Snow snarls bus routes; commuters delayed

King County Metro Transit received a dusting of criticism for its response to this morning's light snowfall, when many commuters were left waiting in an information vacuum.

County Councilman Dow Constantine, D-West Seattle, issued a statement that he "received many reports that Metro buses were late, off their routes, or missing altogether during today's morning commute."

Constantine, chair of the council's transportation committee, said he called Metro officials and urged them to improve communication with the riders.

"During sudden storm events of this type, they need to know what to expect so they can inform their families and employers," he said.

The transit agency's deputy manager, Jim Jacobson, said Metro is procuring a global positioning satellite (GPS) system, but it will be two years before it is fully installed.

Metro declared snow detours this morning that kept buses off some parts of upper Queen Anne Hill, View Ridge and the steep Fremont neighborhood in Seattle and out of the Fairwood area near Renton.

Heavy traffic overall slowed some suburban routes — a particular problem for Sound Transit express service.

Several spin-outs blocked Highway 520 at 6:15 a.m., and there were three later crashes along Highway 520 or its onramps, as well as one on the Interstate 90 Floating Bridge. The unusual timing of the snowfall posed a challenge. Metro sent out its first batch of buses without chains, before the snow began at 5 a.m. Jacobson said chains were applied after that, causing a typical 15-20 minute delay per bus.

In the Metro system, delays have a ripple effect, because some buses in the north end continue on as other routes in the south, for instance.

Norma Johnson, commuting from Auburn, lost half-an-hour. Her Sounder train reached King Street Station, but a connecting Route 70 bus was late. She used two other buses and then walked a few blocks to reach The Seattle Times, where she is a senior buyer.

In online comments to The Times, other riders said buses were late downtown, or through Rainier Valley. Other readers complained Metro's online updates were stale.

On the West Seattle Blog, readers reported delays on Route 125 on Delridge Way, and route 54 from Alaska Junction to downtown.

Metro serves nearly 400,000 riders per weekday and will collect about $420 million in sales-tax subsidies this year.

"Given the increasing sophistication of modern phones and wireless Internet providers, I encourage Metro to take immediate action to use instant messaging, Twitter, neighborhood blogs, and customer self-reporting systems to keep Metro operators and riders connected," Constantine said in a statement.

He said inexpensive ways exist to reach riders. "It doesn't seem like they've got people who are savvy at that."

Metro bus locations are monitored by transmitters on signposts. When a bus detours, or is very late in traffic, the system loses track of it.

"It's a 90s technology that isn't the most modern," Jacobson said. When the official Metro Tracker system falters, he said, so do onebusaway.org and mybus.org, two Web sites that supply real-time bus information.

Jacobson said the number of buses stuck in snow was only "in the teens" today, much easier than in mid-December, when icy roads prompted Metro to cut service in half.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com