September 28, 2008 at 9:17 pm · Filed under General
it’s sunday night again.
which means: Street Sounds with B-mello (they mention vitamin D, which makes me think of… me) after SS is Expansions. I have to figure something out where i can record the shows and listen to them later. apparently i’m a hip/hop/electronica whore. M83 came on my iTunes mix at work the other day and DB wanted to know what it was, though, so apparently I’m not the only one.
been keeping up the biking to work to the degree that i’m thinking it might be time for some more biking-related investments. on the list are some new lenses for my sunglasses (but at ~$60 they seem awfully expensive) so i can wear them when there’s less light out (i have a phobia of things flying into my eyes while biking) and some fenders. i’m really excited about the fenders, because i saw some dude flying down 24th when the street was super wet with rain and he didn’t seem to be getting sprayed at all. I’m also really excited about continuing working on the track stands. every so often i have a nice one. nice enough to make me think i should experiment with a fixie sometime soon.
E and I spent today doing exactly what we’ve done on countless sundays. because i lack creativity, i’ll list those events in order, for my own reference, so i can remember what to do next week:
- leisurely morning in bed - roll out at 10 or 11.
- consider going to Linda’s (great breakfasts) but decide to eat cereal instead - it’s a gorgeous day, so it seems pretty compelling to sit outside on the patio
- before leaving the apartment for Bauhaus, get side-tracked by several tasks. i freak out when E isn’t ready to leave, and have found dishwashing to be incredibly meditative. it makes me calm. seriously.
- leave the house, hit the ‘haus. 2 grande americanos and 3 hours of reading the economist/people watching (E working on the macbook) later, and it’s time to leave.
- hit Area 51 on the way back up pine
- spend another couple hours of sunshine in cal anderson park. more economist, people watching, music listening, and dog viewing.
- come back home, turn on KEXP, open bottle of wine, and let E make dinner. (I, again, am the dish washer extraordinaire)
Hope everyone had a nice weekend!
September 10, 2008 at 11:30 pm · Filed under General
Cleaning my bike makes me surprisingly happy. Keep your fingers crossed that I fixed the metallic clanking sound(!) Now I’m looking forward to riding the Bianchi tomorrow and hitting some track stands on the way to work… Also, the household now has wheatabix. If I didn’t know better I’d say we’re gearing up for the fall!
September 9, 2008 at 9:19 pm · Filed under General
60-something man on the bus across from me: “What’s it supposed to cost to get across the water. $2.25?”
Me: “Yup”
Him: “Wow”
As I’ve explained to people before, Seattle doesn’t have the simplest fare structure. You know it’s silly when a local thinks you’re getting ripped off for taking to the next stop, across a bridge where there isn’t a bike path, and paying the maximum fare. You can get used to anything, but I really wish an effort was made to improve our transit system in some key ways. To illustrate some of the annoyances, here are how my options play out every morning:
- Drive - heh. yeah right.
- Ride all the way: ~17 miles - free, but too far to ride daily
- Ride to Montlake/520 intersection, take bus across Lake Washington, then continue riding from Evergreen or Yarrow Point
- If I an empty bus shows up that’s going to Terminal, or East/Bellevue Base: free
- If no empty bus shows up (there’s no schedule for them, so good luck figuring it out)
- Take a Metro Transit bus
- If it’s peak times (6-9am, 3-6pm): $2.25 (what happened this morning)
- If it’s non-peak: $1.50
- Take a Sound Transit bus
- Take the bus all the way from Capitol Hill to Kirkland, transferring at the Montlake/520 intersection
- Take the 43 down to Montlake/520 intersection
- if it’s peak, $1.75 (one zone - assume you won’t need a 2 zone transfer)
- if it’s non-peak, $1.50
- Then transfer to get across the lake
- Take a Sound Transit bus:
- $1.00 + transfer, regardless of peak/non-peak/one-zone/two-zones
- Take Metro Transit bus:
- transfer should work, because drivers seem to be sloppy about enforcing peak/non-peak one-zone/two-zone transfer slips
I realize my commute isn’t the simplest, but it could be much simpler. My goals are as follows:
- Avoid using a car (i’ve driven to work maybe 4 times total since starting my job) because I hate sitting in traffic
- Be safe
- Arrive at work on time
- Get some exercise if possible
Peak / non-peak, One-zone / Two-zone / Pay as you leave / Pay as you enter
It wasn’t enough to create peak and non-peak fares. During peak times, depending on how far you’re traveling (across Lake Washington or not) you have to pay extra. How is this enforced? It seems to only really take effect if you get on the bus on one side of the water and get off soon after - how else is the bus driver supposed to remember that you were the one who got on the bus on the West Side and are now getting off on the East Side? The irony is that the shorter you travel on the bus (ie: as a bike rider just crossing the bridge) the higher the odds that you’ll need to pay the full fare. Most riders seem to get by paying $1.75 regardless of the fact that they’ve taken the bus significantly further than your average bike-rider-water-crosser during peak hours.
