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Archive for the ‘detours’ Category

Joining the Costume Party Downtown on Halloween?

Posted in bus routes, bus schedules, community, detours, ebus, events, Holiday events, MetroRail, rider tips, twitter, Uncategorized, Web, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 31, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Even though Halloween’s on a Wednesday, don’t let that be a drag. We know you’ve come to know the trusty E-Bus as your ride Downtown on the weekends, now take advantage of that tonight!

Capital Metro wants to help you reach the big party down as safely and conveniently as possible. That’s why we’re running E-Bus service on a Wednesday, which usually doesn’t happen, but we’re making an exception to help get all those Honey Boo Boo and Psy look-alikes to 6th Street.

Hours will be the same as E-Bus weekend service (8:30 p.m. until 3 a.m.). Catch a ride using routes #410 West Campus, #411 Riverside, and #412 Main Campus. Regular fares will apply. UT students ride free with valid school ID and ACC students ride with the Green Pass.

All you Halloween go-ers can also ride Capital Metro’s local service to and from the downtown area until around midnight. Night Owl service will run its usual schedule until 3 a.m.

We hope all our riders have a good time tonight. Use Capital Metro as your safe ride this Halloween!

We want to see all those elaborate costumes! Post your Halloween pictures as you ride transit today–rail, bus, E-Bus. Tweet them to @CapMetroATX or post to our Facebook wall!

If you’re just trying to go about your daily commute tonight: Capital Metro riders who plan to use the #4 Montopolis, #21 Exposition and #100 MetroAirport routes should take notice of anticipated 6th Street closure detours due to Halloween events from around 8 p.m. until 3 a.m. More detailed route and detour information can be found in the Capital Metro website ‘Service Alerts’ section. 

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Twitter Name: Now @CapMetroATX

Posted in bikes, bus routes, bus schedules, community, commute community, customer service, detours, events, MetroRail, MetroRapid, rider tips, train, twitter, Uncategorized, Web, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 11, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Tweet, Tweet!

For those of you who follow our Twitter activity (or may want to), you may have noticed our recent change of account names.

In the past, we have communicated to followers using two separate Twitter accounts: CapMetroNews and CapMetroRail. Having two accounts made sense leading up to the opening of MetroRail, but now it’s just sort of confusing. People tweet us with rail-related inquiries at CapMetroNews and with bus issues at CapMetroRail. Plus, having two accounts sometimes contributes to a delay in us responding.

Going into our new fiscal year in October 1, we wanted to use that date as a benchmark for turning over a new leaf in our Communications efforts – including Twitter.

Going into the future, we have changed the name of our CapMetroRail account to @CapMetroATX. This will be our one and only account where we’ll provide bus and rail service updates as well as relevant news and rider tips. Over the next two weeks we’ll phase-out our CapMetroNews account.

We know by following one sole account, you may get more info than before. So, how can you filter the info you get notifications about, if you want?

By using certain apps, you can make settings to only get notified of certain hashtags, versus receiving all our Tweets.

We’ll be operating via these hashtags:

#MetroRailAlert: for specific delay alerts on MetroRail

#MetroBusAlert: for all bus-related service alerts

So, for example, if you began following our rail account and only wish to continue receiving rail-related messages, set-up your account to send only messages including the #MetroRailAlert hashtag.

How to set specific alerts up? This useful YouTube video helps you use TweetDeck for setting-up hashtag notifications:

If you’re not into Tweet Deck, there’s also Boxcar for push notifications as well.

This change may take some getting used to, but it’s for the better — to provide improved communications and customer service. So, jump right it, follow us at www.twitter.com/CapMetroATX.

Tweet you soon!

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Capital Metro is the Best Ride to Austin City Limits

Posted in community, commute community, detours, ebus, events, MetroRail, rider tips, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2012 | 1 Comment »

We know you music lovers are focused on finding the best shows and sets during the Austin City Limits music festival – we don’t blame you. We want to help you get there as fast and easily as possible.

That’s why we’re partnering with ACL again this year to bring you FREE shuttle service from Republic Square to the music’s doorstep — at Zilker Park.

It’s easy. From Oct. 12 – 14 all you need to do is get to Republic Square. Walk, ride your bike, catch a bus, use the train. We’ve even cranked out this super-easy-to-use map to help you choose the best bus route for you. Check it out.

