Tag / king county metro

by Adron

A Smile For The Commute Home

The commute home today has been an interesting one. I really dug the Coffee Bean Espresso Shop in Belltown when I visited a couple weeks ago. I got a coffee card, a mug, a pin, and other nicknacks when I first visited – because I dug it just that much. Today on the way home I decided to go by again and have a coffee while I waited for my bus.

You might wonder, “why would you go way over there to wait for your bus! That’s the other end of downtown!” Well my main stop that I board the bus to return home, 3rd and Seneca, has so many buses coming by in addition to the #17, #18, or #15 that I usually ride. I decided to board one of the dozens of other buses coming by that exit downtown through Belltown and get off to finish my wait at the Coffee Bean. I boarded a #1 and was down to the Coffee  Bean with a solid good few minutes before my next bus arrived.

I egressed the #1 and a few others also did too. I walked under the construction awning that is setup as I walked to the corner. Out of the peripheral of my eye I saw someone following me. I thought nothing of this, it is the city after all. However I walked across the street and I looked behind me to see who it was. Not that I expected it to be someone I’d know, but just wanted to see. When I looked around I saw a young lady walking behind me. I thought “meh” ok, no threat, no concern, nobody I knew.

Well I walked on up to the front door of the Coffee Bean Shop and she says jovially, “yes, I’m following you…” with the expected sarcasm one would have when not really following someone. To her surprise though, me being who I am, I decided I’d open the door for the young lady. So I took the door and stepped back pulling it open letting her walk in. She got a smile from this and said thank you as she entered. I jokingly retorted, “and now I’m following you”.

She walked up to the counter to order and I followed in. As she ordered the guy at the counter asked, “is that all?” She responded with, “for me, and whatever he’s having.”  So I piped in with, “A small cappuccino, wet.” He responded “cool”. I said “thanks” to the young lady and walked over to my corner and plunked out the Apple Mac Book Pro to work on. I got my coffee, finished up what I was doing, and checked on the arrival time of my next available bus.  I had 4 minutes, which was perfect.

I packed up, and walked over to the young lady. I figured, after such a nice gesture, I should introduce myself. One never knows when they may run into a familiar face again. She introduced herself as “Laura”. After a rather long day, thanks Laura for being such a good soul and making my trip home a pleasant one.

I exited the coffee shop and headed to the stop. A #15 rolled up and I boarded. Again, I whipped out the laptop and decided this entry on the Transit Sleuth needed typed up, so here it is. The remaining trip went well, with no traffic congestion.

I sure hope everybody else had a good trip home with the smiling faces of friendly people. Until the next sleuthing about…  good travels.

by Adron

Rethinking Transit #1: User Experience Fixins’ for King County Metro

One of the big problems with transit, is the lack of creativity to create better, more usable, easier to understand elements.  The last great strides in transit usability, where almost all done during the private* company days of the early twentieth century. Regardless of this though, I’m going to put together some ways that King County Metro could make the system here in Seattle more friendly to regular users, new first time users, people coming in from other cities for a visit, tourists on vacation, or whoever may be trying to use the system. With that, this is a new blog entry series I’ll be starting called Rethinking Transit. If anyone would be interested in syndicating this I’m all ears! Just get in touch with me at adronhall [at] gmail [dot] com.

With these solutions I will try to follow a few general principles:

  1. They have to be covered by current operating or set dollars that are in the budget. I might provide some solutions that are extremely small expenses – no more than a 1-2% increase in the budget at most.
  2. They must be simple enough that even a heavily bureaucratic entity like King County Metro could undertake with just a few brave individuals standing up for the change! These solutions aren’t going to be like “Run light rail EVERYWHERE” or “Make every bus like a BRT line” or “put tolls on the entire city and do rush hour charging”. Simple, basic, easy to implement solutions.
  3. Any changes that I suggest, that provide solutions to current problems should enable ridership to increase without strain on the system. Maybe a few minor tweaks or changes, but overall the system and Union people won’t have to freak out, they can still generally operate everything just as it was.
For any other suggestions on how to fix the system, I’ll leave those for specifically labeled blog entries. For this series though, I’m going to label each entry starting with Rethinking Transit. With all that out of the way, my first of the series begins now!
User Experience Map Fail

King County Metro has time tables and schedules available in some locations. On some of the posts downtown they actually have schedules and other miscellaneous information. On many of the signs and posts that show stops downtown or even in the outer edges of Seattle the number of the route is at least shown. Here’s a suggestion on how to drastically improve the usefulness of transit stops in Seattle. I’ve enumerated them below.
  1. Stop putting the schedules at the bus stops. If anything is on the post, put the frequency and a link to http://www.onebusaway.org for real-time arrivals, but do NOT put the intended arrival time. The schedule is a lie, complete utter bullshit. Everybody around the city that uses the buses more than once or twice knows the schedule is a lie. That’s why about 32k people per day use the @onebusaway service. So just stop lying and provide something that can actually help people ride the bus. Get usage of @onebusaway even higher, provide some small funding for it, get more involved, but stop putting up bullshit schedules. Just because that’s the way it worked 100 years ago doesn’t mean it does today, so stop ignoring reality.
  2. The second thing that would actually be helpful is to actually put a map on the stop. It doesn’t have to be a complex map, but at least a map stating if the bus heads north out of downtown or south or whatever. A schedule, which as I pointed out above is completely useless, is silly but a map at least gives some guidance for people that aren’t absolutely sure which bus they need. I know, some of the bus drivers out there might bitch (at least I can imagine Jeff calling me an idiot or something now because I supposed to know every route – which generally I do, but I study this stuff, most people do NOT do that and shouldn’t have to). But seriously, help out the people trying to use the system by at least making a meager attempt to inform them where a route goes.
Well, those are my first two suggestions. I’ll have another entry coming real soon on how to improve the system. I intend to write a new entry of Rethinking Transit every two weeks, so the next installment will be on the 30th. Until then, happy riding!
In case you want more information about King Count Transit.
by Adron