Another stumbling block is the practice of sometimes requiring the bus riders to pay as they enter the bus, and other times to as they leave. It’s not arbitrary; it has to do with whether it’s peak hours, if the bus is entering or exiting a ‘free ride zone’, etc., but it causes all sorts of problems. If it’s “pay as you leave,” the bus can’t open the rear doors for fear of passengers exiting without paying, and it can’t let people on quickly because people are fishing for change on their way out. Usually the bus driver has to hold his hand over the change machine to prevent people from paying too soon. Or remind them to pay on the way out. It seems like overhead that just isn’t worth it.
Lack of pre-pay card swipe system (or any pay-as-you-go card swipe system)
In my opinion, the simplest mechanism for getting people to pay for the bus quickly and efficiently is to have credit/debit card reader at the front of the bus. No more fishing for change, no more buying expensive bus passes that are only cost effective if you ride daily, no more dealing with transfers (you could track when the last payment was made with the card). How would the buses be able to process the credit card transaction, you might ask? Ironically, many of the buses I ride to and from work already have WiFi; seems like a pretty trivial step to piggyback that network for Visa transactions. Sound and Metro transit already have a system for some pay-as-you go system in place. There are contactless card readers labeled ‘Orcas’ for a (I assume) charge-and-reuse card payment system, but it’s not online yet. The bus drivers I’ve talked to say that the readers were installed a year ago. What’s the benefit of reinventing the wheel (a payment system) when Visa/MasterCard have already solved the problem?
Poor design of Montlake/520 Transit intersection.
I’m lucky enough to be one of the many riders who catches a bus at this intersection. The biggest problem with it, in my opinion, is that not all of the eastbound buses pick up riders at the same bus stop. So for example, the 540 SoundTransit express bus picks up riders on Montlake Ave (the overpass) but the 255 MetroTransit bus picks up riders on 520 (the underpass). Sure there’s a stairway, but the buses are both going on the same highway, in the same direction, to the same destination. The different stops don’t have anything to do with whether it’s a SoundTransit or MetroTransit bus; it’s just a symptom of the fact that the intersection is designed poorly, and if you’re driving a bus South on Montlake Ave and are going to be travelling East on 520, you aren’t able to merge into the correct lane to pick up riders. This leads to confusion when people are trying to catch an Eastbound bus in the morning. Should I be on the overpass or the underpass? Should I be on the East or West side of the Street? It’s not intuitive.
Rider’s Crapshoot
What if the bus you want to take already has its two (or three, sometimes) bike rack slots taken? There’s not much you can do except wait for another bus. That might take time if you need a specific route. And there’s no guarantee that you’ll get on that one either. No good solutions to this one, except (now this would be awesome) an LCD at the bus stops (or at least the large ones) that said a) when a bus was supposed to arrive and b) how much room it has left on it.
Miscellaneous
MetroTransit and SoundTransit have different fare structures, different peak times structures, and different concepts about zones. It would be nice to see these consolidated. My friend Teague informed me that most transit systems only get about 1/4th 1/10th of their money from fares (at least this is true for MetroTransit, according to my bus driver this morning) The rest is advertising, etc. So you can make a good argument for (if not scrapping fares altogether) simplifying complexity in the fare structure. How about rounding to the nearest dollar, for example? I’d be interested to see an analysis of how much money could be saved on improving/expanding roads/infrastructure if more emphasis was put on increasing ridership aggressively, rather than achieving some sort of equilibrium as far as fuel costs and ridership are concerned. We tend not to question whether money should be spent on building/improving/maintaining our roads - perhaps we should be more open to spending more money on services that reduce wear and tear, demand, and congestion.
What Metro/Sound Transit do right
Apparently I like to complain a lot. But seriously, I love riding the bus. When I take it all the way I get to read the Economist. When I take it some of the way I get to check my email. The drivers are nice. Sometimes they let you ride for free if you don’t have exact change, have a bike, or are drunk and incoherent. They give you directions. They tell you what bus to transfer to. They give you your transfer slip even if you forgot to ask for it on the way in. They don’t get mad (or only a little) if you forget when to pay. They try to let as many people on the bus as possible. And and and… I’ll keep riding, but I’ve got my wish list, and I’m keeping it updated.
