seattle bus trip planner

Trip Planner’s result encouraged me to say on the 33/27 and switch to the 8. This is because the path that involved Link is slower, and shown at right.



Getting off Link and switching to the 50 is crazy, but after checking the default Trip Planner settings, my home is actually more than the default 0.40 mile maximum walk from the Station. The settings force me to transfer to a bus anyway, so these results are at least understandable.





Screenshot_2015-01-15-10-25-27I tried again with a larger permitted walk. It again preferred the “faster” all-bus option, and the reasons are, uh, less encouraging (and depicted at left). Whatever algorithm it is that expects me to take Link from downtown to Othello, get out, and then backtrack one stop to Columbia City deserves to go to the scrap heap.



Verdict: Stick with Google Maps.



This is the direct competition for OneBusAway, and some of the interface differences are a matter of taste. Trip Planner brings up a list of nearby stops without forcing you to load a slow map, which has its advantages. It also has the ability to easily display arrivals for a time in the future, which is pretty nifty if you know you’re 10 minutes away from a stop.



On the other hand, there’s no way to filter routes, and as far as I can tell there’s no way to use the map to jump to stops that aren’t in your immediate vicinity. And this is built on the same flawed data feed as OBA, so various accuracy problems persist.



Trip Planner also doesn’t integrate Uber and Pronto like the TransitApp does, which makes little difference to me but may for others. TransitApp’s intriguing interface does a better job of integrating trip planning and real-time functions for people with less system knowledge and more focus on the right now.