Post Summary: Google Maps Transit Directions can be used to explore trip options with our updated routes if you set the “Depart at” or “Arrive by” date to “Mon, Nov 7” or later. Step by step instructions are provided below.

Capital Transit buses will start using the new Valley Transit Center on Mendenhall Mall Road on Monday, November 7, 2022. Our routes have been updated to accommodate this new facility and to make our service more consistent, more reliable, and easier to use.

Printed bus schedules are now available on the buses, and a previous “News” post summarizes the main changes to our routes.

If you are looking for more details about how these changes will impact you, Google Maps Transit Directions can help you explore route changes and new trip options that will be available starting on Monday, November 7, 2022.

If you are already familiar with Google Maps Transit Directions, as long as you set the “Depart at” or “Arrive by” date to November 7, 2022 or later, you will see the options available for that trip with our newly updated routes.

If you aren’t familiar with Google Maps Transit Directions, the rest of this post will give you step by step instructions for how to plan a trip with our new routes.

The basic steps are:

1. Open Google Maps
2. Open the “Directions” pane
3. Select “Transit” by clicking on the “Transit” icon
4. Select the starting point of your trip by typing the name or clicking on the map
5. Choose the destination of your trip by typing the name or clicking on the map
6. Change “Leave now” to either “Depart at” or “Arrive by” as appropriate
7. Click on the time box to set the departure or arrival time for your trip
8. Click on the date box or calendar icon to select a date on or after Mon, Nov 7
9. Explore the trip options
10. See the details of a specific trip
11. If desired, use the back arrow to return to step 9 and explore other trip options

Keep reading for more detailed instructions on each step using an example trip.

Exploring Trip Options with an Example Trip

We’ll go through the step by step instructions above for a sample trip. For this example:

• We’ll use Google Maps with a web browser on a computer
• Trip starts at Valley Boulevard
• Trip ends at the Downtown Transit Center
• For this trip, you want to arrive by 7:30 AM on Monday, November 7, 2022

1. Open Google Maps

These instructions are for using Google Maps with a web browser on a computer. However, the steps will be very similar if you are using Google Maps on a smart phone.

Open Google Maps by clicking on the link (Google Maps will open in a new tab), or by typing “maps.google.com” into the address bar in your browser. You should see something similar to the screen shot below:

2. Open the “Directions” pane

Click on the blue “Directions” icon to open the Directions pane (circled in red in the screenshot below).

3. Select “Transit” directions by clicking on the “Transit” icon

Click on the gray “Transit” icon to select Transit Directions (circled in red in the screenshot below).

4. Select the starting point of your trip by typing the name or clicking on the map

The next step is to select the starting point for your trip. You have a couple of options:

• Click a location on the map

or

• Click on the “starting point” text box and start typing the name of your starting point. As you type, matching place names will appear as suggestions, and you can click on a suggestion to set your starting point.

For this example, we’ll click on the “starting point” text box, and start typing “Valley Boulevard”. When the proper suggested location pops up below, we’ll click on that suggestion:

5. Choose the destination of your trip by typing the name or clicking on the map

Similar to the previous step, you can choose your trip destination by clicking on the map or typing the destination into the “Choose destination” text box.

We’ll start typing “Downtown Transit Center”, and select the appropriate suggestion when it appears:

6. Change “Leave now” to “Arrive by” (or “Depart at”, as appropriate)

Below the “Destination” box, change “Leave now” to either “Depart at” or “Arrive by”.

For this example, we’ll select “Arrive by”, since we want to arrive by 7:30 AM.

7. Click on the time box to set the departure or arrival time for your trip

In the time box, type or select your desired arrival or departure time.

In this example we’ll change it to 7:30 AM.

8. Click on the date box or calendar icon to select a date on or after Mon, Nov 7

In the date box, use the calendar to select a date. To see results for the new route changes, make sure you select a date on or after Mon, Nov 7. Also, schedules on Saturday or Sunday will be different from Monday – Friday schedules, so make sure you select a date that matches the day of the week you will be traveling.

For this example, we’ll choose Mon, Nov 7.

9. Explore the trip options

After completing the steps above, you’ll see a list of possible trips, with a summary of each trip on the left. The trip will also be displayed on the map.

The trip summaries on the left will include departure and arrival times, route numbers for buses you’d be riding for that trip, and the overall travel time, including estimated walking time to and from bus stops.

NOTE: The general price for all single, one-way trips, even those including transfers, is $2.00. At the time of writing, the cost for trips involving transfers might mistakenly be shown as $4.00 or more. The correct price for these trips is $2.00, and we are working to correct this error.