Attending the ALT.NET Conference in Redmond

Today was a wild ride about and out to Redmond to attend the ALT.NET Conference. I won’t bore my dear transit readers with what that is, but suffice it to say it’s a top tier nerd conference.

In the morning I boarded the #44, which at that hour provides a gorgeous view of the waterway once it starts moving up onto the Fremont Hills. I got off however and headed down into the neighborhoods to a friends house. There we met up and he drove myself and another programmer from out of town out to Redmond for the conference. The conference takes place over Thursday, Friday, and gets into full gear for Saturday and Sunday. Each of these days will be a different trip to get to the building the conference is in.

On the return trip today I boarded the #545 from Redmond town center after a few drinks with my programmer cohorts. I arrived downtown after the quick express ride of about 25 minutes and boarded the north bound #17 to Ballard.

The #17 is a beautiful ride at this time of the evening. The sun is just setting and everyone is almost silent. With the sun distant on the other side of Queen Anne Hill the trip along Westlake and South Lake Union is almost a blue tint. The water is still and the traffic is slower paced. The bus ride is much more calm than the morning ride. Everybody is pacing at a rate that is opposite of the wired feel of the AM commute.

I arrived back in Ballard and called it a day. It’s been a long day and I look forward to figuring out a few more of these routes, what exactly they can deliver me to, and seeing more of the absolutely stunning Seattle neighborhoods and northern views.

Until then, cheers and g’night.

by Adron

Day 1 of the Ballard to Seattle Commute

Today I’m 100% back in the transit commute, so I’ll have plenty more to write these days. It is a short commute, from Ballard to downtown Seattle, but a commute none the less.


I get up pretty much the same time I used to when living at 567 John Street, but instead of walking to work I’m riding the bus.

So this is how the commute went for day number one.

Morning Commute

I managed to get out of the door at 7:30am, and headed for the NW Market Ave and Ballard Street Transit Stop.


This stop is great, with the #17, #18, #44, #46, #75, and #81. The #17 and #18 both have express service in the morning which rocks, pretty much the fastest way to get in and out of downtown. Matter of fact, with some of the priority lanes and such, I actually think the #17 and #18 express routes probably beat driving on many days. The #44 and #46 both travel east to the University District, which of course has a host of things that interest. The #81 provides late night service in and out of downtown (such as 3am service, ya know, for those late night outings for a rock show or such). The #75 goes around a big loop through north Seattle all the way over to the Pontiac Bay on Lake Washington, by Sand Point and Warren G. Magnuson Park, and on down into the University District.

The OneBusAway.org site of course has the arrival times for these buses going into Seattle and the University District and the same routes arriving on their way back into Ballard.

Once arriving at the stop the time for the #17 Express’s Arrival flew right by. 7:42am turned into a 7:53 arrival, which put the arrive downtown at 8:09am late, but amazingly fast. The driver pretty much made heavy use of the gas pedal and lucked out on almost every light into town.

For the departure home, I needed to get back in time for the Comcast Cable Guy’s arrival sometime between – ya know, the whole flippin’ afternoon – so I departed at 11:24am. I got down and around to University & 3rd in time for the 11:31am arrival, that ended up being the 11:35am arrival of the #18 north bound to Ballard. The bus had a handicap pickup, which tacked on another 8 minutes overall to the trip, giving me an arrival time into Ballard of 12:09pm. A little late if the Comcast Guy was arriving on time, but that never happens!

Again, I ended up taking a round trip on the #18 back into town to return the keys to the Taylor 28 Apartment Complex. So at 2:14pm I tried to make the trip back into town, but just missed the bus and caught the next one around ~2:30. This time the trip only took about 28 minutes flat. Making it a bit better than the trip out. I returned the keys and headed back to Ballard. Boarding the #18 back and getting a short 29 minute trip. Overall, not a bad day of commuting, but I sure hope that the 12+ minute late #17 Express isn’t an everyday thing.

I’m not sure if anyone from Ballard reads my blog, but it would be interesting to know of others commutes along the Ballard to Seattle Routes of the #17, #18, #28, #15, or any of the others. I’m curious, will the #18 express average better times? Is the #17 Express the best way to go? Should I just leave 10 minutes earlier and get a few more minutes of reading or coding done on the bus en route to downtown on a regular #18 or #17? Is the #17 along Westlake a bit more scenic in the mornings? All questions to be answered.

Until Day 2 or beyond, cheers!

by Adron

Transit Sleuth Weekly Picture (004)

 

King County Metro #10 First Hill

King County Metro #10 First Hill