As we head into the third weekday since Metro‘s big changes – in West Seattle, launching RapidRide C Line while restructuring much of the rest of the route system – we’ve heard again from the King County Department of Transportation regarding some of the most common concerns. They’re hearing directly from riders, and we’ve had three vigorous comment discussions here on WSB – today here, Monday pm here, Monday am here. Metro spokesperson Jeff Switzer sent an update earlier tonight; we added it to the ongoing comment thread but promised a separate story later, since he’d included some attachments. So here it is, starting with the toplines he sent:
Situation
Full RapidRide C line were reported Monday and Tuesday during the morning commutes from West Seattle to downtown Seattle. Riders are frustrated and contacted Metro Transit asking for more buses to improve capacity.
What’s Metro doing about it?
Metro temporarily deployed two RapidRide additional buses, and also made a third additional trip to help carry passengers on Tuesday morning. That said, there also were a few temporary mechanical problems with buses on the route during the Tuesday morning commute, causing delays and additional overloads. Metro will have two additional buses available downtown for the RapidRide C and D lines during the Tuesday afternoon commute, and for the C line during the Wednesday morning commute. The additional buses are intended to be available in case of service disruptions due to mechanical problems, transit delays or reports of overcrowding or stops passed because a bus was too full.
What do riders need to know?
Full buses might bypass stops if there is no more room for additional passengers. Metro drivers report and the Transit Control Center tracks these situations and when possible works to add available buses to the route to accommodate the demand.
Metro is tracking the issue of full buses on the C Line and working to address the issues. During these first few days of the new service, crowding and longer travel times might occur as riders, drivers and transit coordinators become familiar with the route and schedule. Other bus service in West Seattle is available through Metro’s Trip Planner and noted in the attached document.
Three documents actually came along with the above toplines. The first one is a Word doc listing “Commuter Options for riders from West Seattle” – including links. We don’t have the time to replicate it into a story with links intact, but if we convert it into a PDF the links won’t work, so here’s the Word doc. Second, the route map for peak times (PDF, here); third, the “all-day” route map (PDF, here).
Again tomorrow, we’ll launch a story in the morning for discussion of how things are going.
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