West Seattle, Washington

24 Wednesday

43℉

TRAFFIC/TRANSIT TODAY: Last Thursday in August; weekend reminders, including 99 lane closures

August 25, 2016 6:48 am
|      8 COMMENTS
 |   West Seattle news | West Seattle traffic alerts

(SDOT MAP with travel times/video links; is the ‘low bridge’ closed? LOOK HERE)

(Click any view for a close-up; more cameras on the WSB Traffic page)

6:41 AM: Just checked around, and it’s incident-free again in/from West Seattle, on this last Thursday in August.

ROAD-WORK REMINDERS: Fauntleroy/Endolyne Triangle, plus lower Spokane Street east of the low bridge.

STADIUM ZONE TONIGHT: Seahawks are home vs. Dallas, 7 pm.

WEEKEND AHEAD: Alki/Harbor road closure for Alki Beach 5K at 9 am Sunday; no road closures but the north end of South Seattle College (WSB sponsor) will be busy for the West Seattle Car Show 10 am-3 pm Saturday (20+ trophy categories, and same-day signups starting at 8).

7:47 AM – TRANSIT CANCELLATION: Just announced, after-the-fact, via Twitter and text:

7:58 AM: And that was followed by this:

We did, by the way, get Metro’s response to our inquiry about last week’s cancellations. From spokesperson Scott Gutierrez:

Every effort is made to avoid having to cancel service — up until the moment a bus is scheduled to start its trip. We regret when any service is canceled, and we appreciate our customers’ patience.

Metro continues to ramp up hiring and training of new bus drivers. Right now we have a new class of trainees starting every two weeks, and each class is at or close to capacity (24 trainees). Through the fall, we hope to see significant reductions in cancellations as we continue toward our hiring goals.

While we have added service and are hiring more drivers to fulfill that service, we’ve also seen higher-than-expected attrition this year due to retirements. A strong local economy has made hiring very competitive. And the training process for new drivers takes about 5 weeks. To help meet service needs, we actively deploy standby operators when available and assign drivers who have completed trips.

Metro also is investing a great deal of effort into training our drivers to ensure they provide the best possible service. Anyone interested in applying to become a Metro bus driver can find information on our website – Or email josh.isgur@kingcounty.gov.

8:02 AM: And still on that topic, this was texted/tweeted a moment ago:

ADDED 9:13 AM: One more note – via e-mail, from WSDOT, in case you’re planning to drive 99 north of downtown this weekend:

Washington State Department of Transportation bridge maintenance crews will close two lanes of traffic to conduct a routine inspection of the (Aurora Bridge) on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Closure details

· Saturday, Aug. 27 – Two northbound lanes across the Aurora Bridge will be closed from 6 to 11 a.m. One northbound lane will remain open to traffic. All southbound lanes will be open.

· Sunday, Aug. 28 – Two southbound lanes across the Aurora Bridge will be closed from 6 to 11 a.m. One southbound lane will remain open to traffic. All northbound lanes will be open.

11 AM: Went down to check on the Fauntleroy/Endolyne work. The painted curb bulb – color chosen in community discussions – is now drying at Brace Point/Wildwood:

paintedcurbbulb

Work was expected to take about a week so should be done by early next week.

Share This

8 Replies to "TRAFFIC/TRANSIT TODAY: Last Thursday in August; weekend reminders, including 99 lane closures"

  • Laura August 25, 2016 (8:19 am)

    I got an email for that 57 20 minutes AFTER it was due to start. I still don’t see that tweet in my list from Metro. They wouldn’t continually cancel 25% of routes like the 120 or the C. It’s unacceptable that this is becoming s near weekly occurance. Please, everyone, complain to Metro. And write Joe McDermott and Dow Constantine. Both are West Seattle residents and Joe is on the board of Metro. 

  • AMD August 25, 2016 (8:46 am)

    If the issue is that they don’t have enough people and they’re already working to hire people, there’s not much else to be done to help avoid cancellations.  Except cancelling runs altogether to match the number of drivers they actually have available instead of only cancelling once a week.

    I’m not trying to be mean, but that’s reality.  I’m sure Joe and Dow don’t like it either, but what exactly do you expect them to do?

    • Laura August 25, 2016 (10:42 am)

      AMD, you make excellent points. And you don’t sound mean at all. Very realistic. Maybe I’m being unrealistic. And I’m sure trying to operate a system as large as Metro isn’t easy. However, when they cancel even one run of a 57, that’s 25% of the morning’s buses. And a lot of people on that route can’t just take a 56 or 55 without having to go out of our way, either driving to another stop or going for a long walk. The two 57s that get the cancelations don’t have regular drivers for every morning of the week. One of them may not have a regular driver at all, based on the variety of people I see driving it. And I do know they are aware of gaps in the schedule as early as the night before because the man that drives my evening bus has made comments about “such-and-such bus doesn’t have a driver for tomorrow.” He’s even driven that morning bus once or twice. I feel like smaller routes like ours are treated with more disregard because they are smaller. But I think that’s exactly why they should get more attention. If you take away a 120, another will be along in a few minutes. If you take away a 57 the wait is half an hour. I don’t know what Joe or Dow can do. I do know what I can do and that is to be a squeaky wheel. 

      • Laura August 25, 2016 (10:45 am)

        And, for what it’s worth, I wrote to both Joe and Dow last summer when we were getting so many cancellations and I know one of them was forwarded to Metro because it was copied in an email I got from Metro.

  • miws August 25, 2016 (9:09 am)

    As a decades-long Metro rider  and a bus fan, I think I’ve gained a decent sense of transit operations beyond simply catching a bus from Point A to Point B and back on a daily basis, so I understand the challenges that Metro is facing, what with still having a driver shortage, the challenge of hiring more, the issue of attrition/retirement as mentioned, and likely many drivers on vacation this time of year.

    That being said, and while I appreciate that Metro evidently tries to find a driver for a particular run on a particular route up until the last minute, it seems they could be a bit more proactive and send out alerts maybe 1/2 hour or so before the bus is scheduled to leave a time point alerting that the run might be canceled, and suggest/allow riders to make alternate plans. Perhaps they could even update if they find a driver for the run in the meantime. 

    Also, I do feel bad for those that are on the commuter only runs such as the 37, 56/57 and don’t have many easy alternatives to use another route, and agree that although it would tick several people off, maybe they should explore  moving a bus here and there from one of the more frequently served routes. 


    Mike

    • newnative August 25, 2016 (9:50 am)

      This is how I feel too.  I usually get alerts past the time they would actually help.  As it is, I have to make a decision about 30 minutes before my scheduled bus arrives, whether I’m going to take another mode.  I always say this on these topics, the earlier buses are not full.  There’s plenty of room and we haven’t had cancellations in a long time.  

  • Eddie August 25, 2016 (9:54 am)

    Maybe Metro should include a free or reduced price Uber ride link whenever they tweet out cancellation of one of these infrequent commuter runs?

  • nw August 25, 2016 (10:12 am)

    Company I work for wants to hire a driver and it is part time work over a month now still no new driver. Could be an economics issue as who really wants part time work in an ever expensive to live city. 

Sorry, comment time is over.