Buried in an article about how increasing ridership is resulting in poorer on-time performance for Metro is a nifty bit of information about how some buses can coerce traffic lights to lend a hand:

Metro also applies other strategies to keep the buses running on time. In arrangements coordinated with city traffic engineers, some buses are equipped with devices that send a signal to traffic-light controls when nearing an intersection so that the light will stay green for an extra few seconds to let the bus through. Other bus-borne devices can trigger a red light for the curb lane to turn green a few seconds before all lanes go green, allowing a bus to pull away from the curb and merge into the travel lanes ahead of the traffic flow. [p-i]

As cool as this is, I have a feeling that bus-only lanes, requiring pre-paid fares, or having separate entrances and exits would have a much more notable effect on keeping the buses running on schedule. Maybe Orca [metrokc] will eventually bring smart cards online or the City of Seattle could issue a card for all residents that included a bus pass [shoulddothis] to alleviate some of the slowdowns.

Rather than ask you which bus is chronically late (most of them, in my experience), I’ll instead close by asking which ones are chronically on time?