Employees report increased productivity and reduced stress, thanks to The Connector. The free Microsoft bus service is poised for expansion.
By Fred Albert, January 24, 2008

It used to take Bryan Rutberg anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes to drive from his Seattle home to Microsoft’s Redmond campus. Unfortunately, the drive home was much less predictable, occasionally stretching to two hours due to the daily backups on Highway 520. “It drove me crazy and sent my blood pressure skyrocketing,” said Rutberg, director of the Redmond Executive Briefing Center. It got to the point where he stopped drinking water after 2 p.m., for fear of being trapped in traffic when nature called.

Three or four times a week now, Rutberg leaves his Saturn LS2 at home and commutes via The Connector, the free, WiFi-equipped bus service that Microsoft introduced to much fanfare last September. The Connector picks Rutberg up one and a half blocks from his home on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill and deposits him at the Overlake Transit Center bordering the Microsoft campus, where a shuttle transports him to his office.

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