Bus.
This morning I took the bus to work for the first time, due to my car being in the shop for some repairs (someone busted my driver’s side mirror off while I was parked) and not having anyone around to bum a ride from that wouldn’t take them 10 miles out of their way. I didn’t want to make any transfers cause that’s annoying, so I ended up walking down to Westlake Center where I grabbed the 545 and took that all the way to the end of the line at Bear Creek.
It was pretty easy, and as long as it’s nice out I think I’ll take it more often now that i know when and where to take it, and the walk is nice. Since I got on the bus relatively early in the route I didn’t have to worry about not getting a seat like the people hopping on at Montlake who all had to stand.
There was one older (50-60 year old) lady who provided some entertainment, for me anyway. She was talking to the bus driver about how it’s bad that sometimes the buses run late and how she missed a connection that only comes every 3 hours once. Apparently she called the Seattle Transit Authority about 15 times to talk to somebody about the problem, but didn’t really get any resolution other than leaving more of a window between the transfers - I think she only gave herself 15 minutes the first time, which is pretty silly to complain about when the bus comes every 10 minutes. I have a feeling she was some kind of engineer in the past since the “sensible” solution she suggested was that the bus system record arrival times at each route’s stops, and then calculate the mean time of arrival, as well as a standard deviation for each stop.
I don’t think that switching from a simple timetable - which does in fact include a note that after a certain the times are estimates - to a graph showing arrival time and the standard deviation from the mean for each stop will be very helpful to the general public who hasn’t studied probability or statistics.
I don’t understand this box & whisker chart!
Next time though I need to bring a book to read, or find some way to occupy my time, it’s about an hour long bus ride (vs. the 40 minute drive).
August 9th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Wow, you normally have a 40 minute drive to work? I didn’t realize it was that long. That kinda sucks.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:57 am
With no traffic, it would take about 20 minutes to go the 15 miles from my condo to work, but with normal traffic it’s about 30-40 minutes. With really bad traffic due to an accident or a game, or just people not knowing how to drive, it can take an hour or more. The mornings are usually faster than evenings, which can take 10-15 minutes longer.
I don’t mind the drive much, not enough to want to move back to the east side. I don’t know why I’d move back, unless maybe to be in a good school district for my kids, when (or if?) I have some…
August 24th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
we can carpool, you know. if you get from belltown to caphill :)
September 5th, 2006 at 10:57 am
carpooling is good, we should do that. if we can get 3 or 4 people we would be even better since that lame 3+ lane would be useable (without cheating).