On
Saturday night, several people wanting and needing to take buses during
the next day's street-closing Sunday Parkways contacted me asking to do
TriMet's job for it.
Others tweeted, Facebooked and emailed me to report that drivers and city officials seemed confused about where temporary stops and reroutes would be when Sunday Parkways closed their regular bus stops starting at 10 a.m. A few lamented that TriMet hadn't posted information on its website or tweeted anything to its 7,900 followers as of 9 p.m. Saturday.
Actually, TriMet did send out a tweet on Friday night, which I imagine sunk quickly into a lot of users' Twitter streams. Nothing on Saturday. But they sent it out again on Sunday morning at 7 a.m.: "Today, July 22, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., lines 8, 44, 45, 54, and 56 will not serve some stops due to Sunday Parkways."
Far from detailed. It didn't say which stops. Still, they're trying, which is more than what they were doing a year ago.
Unfortunately, TriMet remains largely unresponsive when Twitter users appeal for help in such situations, which is why they start tweeting me and anyone else when the information is buried somewhere.
As of 9 a.m. Monday, for example, the agency, which boasts 330,000 daily riders, hadn't sent out a tweet in 26 hours.
By comparison, Seattle's King County Metro posted three Twitter messages in three hours Monday morning, even though the agency reported, "Metro’s Monday AM commute – & the start of a busy week – has begun with no significant disruptions."
The San Francisco MUNI feed was also alive and well.
Never mind that Monday morning TriMet riders (or those who wanted to ride anyway) were inquiring with "@trimet" about everything from "phantom buses" (one tweet from an operator says 10 bus runs were cancelled due to an "operator shortage") to broken fare machines.
Honest questions for TriMet: Would it hurt to start the week by sending out a link to the service alerts web page? If riders are lamenting that they can't readily find route information on your website, shouldn't you look at doing things differently? Don't you have an eager summer intern walking the halls of public transit to handle the Twitter feed on weekends?
Update: More than two hours after I last paged her to talk about this issue, TriMet's Roberta Altstadt emailed me at 10:49 a.m.: "Alerts
went up on the Service Alerts page beginning Friday. They appeared
under the 'Future service advisories' tab until Sunday morning when they
moved to the main 'Service Alerts' tab. An email went out to
subscribers on Friday as well." It should be noted that I'm far from
a novice when it comes to TriMet's website and service alerts. I, like a
lot of riders, couldn't find the Sunday Parkways information. More from
Altstadt: "It’s important to note a few aspects of the service
alerts that appear on trimet.org. The alerts move from the 'Future
service advisories' tab to the main 'Service alerts' tab an hour before
the scheduled alert. The Sunday Parkways detours and stop closures were
scheduled for 8 a.m., so they move to the main tab at 7 a.m. Also, the
system checks for changes every 5 minutes. That time stamp shows up near
the top of the yellow 'service alerts' box. whether any changes have
been made or not."Trimet appears to have no specifics on sw pkwys temp stops even though it's sun," rider Iris Tyto Alba said in a Twitter message to me. "You have the scoop? want to plan commute!"
Others tweeted, Facebooked and emailed me to report that drivers and city officials seemed confused about where temporary stops and reroutes would be when Sunday Parkways closed their regular bus stops starting at 10 a.m. A few lamented that TriMet hadn't posted information on its website or tweeted anything to its 7,900 followers as of 9 p.m. Saturday.
Actually, TriMet did send out a tweet on Friday night, which I imagine sunk quickly into a lot of users' Twitter streams. Nothing on Saturday. But they sent it out again on Sunday morning at 7 a.m.: "Today, July 22, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., lines 8, 44, 45, 54, and 56 will not serve some stops due to Sunday Parkways."
Far from detailed. It didn't say which stops. Still, they're trying, which is more than what they were doing a year ago.
Unfortunately, TriMet remains largely unresponsive when Twitter users appeal for help in such situations, which is why they start tweeting me and anyone else when the information is buried somewhere.
As of 9 a.m. Monday, for example, the agency, which boasts 330,000 daily riders, hadn't sent out a tweet in 26 hours.
By comparison, Seattle's King County Metro posted three Twitter messages in three hours Monday morning, even though the agency reported, "Metro’s Monday AM commute – & the start of a busy week – has begun with no significant disruptions."
The San Francisco MUNI feed was also alive and well.
Never mind that Monday morning TriMet riders (or those who wanted to ride anyway) were inquiring with "@trimet" about everything from "phantom buses" (one tweet from an operator says 10 bus runs were cancelled due to an "operator shortage") to broken fare machines.
Honest questions for TriMet: Would it hurt to start the week by sending out a link to the service alerts web page? If riders are lamenting that they can't readily find route information on your website, shouldn't you look at doing things differently? Don't you have an eager summer intern walking the halls of public transit to handle the Twitter feed on weekends?
TriMet's social media woes; Portland's Bike Temple; wilting Nissan Leafs; Elf hybrid pedal car: Commuter roundup | OregonLive.com
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