Click on a specific trip to see it displayed on the map. Click on the “Details” button for more information about that trip. For example, we’ll click on the first trip “Details” to find out more about that particular option:

10. See the details of a specific trip

After clicking on “Details” for a specific trip, you’ll see more specific information about that trip, including walking time, transfers, etc.

You may need to scroll down in the left pane to see all of the details of the trip. For this particular trip:

1. You walk about 5 minutes to the bus stop at Mendenhall Loop Road and Mendenhall Boulevard
2. You get on the Route 10 bus (which will display “10 Valley TC” on the sign on the front of the bus) at 6:56 AM.
3. You ride the bus 5 minutes to the Valley Transit Center, arriving at 7:01 AM.
4. You transfer to the “9 Egan Express” bus which leaves from Platform 5 at the Valley Transit Center at 7:05 AM.
5. You arrive at the Downtown Transit Center at 7:22 AM.

11. If desired, use the back arrow to return to step 9 and explore other trip options

If you want to see the details of other trip options, use the back arrow on the browser to go back to a list of trips, and repeat the process by clicking on other trip options.

A significantly updated Capital Transit bus schedule will go into effect on Monday, November 7, with the opening of the new Valley Transit Center (VTC) on Mendenhall Mall Road.

The opening of the Valley Transit Center, which will be the new bus transfer location for Valley routes, has created a valuable opportunity to make long-overdue updates to ensure reliable and consistent service for all passengers on all routes. The regular schedules haven’t been updated since 2016.  Time stops in the current schedule are no longer realistic and buses frequently run late, causing passengers to miss transfers or arrive later than expected.

Accordingly, Capital Transit spent months planning, gathering feedback from riders, hosting open houses, gathering feedback from bus drivers, and obtaining input from an objective transit planning contractor to update the schedule within our existing budget and staffing.  The overwhelming majority (76%) of the 363 bus passengers surveyed prefer a simpler network with more consistent service and more reliable transfers to a more complex network with more “specialty” commuter routes (24%).  Capital Transit has incorporated this feedback into the updated schedule.

The upcoming bus schedule changes will go into effect on November 7.  Printed schedules with the updates are available on the buses now.  Links to the new schedule are included at the bottom of this page.

A summary of the changes compared to our current service is listed below: 

• Core Service (Routes 1, 3, 4) is similar to the current schedules, except:
  • Mendenhall Loop Counterclockwise Route 3 and Mendenhall Loop Clockwise Route 4 will remain on Glacier Highway through the Lemon Creek area but will no longer make stops on Davis Avenue and Lemon Creek Road, where less than 2% of riders get on or off the bus.  This trade off will result in decreased travel times and more reliable transfers for a much larger number of passengers who ride the Route 3 or 4.  In addition, service has been increased for the Route 7, which has stops on Davis Avenue and Lemon Creek Road.
  • Mendenhall Loop Clockwise Route 4 includes new morning inbound and outbound runs Monday through Friday.
• Express and Commuter routes:
  • University Express Routes 5 and Riverside Express Route 6 will now only operate in the Valley, and will be timed to make transfers to/from the Downtown/Valley Express Route 8 at the VTC. (Please note that during the current driver shortage, the routes 5, 6, and 8 only operate during peak morning and afternoon periods.)
  • Lemon Creek Express Route 7, which stops on Davis Avenue and Lemon Creek Road, includes additional trips from downtown in the afternoon and early evening.
  • Downtown/Valley Express Route 8 routing and timing has been adjusted, and includes additional inbound and outbound trips Monday – Friday, improved service to the popular Fred Meyer bus stop, and transfers at the VTC to the University Connector Route 5 and Riverside/Airport Connector Route 6. (Please note that during the current driver shortage, the routes 5, 6, and 8 only operate during peak morning and afternoon periods.)
  • Mendenhall Valley Express Route 9 has been changed to the Egan Express, running several morning and afternoon trips between the VTC and Downtown Transit Center.
  • Mendenhall Valley Commuter Route 10 has changed to the Taku Commuter, and includes several morning runs to the VTC where passengers can then connect to the Route 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and/or 9 buses.
  • Douglas to Valley Express Route 11, North Douglas Route 12, Mendenhall/Riverside Commuter Route 14, Valley/UAS Express Route 15, and Taku Express Route 16 have been eliminated. Portions of Routes 11, 14, 15, and 16 have been incorporated into other new or updated routes.

For more information about bus route changes, contact Matt Carpenter at Capital Transit at (907) 789-6901.  For more information about the VTC facility, contact Alec Venechuk at (907) 586-0800 ext. 4187.

See the PDFs below for more detailed route and schedule information.