Justin from West Seattle wrote me recently about Metro’s night owl service:

Last night I discovered a route that goes past my building that I didn’t even know about, despite having been a bus commuter for a long time (Metro 54 and ST 545). …Metro provides what they call “night owl” service, and it saved me a cab right from the bar last night. I’m mailing this to you hoping that you might want to mention this service on your blog, as I bet there a thousands of bus commuters who don’t know of it.

I know about night owl service, but I’ve never used it (just call me Buschickrella), and until I checked with the folks at Metro, I didn’t know much about it. Here’s what I was able to find out:

There are 10 routes that provide service between 2 AM and 5 AM:

7: Rainier Beach
81: Ballard/Loyal Heights
82: Queen Anne/Greenlake/Greenwood
83: University/Maple Leaf/Ravenna
84: Madison Park/Madrona
85: West Seattle/Admiral District/White Center
120: Burien
174: Seatac/Federal Way
180: Kent/SE Auburn
280: Somewhere on the Eastside (The schedule doesn’t list a destination for this route. Seriously.)

Some of these (7, 174 [aka Ugly Steproute], and 120, for example) are regular routes that happen to run exceptionally late. Others (the 80s) are special, night-only routes. (Sometime soon I’ll devote a post to the logic–or lack thereof–of the route-numbering system.) As far as I can tell, none of these routes run near my house, so (unless the party’s good enough to justify a cab ride) I’ll continue to hightail it out the door before the last regular bus leaves.

Now where did I put those glass slippers?