According to the Post, Metro finally got its on-time measuring system working in Metrobuses after 35 years.

So, that’s the positive news.

The statistics uncovered, on the other hand, pretty much confirm what everyone already assumes about the buses’ ability to stick to a schedule: namely, that they have no such ability. A report to be released on Thursday will show that overall, Metrobuses were on-time (defined as falling somewhere between two minutes early and seven minutes late) only 73 percent of the time in July, which is pretty terrible. Apologists will point to the fact that this figure falls on the high end of the national average for buses, the high level of traffic congestion in the metro area, and that many initiatives put into place to improve efficiency are thwarted by outside factors – like cars double parking in dedicated bus lanes.

But let’s be honest: for a service that close to 450,000 people depend on daily, not being able to stick within a 9 minute window for more than one out of every four trips is utterly abysmal. We haven’t even gotten to the worst of it: some routes, like the U5 and the Y5, are Metro’s version of Russian roulette – you’ve got close to a coin flip’s chance of having your bus arrive anywhere close to on time.