kane_magus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kane_magus) wrote2008-10-21 06:41 pm
kane_magus) wrote2008-10-21 06:41 pm
Bus crap
My bus was seven minutes early yet again today, at least according to the time posted on the Trip Planner. The Trip Planner claims that it is supposed to be there at 5:13pm, yet today it was there at 5:06pm. I missed it once again because I was standing there waiting to cross the street when it went rolling by. I sent in another complaint about it to Metro today.
However, I noticed something new today. I plugged in NE 51st St into the Trip Planner instead of my stop at NE 31st St. The Trip Planner claims that the 266 is supposed to be there at 5:15pm, which also matches the route schedule for 266 (which doesn't mention my particular stop on it at all). Now, as anyone who has attempted to travel along 148th Ave NE between 5:00pm and 6:00pm can surely attest, it is NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE that a bus (or a car or anything else for that matter) can travel twenty blocks or so in just two minutes (i.e. from NE 31st St at 5:13pm to NE 51st St at 5:15pm), given how incredibly constipated the traffic tends to be around that time of day.
I noted this as well in the complaint I sent in today. Likely, if they bother to do anything at all, they'll fix the issue by simply moving the time for the bus to reach my stop up to 5:06pm from the current time of 5:13pm or some such crap, rather than moving the later stop down to a later time. I guess this will be the case given that the stop at NE 51st St is one of those Time Point things, at which the buses are supposed to match their time with their actual schedule, whereas my stop is just some rinky-dink "just got off the highway" stops. I'm pretty sure this is why the bus is always so incredibly early in getting to my stop: he's trying to get to NE 51st St by 5:15pm. Changing the Trip Planner results, while it would be more accurate I suppose, would do absolutely nothing to help me. Well, aside from the fact that it would stop misleading me into thinking I can actually catch this particular bus without, like, leaving work 10 minutes early or something.
Of course, I should keep in mind that this is the same Trip Planner that gave me these staggeringly awesome results.
However, I noticed something new today. I plugged in NE 51st St into the Trip Planner instead of my stop at NE 31st St. The Trip Planner claims that the 266 is supposed to be there at 5:15pm, which also matches the route schedule for 266 (which doesn't mention my particular stop on it at all). Now, as anyone who has attempted to travel along 148th Ave NE between 5:00pm and 6:00pm can surely attest, it is NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE that a bus (or a car or anything else for that matter) can travel twenty blocks or so in just two minutes (i.e. from NE 31st St at 5:13pm to NE 51st St at 5:15pm), given how incredibly constipated the traffic tends to be around that time of day.
I noted this as well in the complaint I sent in today. Likely, if they bother to do anything at all, they'll fix the issue by simply moving the time for the bus to reach my stop up to 5:06pm from the current time of 5:13pm or some such crap, rather than moving the later stop down to a later time. I guess this will be the case given that the stop at NE 51st St is one of those Time Point things, at which the buses are supposed to match their time with their actual schedule, whereas my stop is just some rinky-dink "just got off the highway" stops. I'm pretty sure this is why the bus is always so incredibly early in getting to my stop: he's trying to get to NE 51st St by 5:15pm. Changing the Trip Planner results, while it would be more accurate I suppose, would do absolutely nothing to help me. Well, aside from the fact that it would stop misleading me into thinking I can actually catch this particular bus without, like, leaving work 10 minutes early or something.
Of course, I should keep in mind that this is the same Trip Planner that gave me these staggeringly awesome results.