Is this the craziest Seattle winter ever? Like me, you’re waking up this morning to find about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground for something like the 20th time this season.
Here’s the scoop:
- There’s fresh powder on the side streets and a wet slush on the arterials
- Seattle public schools are starting two hours late, with school buses on snow routes
- There are no official Metro bus cancellations or reroutes yet. But there’s not any automated data of buses moving either. We haven’t seen any on our brief sojourn outdoors.
- With this much accumulation and temperatures just below freezing, you can assume that the blue & black-diamond routes will be difficult this morning. Jackson will typically be your best option for getting to and from downtown.
- SDOT says plows are out. We haven’t spotted any near CDNews HQ yet.
SEATTLE–Snow was falling and sticking to roadway pavement early this morning in Seattle. In the early morning hours crews shifted from responding to reports of ice on the roadway to responding to snow. Trucks with plows are assigned to major arterial streets throughout the city, attending primarily to inbound traffic lanes for the morning commute.
We’ll update this as things get going and conditions change this morning.
Update: 8:03am – Just got back from a walk around the neighborhood. All the major arterials are passable, including Cherry, Jefferson, Yesler, and Jackson. But no buses have been seen running yet. Lots of people waiting for them at the stops. Pics coming soon…
Update x2: 8:33am – Just saw the first #48 bus go by 23rd & Cherry. It was packed to the gills…
Update x3: 10:34am – Got a text message from a friend:
The 2 was pretty much on time this morning with chains. Saw low on mad but not union. Took #2 to work.
You can also check out this website to find out your bus status: http://onebusaway.org/
Their twitter feed suggests that, since metro’s bus info is down, their information isn’t accurate, either. (“Latest: tracking feed from Metro is down, so no real-time data for Metro, MyBus, or OneBusAway”)
Waited for the 27 on Yesler for quite a while…didn’t come…walked over Jackson and saw a huge group of people who’d been waiting for the 14…Pretty ridiculous since the roads aren’t bad at all!!
And it’s impossible to tell if/when/where buses might actually be running. (Most recent twitter update from the folks at OneBusAway: “Bad tracking data + unpublished reroutes = don’t trust OBA”)
Caught the 11 headed downtown on Madison at 19th at about 8 am. One 11 bus passed right by, for no known reason. It was not full. Another 11 came within three minutes and the ride was uneventful, just crowded.
If I remember, it we had snow late into spring last year.
I waited until after 8 am and had no trouble going down my steep hill to I-5.
The #2 was running pretty close to the regular schedule when I caught it a little after 8…but it didn’t make it all the way to Madrona. The bus got stuck near 30th. Unclear if the driver was able to get unstuck.
John #8 was about 15-20 minutes late this morning but nothing too bad. Looks like a lot of the #43 riders packed it out though since their bus never came.
I checked Metro before leaving at 7:15am and it looked like these were running about once every 2 hours if at all, so I didn’t even try waiting and just walked instead. In the 45 min it took me to walk along the 3 & 4 route into downtown, I didn’t see either one of those busses heading into downtown. So silly, considering there wasn’t any snow at all on the main roads!
interestingly, i saw the 8 driving east down union by MLK. no idea why or which direction it was headed.
There was some major accident at the bottom of Yesler this morning, actually I think there was a fire? Anyway, we took Jackson up and saw a ton of people at the Starbucks. The line went almost out the door. We drove past that and saw no one at SOHO Coffee on Yesler (I thought it was 18th but I could be wrong.)
Anyway, I have to give props to SOHO for using Stumptown beans. Morning coffee was delicious! I went to Vega twice and I thought it tasted kinda funny. Hope to see more people here soon.
When will this city learn how to deal with 2″ of snow?! You don’t PLOW 2″ of snow, retards!
Around 7:40am, waited like 40 mins for a 48 or 8 or 4. None showed up going north. Finally walked to madison and an 8 caught up and shortly after I heard a 48 showed up too
Really, the #2 was running on time earlier? I waited at the stop on 18th and Union from 8:58am until 9:36am and there was nary a bus in sight headed downtown. I finally gave up, went home, and drove to work without any issues (although had to pay $15 to park, ugh, this is why I take the bus).
I caught the #2 on 25th and Union this morning just a few minutes after its scheduled 7:54 arrival time. Things went surprisingly smoothly, just slow because of the chains. That sucks it stopped running later in the morning…I wonder why?