No surprise to Metro bus riders: The numbers behind SRO

New post on County Executive Ron Sims‘ blog: Charts showing this summer’s rise in Metro ridership. Previously, he notes, the trend was for lower ridership during warm weather. (Well, we haven’t had that much warm weather this summer, but never mind that. Some of the ridership-rise reasons seem obvious – hello, $4 gas.) 400,000 boardings per weekday, as of last month. Meantime, reminder: Metro’s on Sunday schedule for Labor Day; Water Taxi and its shuttle are on Saturday schedule. Here’s the official advisory.

Scott August 29, 2008 (4:47 pm)

More abbreviations… “The numbers behind SRO” – whats a SRO?
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Please limit the abbreviations, or use the words first so that readers can figure out what they mean… please?

nunya August 29, 2008 (6:06 pm)

It must be an age thing, SRO– Standing Room Only, there was a theater chain named SRO theaters just a few (like 20-25) years ago.

Diane August 29, 2008 (7:03 pm)

thanks for asking what sro means, and thanks for the answer
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I’m on the older side of the age thing, and I also didn’t know what sro meant; don’t remember SRO theaters either

WSB August 29, 2008 (7:09 pm)

Maybe it’s a regional thing? Pop vs. soda? Or? I’m 48 and SRO is one of those abbreviations like TBA and FYI that was always way too common to need elaboration. (Though I’ve never heard of SRO Theaters.) At any rate, there was no room for it in a headline anyway. Sorry.

Admiral Janeway August 29, 2008 (7:13 pm)

This evening’s bus ride was tough! Seahawk game combined with Labor Day getaway. One of those V-8 moments when the water taxi would have been a lot quicker.

Scott August 29, 2008 (8:57 pm)

The time that I spent at AT&T in customer service made it very clear – you are allowed to use abbreviations, but ONLY after you explained to the customer what ‘ABC’ meant first, there after it was allowed. Otherwise you were counted down in the quality of the call for using ‘techie’ talk without explaination first.
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For example, what does “GSM” mean? Everyone who has a T-Mobile or AT&T/Cingular phone has a GSM phone, but what does it mean? Global Service for Mobility. But without explaining it first you’d never know that. Okay, so what does CMDA mean? I’d explain that with a link here, but I’ll get held here with a link, so its: “Code division multiple access” for all other type of cell phones like Verizon/Sprint/US Worst…
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Coming from a land of too many airplanes where acronyms, where many have multiple meanings, it can only cause confusion.
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Now to test my theory on this, my wife who rides the bus daily, didn’t know what SRO meant either. Just asked her.
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SRO? “Standing Room Only” isn’t even listed here on a acronym dictionary! http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/SRO
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Please, go easy on the abbreviations.

Rick August 30, 2008 (8:31 am)

If left to my own devices I can come up with some pretty wicked meanings for abbreviations that I don’t know th meaning of. But hey, that’s half the fun.

chas redmond August 30, 2008 (10:42 am)

Scott, SRO (Standing Room Only) actually IS listed in the link you posted – second item. Wikipedia also cites Standing Room Only as their fourth item for SRO. Wiki also has this to say about the Standing Room Only version of the acronym: “This term can also describe public transportation services that have extremely high riderships. In areas where there is a high risk of buses, etc. being a target of a terrorist bombing, buses may lack seats and be standing room only to eliminate hiding places.” The Mac built-in dictionary also cites Standing Room Only as the third reference for SRO.
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Agree, though, acronyms should be used sparingly. I think SRO is more of a “decade” thing than a generation thing – it was used widely in the -80s based on New York plays and rock club attendance. I used to work for an acronym-crazy agency – NASA – and everything, and I do mean everything, had to have an acronym and the acronym also had to be a catchy phrase. We also used whatever it’s called when the acronym consists itself of acronyms – heck, it may be an American thing.
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Driving across the country I run across these signs about DWI and DUI – took me a while to figure out they were the same sign (Driving While Intoxicated and Driving Under the Influence). Our local airport is an acronym. When I moved here I thought folks were kidding that there was a town named after the airport which is an acronym. That seemed over the top to me.

Bob August 30, 2008 (3:06 pm)

SRO also used to stand for Single Room Occupancy, which was another word for a cheap fleabag hotel built like a rooming house, with bathrooms down the hall. A.k.a. flophouse. There used to be lots of them in Seattle, especially down near the waterfront. A lot of people lived in those places up to about the early ’80s, before the era of homelessness began. There are practically no SROs in Seattle (or other big cities) any more.

Scott mentioned looking up SRO in Wikipedia – the fleabag type is the second one listed there. It’s gone out of use because people don’t remember pre-homeless Seattle very well any more.