I started riding Seattle public transportation last week. My commute involves me catching a commuter train called “The Sounder” from Puyallup to downtown Seattle, and then catching a bus from downtown to the office in Magnolia. My commute is 1.5 hours in the morning, and 2 hours at night, so I’ve had plenty of time to think about the odd things about the public transportation here.

As for my credentials to judge, I grew up in a city which is widely recognized as having one of the best public transit systems around. Portland’s busses run frequently (5-10 minutes for popular busses, and rarely more than 15 minutes even for less popular ones), and you rarely have to transfer to more than one bus to get anywhere in Portland. In addition, there is light rail, which is fast and cheap (same cost as bus fare).

Seattle’s public transportation is infrequent and expensive, as well as confusing. There are two different transit companies, Metro and Sound, which both run busses in and out of downtown. (The Sounder, obviously, is Sound Transit, and then my busses downtown are Metro). Most busses that I have used about once an hour. Plus, I pay $4 per trip, which comes to $8 per day and somewhere around $200 per month. With a monthly pass, I can drop that to $144.

But as irritating as the expensive fare and infrequent bus service is, they don’t qualify as mysteries. They are irritating, but I can deal with them. The real problem is that Seattle public transportation is just confusing.

WHICH TRACK?

First of all, when you show up at the Sounder platform, there are two platforms for two train tracks. There is information posted everywhere about fare, time schedules, rules of conduct and even ads for specific bus lines. What is not posted, anywhere, is the answer to the question of which platform you board from. They are separated by a fence, and you can only cross to the other platform by walking all the way around, so it’s important to know.

I scouted out the platform the day before I started riding and was baffled that there was no mention of it. I figured that there must be some really obvious solution that would present itself. Sure enough, when I showed up on Tuesday, everyone was lined up on one platform, so it was clear. Wednesday and Thursday also.

But on Friday, everyone was on the other platform. There is nothing explaining this, no mention of it anywhere on the platform, in the bus maps, or on the website. Apparently everyone around here just knows that Monday-Thursday, the sounder runs on track A, and on Friday, it runs on track B. This piece of information is apparently such common knowledge that they didn’t feel the need to document it or explain it to anyone.

THE QUIET CAR

The next mystery is the quiet car. The Sounder runs early in the morning and takes about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on where you board. So it’s natural that many people take the opportunity to nap or read quietly on the way, and it’s also natural that they would want a “quiet” car where there are rules that people must turn off cell phones and not have loud conversations.

So natural, in fact, that they didn’t feel any need to tell anyone which car is the quiet car. Dave found out the hard way that it’s the last car, but this is not posted or labeled in any way. It’s not mentioned on any signage, bulletin boards or the website. There are some odd mentions that if you’re riding in the quiet car that you should be quiet, but no explanation is given of how you should identify the quiet car.

Dave, on his first day, sat in the car with a friend (also a first-timer) and they had a conversation. Not a loud one, but just talking. Then they got chewed out by a lady for making noise. I also heard a mother with a kid complaining about this the other day – the same thing happened to her, but where Dave and his buddy just sat down and read quietly, this woman had no way to keep her kid perfectly silent for the next hour, so she got chewed out twice and dirty looks the whole way, every time her kid said something.

THE RULES

Of course, all public transit companies have rules. These are usually common-sense things like “don’t assault the driver” and “please wear headphones” and “no pets.” The Sounder is no exception to this, but where busses usually just have a small poster in the back of the bus listing all the rules, they have to make an announcement on the Sounder. And I guess they figured since they were making a stop every 10 minutes or so, it didn’t make any sense to list the rules at the beginning of the ride, so they announce them at the end of the ride, right as we’re pulling into Seattle. I can almost follow the logic on this one, but not quite. I guess they’re counting on the fact that almost everyone is a regular rider, who already knows the ropes, so (as usual) they feel no need to educate the new riders.

PAY AS YOU EXIT (SOMETIMES)

I’ve saved the best for last. Again, this is a situation where I can sort of see the logic, but the implementation leaves new riders baffled and regular riders and drivers irritated.

In Portland, you always pay before you get on the bus. This is to avoid people hitching a free ride and then “discovering” that they have no money. It’s simple, logical, and leads to a simple, logical use of the bus doors. People get on in front, to pay, and people (mostly) leave through the rear doors to avoid the crowd. It works well, and it makes immediate sense to first-time riders.

Seattle busses have a sign on the fare-box that says “Pay as you exit.” But I’ve found that is not always the case. Just like Portland, downtown Seattle has a fareless square, except they chose the more awkward “Ride Free Zone,” apparently under the assumption that most people in Seattle wouldn’t understand a big word like “fareless” (or maybe “square”).

When I get on my bus in the morning (leaving downtown seattle and the ride-free-zone), the bus driver told me that I need to pay when I exit.

But in the evening, when I catch my bus home (heading back into downtown and the ride-free-zone), I’m apparently supposed to pay as a board. This isn’t posted anywhere, and no one told me, but everyone else who gets on the bus pays as they board.

And if you get on the bus in the ride free zone, the driver doesn’t even make eye contact with you, so he’s certainly not looking at my bus pass. (Oh, and this ignores the issue of whether I should show the driver my pass or swipe it through the fare box. I don’t count this as a mystery, though, since the fine print on the pass says I can do either. It doesn’t make any sense, but at least it’s documented!).

So, as far as I can figure, the logic is that if you’re in fareless square, oh, sorry, I mean the Ride Free Zone, you pay as you exit, and if you’re not, then you pay when you board – despite the signage that says you pay when you exit.

By far, my biggest complaint about Seattle is how much of a pain it is to get anywhere. From the terrible traffic to not having enough alternate routes to the confusing public transportation system that costs too much and punishes the new rider for not instinctively understanding the unknowable mysteries of Seattle public transportation.

On the other hand, the Sounder does have these neat bench seats with plugins for laptops that allow me to write this little diatribe in comfort and style, so it’s not all bad.