Swift Outreach: A Look Back

By Sue Masel
Community Transit Outreach

Were you one of those people who rode Swift during our first week of service one year ago? If so, you probably met members of our Swift street team in person. If you didn’t get to ride that week, maybe you saw all those people bundled up in their blue and green scarves at the new Swift stations on one of the coldest weeks in years. Swift Street Team members were there to introduce the new system and help make sure everyone’s first ride was as easy and fun as possible.

Two months prior to the launch of Washington’s first bus rapid transit system, we began planning the largest on-the-street effort in Community Transit history. Coordinating 170 people at 26 different stations and onboard buses over a 17 mile corridor from 5 a.m. to midnight was a daunting task. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy but we wanted it to be a great success…and it was.

Swift Station outreach staff.

Over 100 Community Transit employees, including a few of our Board of Directors and Citizens Advisory Committee members, took shifts at Swift stations, along with 26 people from the South Snohomish County Chamber of Commerce and two from Senior Services of Snohomish County. Despite the great support from Community Transit staff, we were still short on people so we enlisted help from 28 temporary employees to join us in our street team effort. These temps quickly integrated themselves into the Community Transit family and became some of our finest ambassadors, with many of them even riding Swift to work for their shifts.

Our successful Street Team effort was a great way to introduce Swift to Snohomish County.

Street Teams by the Numbers

9 separate 2-hour training classes for station outreach staff
12 station managers
170 street team members worked 317 shifts
10 degrees and below – the temperature during our three to four hour shifts

Thank you to everyone for helping to make our Swift Street Team effort a huge success.