Wireless In Seattle
Seattlest's bus ride to work lasts about twelve minutes. That's just long enough for us to find a seat, sit in it, open our bag, take out our laptop and boot it up, Start, Shutdown, Yes we would like the computer to shut down, put it away and get off the bus. Ah, another productive commute! You didn't notice it, but during the minute our computer was on it attempted and failed to find any available wireless networks. Our email rants to the editor were unable to fly out into the either.
Metro Transit has started work on getting those rants delivered right from the bus seat where they're composed, though. Two bus routes started offering wireless access today, the first is Route 197 from the U District to Federal Way and the second is Route 48 between Rainier Beach and Loyal Heights. (Where the hell is Loyal Heights?) Route 545 from Downtown Seattle to Redmond is scheduled to be added to the pilot program shortly.
The same technology that powered Casey Halverson's DIY wireless access on the Sounder train will now be used to keep Metro riders connected. Local bidness Junxion has the contract here and will provide service by way of their Junxion Box wireless routers.
From WiFi Net News:
Metro Transit has a variety of interesting online tools that tie in neatly with this project. They have a Java-based bus tracker (see figure upper right) which lets you see the current location of any bus in the system using their transponders. Their trip planner is also handy. If I were a frequent commuter with a handheld Wi-Fi-equipped device, I think I’d love to use it to help figure out the commute while underway.
