Two years after the stalled buses of Snowpocalypse (right) – one year after a virtually problem-free mild winter – Metro is taking steps today to make sure it’s ready, and its riders are ready, in case this winter turns out to be more like 2008-2009 than 2009-2010. Metro boss Kevin Desmond is briefing the King County Council this morning at 9:30 am; you can watch live on cable channel 22 or kingcounty.gov/council. And Metro’s just sent out a news release with reminders about the route-specific e-mail/text alerts you can sign up for now in case something goes awry with your bus (or the Water Taxi!), whether it’s snow, rain, bridges, or any other trouble. See it here (links included). We’ll have more on the Metro briefing later. (P.S. Our preview on the plan that never had to kick in last year was in this November 2009 story.) 9:43 AM UPDATE: The briefing has just begun. 10:46 AM UPDATE: The briefing’s over. No big surprises but we are working on a separate summary – we’ve also asked for the graphics from the presentation, so that we can share that info if you missed the briefing.
ADDED 4 PM: The summary’s been sidetracked but here, courtesy of Linda Thielke at the KC Department of Transportation, is the PowerPoint presentation given today – including an example of how the Metro website will look when they kick into severe weather mode. Interesting points included the county’s “memorandum of understanding” with the city of Seattle and its commitment to helping plow key in-city bus routes, particularly, they say, SODO.
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