Rachael LKing County Metro has had over 240 trip cancellations this morning. Part of that are runs in places with actual heavy snow and ice issues. But probably the larger parts are the operator shortage (Friday always has a lot of cancelled runs) and that many operators live far from the bus base they work from and might be trapped by snow & ice in suburbs that don’t plow or de-ice. Starting pay for a Metro driver is half the pay for a entry level Seattle cop.
Yes I regularly go count trip cancellations. Before the last service change (when they cut service to account for labor challenges) it was common to see 100-150 cancellations on a Friday. I should really go pull some concrete data instead of counting Metro alert tweets.
People can subscribe to text alerts on routes they use (I do!) but often that doesn’t help with trip planning because there often aren’t alternative routes, not everyone drives or can afford a ride hail. So it’s just gonna be wait for the next one as anyway.
Having discovered how heavy the snow is even in Seattle, it makes a lot of sense to have lots of cancellations. :(
the drymifolia collective@rachael it was also very cold last night (down to 26°F here in West Seattle), so lots of ice and the snow that did fall all stuck
@drymifolia Yeah. And lots of operators live fairly far from their work sites (and we don't pay them well enough often to afford Seattle housing prices even though so many bus bases are in Seattle). So I get it but also our transportation system is not very resilient (unless you can drive but even then so many crashes and foolish behavior.)