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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Inside the bus, there's another LED reader board or whatever that tells you the intersection/stop you're passing. It's amazing -- if you're traveling somewhere new and can't see/read the street signs, you're not fucked!
Bay Area public transportation trumps Seattle's over and over and over, in spite of all the Muni problems.
very accurate, based on the GPS on each bus.
--Jp
Letting our buses get dirty isn't going to change a thing. We'd still have the same per capita funding, and even less within the city proper, considering we get considerably less per capita in Seattle in operations and capital funding than the rest of King County.
I think McGinn needs to pass an across-the-board transit ballot measure, a la Bridging the Gap.
(just ask the locals!)
http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/…
(in fairness, Seattle is coming up fast on the outside curve in shittiness...)
I have to say that MUNI buses are a million times cleaner and nicer to ride than they were twenty years ago, when every square inch of the inside was covered with graffiti, and half of the outside as well, and all the drivers appeared to be on meth-fueled missions to run their routes at 60 MPH. I saw a MUNI bus take a guy's car door off once as he was getting out of his car, and fling it 200 yards down the street, like a giant bird.
Here in Seattle, where we have no real transit, we should not aspire to be like San Francisco, which does, admittedly have transit, except that measured against the standard of cities that got transit right, San Francisco transit sucks ass.
Although the US has two transit success stories that I've personally spent time in (DC and NYC), the best examples are abroad:
There's not a single city in all of Switzerland that's even half of Seattle's population, and yet the entire country is served by the cleanest & most punctual transit in the world. Or check any German city of any reasonable size, from Mannheim to Frankfurt to Berlin, to see transit done right.
Seriously. Why do you, as ECB did before you, frequently extoll the supposed virtues of SFO transit? SFO should be a big flashing red warning siren to every growing American city about how not to do transit. Please, for the sake of transit, look elsewhere for positive examples & inspiration.
yes! The LED thingies inside are super helpful.
And I totally agree with Constant. Was just in SF and thought the same thing.
The clean buses were one of the first things that impressed me about Seattle when I moved here. I thought, and still think, that they're nice.
And onebusaway.org is awesome for Seattle bus schedules.
I don't live in san fran, so I can't say what transit is in reality, but as a visitor its always been fantastic.
1) build trolley from mall to condos
2) build all light rail stops in middle of nowhere
3) use separate fare system for each mode of transportation
4) raise fares regularly
5) cut service regularly
6) most important- build more and wider roads
Think it'll work?
Just the other day, I take my seat and discover that the floor is covered in big sticky dark red pool. Might not have been human blood, but sheesh, I'm glad they clean the fucking things once in a while.
12 oz. low fat (skim) milk: 120 calories
12 oz. soda (Coke classic): 144 calories
14 calories less doesn't mean shit.
Fuck that. If you want to drink soda but don't want to get fat then drink diet soda.... that's the whole point of diet soda in the first place.
Also, it's worth noting, that in SF, major operating funds were cut over the last year, muni passes nearly doubled in price, and they eliminated several neighborhood routes, including one in my neighborhood, which used to carry people from the projects on Potrero Hill to a shopping center and the 16th St. Bart station (my buddy called it "the poverty-go-round"). But now it doesn't exist and there is literally nowhere within a reasonable distance to get groceries (except Whole Foods) and many (elderly) must walk several blocks up or down steep hills to get to the nearest bus, which of course do not have a Nextbus indicator to let you know when the next bus is (supposedly) coming. At night, some drivers simply skip the projects altogether and won't drive into them out of rather legitimate fear.
Here's another simple thing the muni does better: Everyone boarded at the front to pay, and exited at the back. This was a rule. Simple and sped up time at stops.
Kind of like the 71 thru 74 express routes between the U District and the bus tunnel, which runs every 5 to 8 minutes between 7am and 10am. Or the 26 between Green Lake and downtown, which runs 12 buses in 90 minutes every morning.
Seattle has a better bus system than most of you are willing to admit.
Add, run train service but only for part of the day starting ridiculously early in the morning and afternoon making it impossible for people working average hours to use and make no attempt to expand the service into other areas like Bellevue and Redmond.
If someone wants to take the sounder up to Seattle for a few hours and then take it home? Nope. It's an all day event and you have to get up too early and stay most of the day. No thank you.
Japan also does public transit very well.
You can get from anywhere in the country to anywhere else w/o a car.
Long story short- people in SF use mass transit because even with its flaws it's the fastest, easiest, and least expensive way to travel and commuting by car makes absolutely no sense, there really is no option. Regardless of how often buses run in Seattle folks are still going to drive until driving becomes crazier than that guy who smells like cat food sitting behind you muttering and wearing the bloody sweatpants as a shirt.
Buses in SF simply fail to show up for no reason all the time. Sometimes the driver doesn't show up to work so they cancel the run. Sometimes I would wait an hour for a bus that was supposed to run every 15 minutes, then see 3 show up together in a bunch.
Chicago and LA have good buses.
Mrs. Kvetch yelled "Oy gevalt, it's so vet!" Then, noticing everyone else staring at her, she smiled sweetly and said, "Votever dot minns!"
Both Muni and Metro are in fiscal crisis and cutting service.
later this year, Metro buses are due to get smarter with the on board systems program.
one need not go to Europe or Asia to find good transit. it is also quite good in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.
more of European systems are traction powered: electric trolleybus, streetcar, electric multiple unit, subway.
We also pay a fair share of taxes and don't have an initiative system that forces transit system cuts every few years.
Get the latter, get the funding for the former. Good luck with that.
I never wait more than 5-6 minutes for the 3/4 bus.
Asimov totally rules.
The planet is a lessor place because he is gone...
lessEr
Once we have a light rail system, things will get better, and buses will run more frequently.
Also, dirty buses like in SF reinforces the stereotype that public transit is for poor people, Seattle is good a braking that stereotype, we can't let that go.
The old yellow-brown dirty-stinky-filthy-pee buses were so disgusting (Not to mention the harassment and fucked up behavior that were a daily occurance) and they put me off public transit since then.
Now I have a I-phone and a "next bus" app. The buses in my neighborhood (the 27) is always late with frequent fucked-upness by passengers- but clean.
Ya gotta have both comfort and reliability. Hence I take Link whenever I can.
I'll pay through the nose for driving my car rather than take Metro buses.
Alki (the Low/Terry/Denny party - later Bell and Boren too) was politically and culturally somewhat separate from pioneer-square-(Bell, Boren and the Denny bros - later joined by Maynard then Yesler) seattle (and for that matter, the Van-Asselt/Collins/Maple duwamish-seattle settlement of 1851 was yet another 'zone', too). Sealth was Tyee of all those Salish peoples areas (as well as west bainbridge), but each was certainly different & separate. See also the White Tribe (aka Duwamps)
The report of women wailing at the rainy sad environment is from November 1851 when the boat the 'Exact' arrived: the lone men preceded the families by 5 weeks. And mainly the ladies were sad because the houses the men had started still had no roofing and it was november already.
But yes, kvetching / whining about how good it ain't here = long standing tradition. Insert "damn kids don't hang onto history these days." comment here.