Last week was not a celebratory time at Community Transit. We said goodbye to about two dozen co-workers who were laid off – a lower number than we’d feared thanks to others who retired early or made other choices. We’ve now had no service on Sundays for two weeks, and we know how hard that is and will be for many or our riders.
We did successfully implement one of the largest service changes in our 34-year history. “Success” in this case means that most riders were aware of our changes and many have been adjusting to new routes and service this past week. Community Transit employees in all departments made a tremendous effort to help our customers through this transition.
Already we are looking ahead (I do not say looking forward) to our next service change in February 2011. We planned this round of service reductions to avoid future ones, and that appears to be holding true. Still, we don’t expect to be able to restore service at that time. If you’ve following any of the financial news, you know that things are not yet looking up for our economy in general, for Washington state transit funded by sales tax (like us), or for new funding from the state or federal government.
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What are the plans (if any) to deal with the confusion in the mornings at Lynnwood PR? Now that all Seattle-bound buses use the same bay, we've got two lines snaking around as people jockey for the 511 or the 400 buses. I like the concept of all Seattle buses coming to one bay, but until all passes/fares are created equal the situation is causing more confusion than convenience.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, I love the addition of morning 4th Ave options at LPR. As someone who works in south downtown on 4th, this is a much faster option. I say More Please!
Also, thanks for all your hard work. I know you guys are doing the best you can.
The 855 and the 821 are leaving anywhere from 4-7 minutes earlier from the Lynnwood Transit Center which has caused a problem for me twice this week already-I had to wait for the next one and was late to work. I watched the 821 scheduled to leave at 7:09 am according to the cataloged schedule leave at 7:05 as I was walking from my car-had to wait for the 7:18am on the 855 and was late to work....happened AGAIN this morning, except the 855 left early!!! The drivers need to wait until the scheduled time to leave. A lot of us depend on that.
ReplyDeleteRe: Seattle Customer Confusion at Lynnwood Transit Center - Community Transit staff met yesterday to discuss the challenges of our new single-bay to Seattle approach, and have developed a plan to spread the buses out for improved line-forming and loading. We hope to implement within 10 days.
ReplyDeleteRe: Southbound Route 821 (and Routes 421, 422 and 425, for that matter) at Lynnwood Transit Center - All these routes come from the north with other customers already on-board. The goal in stopping at Lynnwood is to fill up those buses to make efficient use of our system, but not to delay those longer-distance passengers. So, the Lynnwood Stop is an "estimated" time, not a firm timepoint (See "Is the bus on time" post). Plan on Route 821 being 4-7 minutes early for much of the summer while traffic volumes are low and weather is good. We had to build time into the schedule to ensure we could get to the University District when we said we would in adverse conditions, so the schedules are a bit loose right now. Route 855 should leave at its schedule time.
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