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As anyone who reads my tweets knows, I'm a city nerd. One of the things I nerd out on most is how little things make such an impact on livability. One of those little things is going to be getting a bit better. Let me tell you the tale of the bus route numbers. Thread! (1/13)
When I moved to Town a decade ago (!), the very first public engagement I ever went to was a consultation for this report on the bus system, which came out in 2011. https://www.metrobus.com/PDF/metrobustransit_study.pdf
For the first couple years in St. John's we were carless so I was REALLY into it (2/13)
For the first couple years in St. John's we were carless so I was REALLY into it (2/13)
As someone new to Metrobus, I found some things pretty baffling. I regularly missed my bus because it was early, hustling to the Avalon mall because buses were scheduled to arrive and depart without any stopping time there, but people needed time to change. (3/13)
More baffling than that was (and is) something very simple: the bus stop signs. They are full of numbers - a stop code and the text line number on each - but one number is missing that kinda seems the most important: the route number for the bus that stops there! (4/13)
This continues to blow my mind. Yes, you can text or look up this info, if you have a phone, and hands free, and the time, and it isn't a howling wind, etc etc. But seriously! Especially where some routes are inbound and outbound on different streets, big usability issue (5/13)
In general, wayfinding signage is so often an afterthought in St. John's (and NL more broadly). The starting assumption is that people are familiar with an area, but they often aren't! Probably especially likely for bus users, as that includes many new arrivals. (6/13)
Anyhow, the simple, easy usability fix that I and others suggested back in 2011 was... put route # stickers on the signs, like most cities have. Rocket science, I know. I'm sure others have asked over the years. (7/13)
This idea never did appear in the Dillon report back then, so I've just made a habit of mentioning it whenever any public input was being gathered for Metrobus. For a decade. Crickets! (8/13)
One time, a few years ago, I finally cornered one of the senior staff on this point and mentioned it, and he seemed cheerfully baffled by the idea - the working assumption was just that everyone would just use their phone for this info. *headdesk* (9/13)
Incidentally, I would have raised it with the Transit Commission, but until recently it was very hard to find out who the commissioners are. It's better now! Their names are on the Contact Us Page: https://www.metrobus.com/html-default/contact.asp (10/13)
In the end, it was the Commissioners to the rescue! Specifically @kirstenmorry, part of a much more transparent and accessible iteration of transit governance. I flagged this to her a bit more than a year ago and just found out it's actually going to happen! (11/13)
I don't use the bus nearly as often anymore - from downtown I tend to either walk or drive - but working in social justice I know very well how vital a service the bus is, and how we shouldn't assume folks know how to navigate it or have a data/phone plan to do so. (12/13)
The moral of the story? Citizen representatives on things like the Metrobus Commission are doing a lot of thankless work that takes a lot of time and effort. If you have an idea, share it with them, and also give them the odd high five (13/13)
