Changes Ahead for Bus Riders
Riding the bus to work the other day, our heart skipped a beat when we noticed signs taped to the window heralding the arrival of new spring schedules (they're blue!). Once we'd calmed down, we realized how silly it is to get excited over the prospect of a slight change to our bus schedule. It was the kind of self-deprecating experience we figured would make a good lede for a post informing you, gentle reader, of the coming changes.
Well, thanks to our inability to manage our time well and the fact that multi-tasking has now been shown to make you stupid (certainly true in this Seattlest's case), the good folks over at Seattle Transit Blog used the lede first.
One period in the bus rider's life that is pregnant with anticipation is the days before the new schedule comes out. As someone who has two non-ideal transfers to get to work, I'm always hopeful that the schedule will be tweaked in such a way so as to make my life a lot easier.
We couldn't have said it much better ourselves (as evidenced by our clunky lede, above). Nonetheless, changes coming to Metro schedules. They take effect Feb. 9 so don't be late for your caucus as a result.
Among the more interesting changes are major Eastside revisions which seem to be aimed at connecting urban centers over there better, expanded service on routes 8 and 70 due to support from companies on those routes (thanks Hutch, REI, Group Health and Vulcan!), a variety of smaller yet still significant changes to a number of other routes and the opening of the new Redmond Transit Center. All the changes can be found here.
One last change we're not psyched about is the fare increase taking effect March 1. Fares increase to $1.50 for off-peak trips and $1.75 for peak trips. That's a lot of quarters to carry around, so think about buying a pass and pester Metro to finish up their Smart Card project which should ensure that buying bus trips in bulk saves you money.
The photo above is called, aptly, "49." We used it because the 49 always seems to be moody like that. We found it in the Seattlest Flickr Pool which Timwillis joined and so should you.