How to get to the shuttles:

- Take several regular Capital Metro routes, including routes 4, 21 and 22 (check map for other routes)

- Take MetroRail into downtown Austin (Friday/Saturday)

After ACL:

- Use Capital Metro’s Night Owl and E-Bus routes, (run until about 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights)

During ACL, regular bus service will be detoured for route #30/Barton Creek around the area on 4th and Barton Springs west of Lamar.

Use the Trip Planner or check our ACL webpage for planning your weekend travels.

Hassle-free. Cheap. Safe. You rock. We’ll roll.

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Getting Ready for Ike

Posted in Capital Metro news, detours, safety on September 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

As Hurricane Ike nears the Texas coast, members of the Capital Metro Emergency Team are conferring with other municipal, state and federal groups to help people stay safe.

This morning at 6 a.m., a Capital Metro radio dispatcher reported to the Emergency Operations Center for the Austin area to plan for the arrival of Hurricane Ike. When potential community emergencies arise, the Office of Emergency Management sets in motion a convergence of community leaders, first responders, hospital and social services staff, city staff, and transportation providers to the Combined Transportation, Emergency and Communications Center. CTECC is a high-tech facility designed to provide coordination between the dispatch units of 911, police, fire, EMS, Travis County sheriff and constable, Capital Metro, and TxDOT. The Capital Metro radio dispatchers work from this location.

Capital Metro’s involvement in the preparations for Hurricane Ike are twofold: we’ll provide transportation services to evacuees arriving from areas along the Texas coast, transporting people to/from shelters, hospitals and the airport; and, we must also prepare for the safe operation of our regular bus service, given that Austin may receive tropical storm-force wind and rain.

Our liaison to the emergency team sends out regular reports from the Emergency Operations Center to Capital Metro, alerting us to upcoming transportation needs. Earlier today he reported that more than 100 buses full of evacuees from the Galveston area would arrive in Austin this evening. Our buses will be “on call” to help transport them as needed to area shelters and hospitals.

Capital Metro helped transport Gustav evacuees with medical conditions. Photo by Austin American-Statesman Photographer Kelly West.

During the evacuation effort for Hurricane Gustav, Capital Metro transported evacuees with special medical needs from the airport to the Delco Center.

If severe weather comes to the Austin area as a result of Hurricane Ike, it is possible some of Capital Metro’s services will be suspended or delayed. Safety of our passengers, bus operators and our buses is our top priority. Current information will be posted on the Capital Metro Web site as it is available.

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Detour Drama

Posted in bus routes, detours on September 3, 2008 | 5 Comments »

If you tried to get around downtown over the Labor Day weekend, you know firsthand how difficult it was to navigate. Several special events closed city streets and created transportation headaches for everyone, whether you were in a car or a bus.

To those who were relying upon Capital Metro, we apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. Street closures are a big, big deal to us because they create detours for our bus routes and cause some bus stops to temporarily close—in essence they interfere with our business and make it hard for our customers to get around!

Don’t get me wrong. I love all the delightfully Austintatious events in this city, and a number of my friends and coworkers compete in the many foot and bike races in town. But speaking with my Capital Metro Employee Hat firmly in place, street closures are a real pain.

In order to effectively let our customers know about detours that will be in place for an upcoming event, we print and post signage for affected bus stops (and on the buses that run those routes) about a week and a half in advance, and then post the detour information to our Web site during the week before the event. We actually have a staff committee that meets every week to review and plan for special events detours. We also meet regularly with City of Austin staff (the city approves and implements the street closures for special events) so that we can develop bus route detours effectively.

Unfortunately the plans don’t always go smoothly, and the city closes additional blocks, or the streets are closed earlier than we anticipated, and our buses are forced to detour the detour, on the spot. When this occurs, our signage at bus stops and on our Web site is no longer accurate. During major events, Capital Metro’s field supervisors patrol the routes, looking for people who need help catching a detoured bus. With so many routes on detour this weekend, it was hard.

We will continue to work with the city to improve the coordination between them and us for street closures and detours. We have been monitoring closely the work of the city-sponsored Downtown Street Event Closure Task Force and are providing input to that group. Hopefully it’ll be a smoother ride for all of us in the future.

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