sure whether one’s bus is on the snow route, and where the snow route goes, that would be very helpful to share.
I used to work in King County’s Rider Information Call Center. The only way to really know if a bus is on a snow route is to call Rider Information. And RIO gets their reroute information from the operations control center. On a snow day, you are very unlikely to actually get a hold of someone there because the phones are off the hook until the snow melts.
RIO has all the information on the snow routes – maps of where they go, if they are in effect, etc – but at least while I worked there, they didn’t post that stuff online.
When I worked there I suggested that KC Metro actually have some cool technology that allows the people at the control center to update reroute information that would automatically get posted online in an RSS feed. But alas, KC Metro’s technology isn’t that good for bus riders, only for the people that work there.
Oh also, advice for bad weather days: If you happen to know that your bus won’t be rerouted due to snow, use tracker!! It is really accurate; last winter I caught a bus that was 40 minutes late by walking out to the stop 6 minutes before tracker said it would be there and viola it showed up.
I guess it didn’t snow.
If you are a bus rider like I, my only tip which is important. Be flexible and wear lots of layers!! I always expect delays and there is really nothing you can do about it, but at least you will be warm!