Look out: forecasts are predicting snow in our region as early as tomorrow (Friday December 11), which may certainly affect your travels in the region.

Hopefully this isn’t news to you, but if you are planning on taking transit on a snowy day, there are a number of tips to help you prepare as a rider. We listed a bunch of them in the November print Buzzer, including:

• Have a transit plan in place, so you know your options for alternate routes, if any
• Check the weather before you go out
• Leave extra time for your journey, in case of delays
• Bundle up for cold weather and wear appropriate footwear so you don’t slip
• Hit the bathroom before you travel, in case of delays (so important!)
• Be aware that hilly areas may have delays as it’s harder to get through
• Move to the back of your transit vehicle so others can board

For our part, we’ll try to get you the latest info on the transit situation through a number of channels:

• Radio and TV
• Our Alerts page
• Our TransLink Twitter account (a recent addition to our Twitter list)
• Our media YouTube account — for audio clips, updated as needed (primarily for the broadcast media, but also available to the general public)
• Customer Information at 604-953-3333 (may be very busy on a snowy day)
• The big video screens on the Expo/Millennium Line platforms
• The TransLink mobile site: m.translink.ca

As for what we’re doing to prepare, our media team sent out this news release detailing how we’re getting ready for the winter blast. And you can also see the SkyTrain snow plan and the CMBC snow plan posted on the blog at the beginning of 2009. (Also, here’s a Vancouver Sun article on how the municipalities are preparing for snow.)

Anyway, hopefully there won’t be snow tomorrow! But if there is, safe travels to all of you and we’ll be working hard to keep the system on track!