As the countdown clock in our sidebar indicates, we’re 30 days away from Swift’s opening day on Sunday, November 29th. They’re borrowing some pages from Link Opening Day:
Swift will begin service at a community celebration from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 29 at the Swift Crossroads Station at Highway 99 and 196th Street SW in Lynnwood. The family event will feature music, games and a christening of the Swift buses. As a special treat, customers can ride Swift buses for free until midnight on that day.
Anyone interested in being one of the first 200 passengers aboard the first run of Swift on Nov. 29 are encouraged to send an email to swift@commtrans.org with the subject line “Swift Bus Ride” and include their name, phone number, email address and city of residence.
There are 80 passengers per bus, so with VIPs and media I’m guessing that ticket would get you on one of the first 3.
Swift is the region’s first branded bus rapid transit line. Find out everything you ever wanted to know about it at the comprehensive Swift website.
I applied to be one of the first 200 passengers a week or two ago, and it looks like it’s a raffle.
I recieved a reply today to one such request that I made in response to their Facebook promotion of this. There will be a raffle on November 11th to find those 200 passengers.
Wish I could… but it’s Thanksgiving weekend, I’m not gonna be here.
I don’t know much about this, but it looks exciting. Anybody have any idea how long it would take under this new system to get from Aurora Transit Center to Everett Station? I couldn’t find that anywhere on their website.
When they were first promoting it, CT said it would be 10 to 15 minutes faster than the existing 100 and 101 (however long that is).
I found this post: https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2009/08/18/swift-brt-update/ where Oran says it took an hour to do the whole route southbound, and that it would take around 48 minutes on Swift.
Still not that great when you consider that it takes 20-30 minutes to do this route in a car (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Smith+Ave&daddr=N+200th+St&hl=en&geocode=Fc8K3AIdC2e3-A%3BFdr52AIddy61-A&mra=ls&sll=47.975401,-122.198267&sspn=0.004719,0.009645&ie=UTF8&z=11). When the day comes that taking mass transit is comparable in time to taking a car over the same route (I’m thinking something like mass transit time <= 1.25 x time to drive in traffic), that will be something to celebrate.
If you switch the route on Google to follow SR 99 (like the bus does), it takes 40 minutes to drive, which is comparable to a 48-minute bus trip.
There are already several express buses which will take you from Everett to points south via I-5.
Still, DaveO is right, to be most effective transit should have the same door-to-door time as driving, if not better. In the UK the intercity trains are twice as fast as the buses, and that’s one reason why they’re so popular. People ride the subways in NYC because “it’s the fastest way to get around”. It’s annoying how long it takes to go up and down 99, and Swift sounds good but not as good as it could be.
If there were unlimited money, 99 should have a local route, a limited-stop route (Swift), and an express route. The express would stop only at Everett, 196th, Aurora Village, and maybe one or two other places.
I’d go if I could, but it’s now official: I’m a mommy-to-be (don’t know the gender yet)!!!