A blast shook Greenwood early this morning, destroying 3 local businesses (Quick Stop, Mr. Gyros, and Neptune Coffee) while causing heavy damage to nearby businesses such as G&O Family Cyclery. KOMO News reports the cause as a natural gas leak that had been reported roughly 40 minutes prior to the explosion. 9 firefighters have been treated for burns and abrasions, and thankfully no one appears to have been more seriously injured.
Metro has announced that routes 5, 48, and 355 will be detoured away from 85th/Greenwood “until further notice.”
Lots of coverage on Reddit if anyone wants more info.
It seems from the detour announcement that the buses are purely missing stops, rather than substuting with addition stops on a parallel road. Is this standard procedure? For example, the 550 is on reroute from 4th to Main here in Bellevue and is using the stops there (rather than just skipping stops all together).
It also seems like a map or diagram would be helpful — nothing fancy but you could easily create a map in mspaint in about 3 minutes if you knew exactly what the buses were doing.
No, it isn’t standard procedure. I went to that area a lot last summer, and whenever buses were rerouted, they served temporary stops along 3rd Ave N and 80th St. I guess the problem is that there aren’t any normal bus stops along those streets (since there normally aren’t any buses there), and Metro had to put this reroute into place too quickly to set up temporary signs.
What a horrible thing to happen to my old neighborhood.
I looked at the re-route. While I understand why the detour is between 105th and 80th, if you are on 90th that’s a hike no matter which way you choose. The hike could be made easier if you know that if you hiked to, say, 105th you’d clear the detour. Conversely, if something happened on the evening commute and the bus had to detour, you could get an idea whether you were affected and how.
Any thoughts of a map app that a transit rider can call up that would shade the area that’s being detoured and re-routed? It doesn’t even have to show re-route (although useful), just the route that’s affected..
An “app” for the temp stops shouldn’t be hard, technically. But someone would still have to get the information and key it in. Also- not everybody has smart phones yet. Also, in a “bad one”, like this one, especially a gas explosion, the authorities need to find out exactly how big area needs to be cleared before they specify anything.
Most sensible thing for drivers might be to let passengers off any safe place they want. And also be ready to put flashers on and stop for people who wave them down. Just like a cab. Doubt any driver would get in trouble for doing that now.
But the Flint water-supply event calls attention to a much worse problem. Right now, we’ll have to be ready at short notice for whatever else is going to break down, leak, or blow up. Which really should be standard state of mind all the time.
Reason I’ve started advocating Federal measures for getting people, if not cars, moving on our urban and suburban Interstates. Those roads were intended, designed and build as a defense measure. Not rush-hour parking. Only good thing is that the Medical Examiner won’t have any problem finding a lot or bodies. Which he’ll need a helicopter to remove.
Since we’re talking national defense, people might get scared enough to act if we called it “Security” instead. Because right now ISIS or any other terrorist group doesn’t have to plant a firecracker. All they have to do is claim credit for every disaster that we inflict on oursevles.
Leaving our authorities to deny the claim, and demanding that the record reflect that THEY did it.
Mark Dublin
The “give bus drivers discretion” methodology that Mark D mentions ties with my experiences of fires and arson etc, as well as explosions (admittedly all in the UK) Authorities should want perimeters to stay flexible for quite a while and for traffic along them to move as fast and straight through as possible.
All experiences with disasters in the US say that expecting to walk out *past* the perimeters is the best approach, since out there conditions are normal and predictable
Hitch hiking still works, BTW, especially if people are tuned to some of news as part of staying alert.
Much respect for the UK, Slowrider, especially for being able to convince Scotland to stay in it. Fewer explosions and, based on history, a lot worse things.
Not going to try a “glottal stop” or a dropped “h” in the typewritten word. But really have to find some classic Monty Python disks, because it would be just wonderful for cautionary official transit announcements to finish with: “We’re seeing a lot of that lately.”
Or even better, fare inspectors addressing an irregularity with: “Hullo, hullo, hullo and what have we here?! Or passenger misbehavior dealt with starting: “Here now, what’s all this?”
Now that Community Transit is getting so many double deckers, from Scotland, the drivers tell me, I think it’s more than time.
Mark
I would like the same info the driver has. The reroute is: regular route southbound, then
R – N 90th
L – 3rd NW
L – NW 80th
R – Greenwood and continue on regular route. How hard is that?