TriMet Thoughts After Visiting St. Louis

I just came back from an awesome trip to St. Louis, where I used their bus system one of the days. While there, I compared their system to TriMet, and I thought I'd share them:

\\\* Our bus drivers are so, so much friendlier. Seriously, bus drivers are the public face of the company. In St. Louis, the first driver had zero clue what I was talking about when I said I wanted to buy a day pass. Like, she did not know the company's prices or policies. When we finally got on the same page about this (which took some 30 seconds, which is lengthy at a bus stop), she was just gruff and apathetic. I wouldn't be surprised if she was caught off-guard when I thanked her as I got off.

\\\* I love that the buses, streetcar, and MAX all use the same pricing. Their buses have a different price ($1 per trip) than the subway ($4-5 one way from downtown to the airport).

\\\* MAX trains are quieter when travelling than their subway cars. Also, the announcer's voice sounded just like Peanuts adults; I did not understand a word that was said. Meanwhile, our stop announcements are nice and clear, and even most of the announcements by the operators are easy to hear. Please continue this!

\\\* The online map and real-time travel guide of St. Louis' buses (on their own website) shows a bus line running on a different street, about 4 blocks south of where it actually runs. I ended up walking about a mile because it was still going to be faster than trying to locate the actual street and waiting for a non-frequent bus. It's always a good time to review maps.

\\\* Their bus stops don't have QR codes or something similar to check a bus' status. I had to go on their website and manually look up the line number, and then decipher the arrival time because the grid only lists some 6 stops, none of which I was familiar with. Maybe their app does this better, but I'm not downloading their app for a single day. Seriously, we have it good here.

Keep up the good work!