Use an ORCA card to pay your fare.
It’s faster than feeding cash into a fare box. Multiply that small time savings by every passenger on the bus, and you get a noticeably faster ride. You can buy an ORCA card online at www.orcacard.com, at a ticket vending machine at any Link station (including all Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel stations*), or at any Metro Transit or Regional Partners Pass Sales Outlet (locations are listed at www.orcacard.com).
*A ticket vending machine is being installed this week at Convention Place station in the transit tunnel.
Use off-board ORCA readers and board through the back doors.
At stations with off-board ORCA readers, you can pay before you get on the bus and then board through one of the back doors (between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. only – at other times, all riders enter through the front door for security reasons). Where this option is available, it’s a great way to cut down the bottleneck at the front of the bus. We’re working with the City of Seattle to install ORCA readers in downtown Seattle, with the goal of having them in place by fall 2013.
Exit via the back doors.
You can cut the amount of time the bus spends at your stop by leaving through the back doors, so other passengers can start boarding through the front door right away.
Exiting through the back doors allows other passengers to start boarding at the front.
If you’re standing, move away from the doors.
This will allow others to board or leave the bus more quickly. Small delays at each stop add up to a longer ride, so preventing those delays gets everyone where they’re going more quickly.
Where should people post feedback about the new Rapid Ride? I think it’s a step in the right direction but Metro needs to eliminated the Queen Anne detour. The Rapid Ride should stick to the 15th corridor until 3rd. If it’s acceptable that neighborhoods like Ballard and Magnolia need walk 10-15 minute to a Rapid Ride then it should be equally acceptable that Queen Anne residents do the same.
This blog is intended to be a place where community members can both learn about and discuss RapidRide, so you’re in the right place for posting general feedback about RapidRide service. We forward substantive comments to the appropriate Metro staff member(s). To notify Metro about specific incidents or situations, please use one of the methods listed on Metro’s contact page (http://metro.kingcounty.gov/cs/feedback_choose.html) to reach Metro’s customer services.
Is it correct that riders cannot use the back doors at all after 7pm?! I thought that was the old policy that has been replaced.
Thanks for the catch! That policy was discontinued as of Sept. 29, and we’ve updated the post to reflect this.
Is there an official source of realtime arrival information on the web? It seems like a step backwards that I can no longer look up realtime status (via onebusaway) before walking to the stop.
Try Metro’s Tracker, which lets you check real-time bus locations in a map view, or real-time departure predictions by location. Note that you have to use numeric codes for RapidRide lines (A Line: 671, B Line: 672, C Line: 673, D Line: 674).