The Metro website says there is “no Metro service that is being rerouted due to adverse weather conditions.”
Woo hoo!
Community Transit has a few lingering re-routes.
UPDATE 12:59 PM: We’re back to several dozen suspended routes. Was that a glitch?
6 commentsThis post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
After the bus system failed me yesterday, and others at the bus stop told me they’d been waiting an hour with no bus in site, I thought I’d walk home. I realized the streetcar would save me a bit of time on this walk, and hopped on board. But when I went to pay, there was a sign telling me it’s free until Dec. 26. So I thought I’d share the news.
0 commentsUPDATE: Most people are probably at work, and the Metro and CT websites seem to have limped through the day, so we’ve stopped updating here. We may start an afternoon thread if the websites collapse then.
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Because the various transit agency websites are likely to collapse under the strain, here’s a snapshot of their plans for the morning:
Tips and guiding principles from rpin.org:
Bus passengers should be aware that travel conditions can change quickly, and this list of disrupted service may be revised at any time due to weather and road conditions. In some locations, where roads are impassable for large buses, Metro will be operating chained shuttles. In order to safely transport as many passengers as possible, Metro is focusing on providing bus service on cleared highways and arterial roads, and to major transit centers and park-and-ride lots. Access in and out of West Seattle continues to be a problem, and there will be very little service to side streets and smaller neighborhoods.
Passengers should be prepared to board buses at major transit centers, flat arterials, or at the top or bottom of hills. Please dress warmly, wear appropriate footwear, and be prepared to wait. The buses that are running are expected to be significantly delayed.
Lots of more specific information (Metro, ST, CT) is after the jump. Watch here for updates, and consider this your snow day thread.
Continue reading “Snow Day Web Surfing”
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According to this King County website, there’s been a production problem with the run of January 2009 PugetPasses, so many customers may not receive their passes in the mail in time for next month. They are also not in stock at the various walk-up sales outlets.
Not to fear, however. I’ve received word that December 2008 PugetPasses will be honored through January 9, 2009 on Sound Transit, King County Metro, Community Transit, Pierce Transit, and Everett Transit. The flyer, of which I’ve seen an advance copy, will allegedly be out on RPIN.org in the next few days.
In other fare news, the visitor pass will cease to exist in January. With ORCA on its way in Spring, we can expect a major revision of the entire pass structure.
Remember, also, that your February pass’s value may have to be 25 cents higher to keep up with rising Metro fares.
6 comments
With snowpocalypse upon us, it’s difficult to make time to post on all of these, so here’s a news round-up.
Photo of Snowpocalypse by Oran in the STB flickr pool.
4 commentsThis post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Republican Rep. Ray LaHood is Obama’s choice for Transpo Secretary. Erica Barnett rounds up the reax here.
Take John Ashcroft. When he was nominated for Attorney General back in 2001, the big concern was that he was a hard-right anti-choice guy. But no one remembers Ashcroft’s tenure at the DOJ for his take on abortion. Instead, questions of detainee rights and the limits executive power dominated his term. And to complicate matters further, while Ascroft seemed to be a hard-core Bushie on those issues as well, we learned after he resigned that he actually took a respectable stand against Bush’s efforts to shred the constitution on at least one occasion (the infamous hospital room incident).
Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, was a similar case. His moderate views on tax policy ended up with him getting shown the door because of his disagreements with White House staff.
Point being, a lot of things can happen in a given realm of public policy that’s far outside the domain of the relevant Cabinet Secretary. World events and White House priorities being among them. Why, for example, did Tom Daschle accept the role of HHS Secretary only under the condition that he would also serve as white house advisor on health care? Because he knew that the Oval Office is where the action is.
That’s not to say that cabinet secretaries are irrelevant. They run massive federal agencies, hire dozens of like-minded deputies to serve under them and carry out policy, etc., etc. But you can’t extrapolate from a single nominee’s record in congress to the kind of policies they’ll carry out as head of an agency. It’s not a straight line at all.
1 commentsThis post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
California’s cutting back on transit projects because it can’t sell ’em. The Port of Seattle’s putting the brakes on their new $417M rental car garage for the same reason.
This seems to be happening everywhere, as banks are having trouble selling bonds to cash-strapped (or liquidity-strapped) large institutions.
0 commentsUpdate: Sounder 1514 (departing Seattle at 5:55 pm) and 1515 (departing Tacoma at 4:55) have been cancelled.
King County Metro has pulled the plug on many bus routes for this evening’s commute. You can see the full list of routes that are canceled at the previous link. Metro has also announced that no articulated (bendy) buses will be running — so expect packed buses if you’re leaving from downtown.
The adverse weather page now contains more information at a glance, which is a good improvement from this morning’s chaotic page.
Continue reading “Metro Suspends Routes for Thursday Evening Commute”
| 10 commentsSeattle DOT is running a twitter feed about their snow operations here.
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Important: Many Metro buses are operating on their adverse weather routes, meaning that schedules and services like mybus.org could report bad data. Be prepared to wait!
Also, walk to the top or bottom of the hill to catch a bus. Your bus may not be able to stop on a steep slope.
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Seattle’s getting walloped, so I’m going to work from home.
I’ll bet the Sounder is packed today.
Good snow stories? Share them in the comments.
UPDATE: My Sounder prediction, above, is not at all supported by early reports. See the comments.
UPDATE: Both WSDOT and SDOT are twittering about the mayhem. – Eric
Image from SLOG.