KDavidClark

This move should surprise no one.

Bravo Metro: your drivers have been heroic, and your rider communications have been top notch (allowing for inferior bus location equipment).

Never fear bus riders: OneBusAway wasn’t ready for this storm, but should be ready for the ones that actually occur in the winter.

27 Replies to “Metro Snow Routes Continue Tuesday”

  1. Thanks Martin, STBers, and all the great Metro customers who hung with us today. Sorry, it couldn’t have been perfect, but our drivers, mechanics, call center, and all the thousands of folks behind the scenes – including managers – worked amazingly hard today.

    Linda@Metro

    1. Linda:

      I live over in the Arbor Heights area of W Seattle, and the 120 bus comes past my house, heads over Marine View drive to 35th, then heads north on 35th back to Roxbury [where it first enters this “loop”. One direction only, so when the bus route is plowed, it’s just one side of the street [usually]. When the bus route is shortened, and NOT run, that corner of 35th and Roxbury is easily seen as the place where the plow “turned” away from my neighborhood. Almost a mile and a half away. There are people even deeper into Arbor Heights, who like me, are now stranded with no plowed route back into the “world”. No bus, either. What gives??

      1. SDOT is streched pretty thin right now. They were having problems getting plows out to major roads like 99 or 45th. Minor arterials might get some attention later today, but chances are this will melt before any trucks show up.

  2. Thanks to Metro, I made it to and from work without issue. The snow route for the 16 along Green Lake is WAY better than the usual run (calmer, more scenic), and all drivers were patient, good-humored, and unnecessarily apologetic for being late d/t chains dictating slower speeds.

    1. Light rail was totally on time this afternoon. There were a few oohs and aahs when we passed over the I-5 parking lot on the way to the airport this evening! The main road into the airport totally stopped, but the train did just fine.

    1. Indeed.

      In addition to letting us squeeze illegally in front of the yellow line, my 522 driver set us free when it became apparent we were going nowhere fast. Allowed me to get home in half the time it would have taken, and also get some exercise to boot. ;)

      I am not certain it would be in the best interests of the driver to commend him officially for breaking the rules, however.

  5. I was at Campus Parkway and Brooklyn waiting for the 49 tonight. In the space of less than 5 minutes there were 5 70s that showed up. I was pleased to see that Metro was responding to the increased demand for transit during the bad weather:)

  6. Hey, that photo brings back memories. NE 24th ST, Bellevue, just a little East of Sherwood Forest Elementary School. I’ll be stopping near there to visit my parents for Thanksgiving.

  7. I wish that the news media would also mention buses in their updates, I get the impression they assume everyone is driving a car.

  10. Thank you to all the operators and staff who stuck it out to get the passengers home or to work safely!

    I do wish someone with the authority to do so could declare an emergency and ban private vehicles from I-5 for the duration of the storm. There are probably over 100 buses sitting on I-5 right now and unable to go anywhere for several more hours. If it weren’t for all the cars in the way, most of them could navigate the freeway just fine.

    The scene on I-5 northbound north of downtown right now is the perfect advertisement for North Link.

  11. Just took a walk through Wallingford to take a look around. Routes 30 and 26 were running fine, albeit a bit slowly.

  12. I got back from downtown fairly quickly tonight (1.5 hours).

    But tomorrow morning I have no idea what will happen. I’ll stand at a stop that is serviced by three different routes I can take (and it’s a stop that’s on the normal and snow route) but I have a feeling all the routes will bypass the area and make up their own snow route. Some streets are pretty icy, others are fine.

    I’m considering going around downtown and to the Mt Baker station just to then take Link back into the city.

  13. I got home to West Seattle at midnight after a 5 hour ride on the 54, 120 and 125 (they were all stuck in the same traffic, so I could move between them at will). All access routes to or from West Seattle were closed or blocked for large portions of the evening. Something went a little off with the de-icing plan, or no one was prepared for the hard mid-afternoon freeze.

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