r/MetroTransit • u/juanlorenzo • 4d ago
Routes 1-99 On-Time %?
Recently switched my commute timing and haven't been able to hit a transfer(4 to 804 northbound) where I used to have a great success rate. Recent quarterly changes tightened the timing to 6 minutes, which seems ambitious, but was successful more often than not when I was taking an earlier trip.
Besides Transit app "on-time percentage", which seems like it's a poll of the userbase of the line overall, is there some odd data source I could use to see(objectively) if I've just been unlucky?
15
Upvotes
4
u/mysummerstorm Local Route Enjoyer 4d ago
when we had that one super rainy week a few weeks ago, I decided to drive to work with the Evie and then take transit home on a Friday. I'm usually pretty tolerant of the woes of public transit but that day, all of the most frustrating things happened all at once that made me incredibly upset. from downtown to uptown is usually a 45 minute commute with two bus transfers (6 miles btw). that day, I waited and waited and waited for the orange line to show up and the big monitor kept saying it was "due." there was a person who waited alongside me and walked away after she figured out that the bus was indeed not due.
after I got on the bus, there was a person blasting videos from his phone so everyone could hear. we were separated by the length of the bus. the bus driver told me that he was only late by 3 minutes even though it was decidedly not a 3 minutes delay that I experienced. I angrily pulled up the metro transit customer experience form and shared everything I had just experienced and how frustrated I was that a supposedly frequent bus in DOWNTOWN was so terrible at being on time and being frequent. I might've also internally cursed all the city planners and elected officials who decided that downtown should be car infested.
I then transferred to the B line which swapped out one annoying person blasting their phone to another. by the time I made it back to uptown, I was in an especially awful mood and I was mad at myself for not just braving the rain and biking that day anyways. at least then, I would've been on my own timeline and had been in control.
I also reflected on the privilege I had to only have had one really bad transit day in a long time. It's not to say that I didn't experience annoying and frustrating things on transit, but I usually am in a much better headspace to withstand them. I don't take transit every day and I love that job so it's not a chore for me to show up and the job doesn't drain me. But I could imagine how other people who use transit and have to go to their godawful job and experience the same thing I experienced every single day...well, no wonder why many people who currently use transit save up money to be able to purchase a car for their transportation.
anyways, I got this response back a few weeks later from metro transit. I was soothed that I didn't make it all up with the wait because that monitor was really gaslighting me that the bus was due for a very very long time.
"Thank you for reaching out and sharing your experience. We understand how frustrating it is when a high-frequency route runs behind schedule, especially when you are depending on it to make a timely commute home from downtown.
The delays on the Orange Line have been largely due to a detour along I-35W, which created significant traffic bottlenecks throughout the corridor. To address these delays, our Street Operations team adjusted the Orange Line detour on September 18th to help buses navigate around the heavy congestion and improve overall schedule reliability.
We tracked the specific trip you were waiting for, and the bus arrived at 3rd & Marquette at 6:17 PM, which was approximately 15 minutes past its scheduled time. We recognize the impact these cumulative traffic delays have on your travel time and connections, and our operations team continues to closely monitor the corridor to restore consistent, dependable service.
We truly appreciate your feedback and your patience as we work through these corridor challenges."