The 545 to Microsoft

I tired out the 545 ST Express Bus from Capitol Hill to Microsoft this morning. Traffic-wise, the problem–at least at 9:15am–is getting out of Seattle, onto the 520, and then onto the bridge. After that, there was little, if any, traffic until the Microsoft exit (just like the persistent "Oracle Mile" traffic jam on the 101). Traffic into Seattle was stop-and-go all the way in, even on the bus ride back at 10:30am. The HOV lane was better, though. Maybe it’s different before 9am.

I experienced the lovely reality of bus travel on my first trip: the Bus Paradox and Bus Bunching. That is, that a) you are more likely to choose a long bus inter-arrival time than a short one, and b) that buses bunch together in twos or threes. Basically, if buses leave the depot every thirty minutes and you arrive at a later stop at a random time point, you’re likely to wait, on average, more than fifteen minutes for a bus to arrive. This morning, the first bus was fifteen minutes late, and was followed by a nearly empty bus just 30 seconds later. The first bus was SRO, the second nearly empty.

Final thoughts:

• People use their damn cellphones on the bus, just like Caltrain.
• I can load my bike onto the front of the train.
• There is a bike path that runs along the westbound side of 520 for part of the way to the floating bridge. I’m curious if it runs all the way to the bridge itself.
• The bus doesn’t stop "on" Capitol Hill on the return route, which is odd. I stops three or four blocks down at the base of the hill and on the other side of the 5.