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Forget about all the carbon footprint-reducing, Earth-hugging aspects of the new Link light rail from downtown Seattle to Sea-Tac International Airport. They are secondary to what's cool about Rain City's new train, as I learned on Dec. 23 and 29, headed to and from a Christmas in Arizona: No more $50 cab rides, no more dodgy late-night Metro route 194 trips with the lights dimmed inside the bus, no more begging friends for a ride in the middle of their workday.
Link is $2.50 from Westlake Center to the glass wall of a station at the east end of the airport. The ride is relatively quick — 35 minutes, give or take — and glides you right along Martin Luther King, Jr. Way South through a Seattle many Seattleites, especially the enviro-worshipping crowd, rarely see. That is the Southend, with all of its cheek-by-jowl homes, African restaurants, modest mosques, steel supply outlets and auto wrecking yards. Sure, you know intellectually that’s all there, a Seattle both old-school and new, but it’s hard to glimpse while car-bound and watching traffic in front of you on MLK. Link slams all of that down-at-the-heels social reality right in your face. For $2.50, it’s a bargain and a reminder that light rail has yet to revitalize the Southend.
Speaking of social reality, I encountered one sight while returning from Sea-Tac on Dec. 29 that was humbling and priceless at once. Link crosses I-5 just south of South Boeing Access Road. That afternoon, as the train made its way north to the Rainier Beach station, you could see dozens of police and firefighters, lights flashing atop their vehicles, standing on the north side of the Access Road’s overpass and waiting to offer a final salute as the body of Pierce County Sheriff’s Deputy Kent Mundell was driven from Seattle to a funeral home in Lakewood. The Stars and Stripes hung from an arch created by two Seattle Fire Department hook-and-ladder trucks. The flag waved in the cold breeze.
Something tells me that Sound Transit’s route planners could have never forecast that kind of image.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Jan 8, 8:32 a.m. Inappropriate
Question of the day: Along this new Link from Westlake to Sea-Tac, where is the best place for me to park and safely leave my automobile for a week?
I live in Edmonds (but I think the question is applicable for a broad base of us.)
Help?
Posted Fri, Jan 8, 9 a.m. Inappropriate
If you are driving all the way into Seattle from Snohomish County, you might as well just continue on into SeaTac - to the sea of cement and cheap shuttle connected satellite parking.
I would suggest sticking to transit the whole way. Take Sounder / Amtrak Cascades commuter rail or Community Transit / Sound Transit express bus service.
Posted Fri, Jan 8, 9:14 a.m. Inappropriate
Bill Angle:
Although you live way up in Edmonds, you have the same issue anyone does who isn't traveling to Sea Tac from the City center.
I live in View Ridge (North Seattle). I simply take the Metro 71 to the bus tunnel, buy my $2.50 Link ticket, and scurry off to Sea Tac. No parking, no muss, no fuss.
Although you are technically farther away from the bus tunnel than I am, you get to take one of those swanky Community Transit buses. Heck, they even have air conditioning!
Try it. I think you'll like it.
Posted Fri, Jan 8, 9:39 a.m. Inappropriate
I heartily agree--it's a good experience and it's better than the 194, if only for the fact that there's actually some space for luggage on the train.
But two things: (1) when I took it on December 21st, which was a mild day, I could swear the seats were heated. My derriere was definitely on fire, and when I finally stood for most of the ride another rider remarked on it as well. (2) I'm into walking, but I thought the trip from the air terminal to the train was too long for people who don't like to walk, and it is largely exposed to weather.
Posted Fri, Jan 8, 2:50 p.m. Inappropriate
$2.50 for a train ride to the airport is indeed a bargain for the fare-paying passenger, considering the $2.4 billion cost to construct Airport Link and $125 thousand per day to Sound Transit for operating the two car trains and maintaining tracks and stations.
But in addition to choosing new trains in one corridor over upgraded buses in all corridors, our community has also hedged its bet on folks' transportation choices: that long, healthy, breezy walkway from the airport light rail station to the main terminal passes through the largest car parking structure in the world! http://tinyurl.com/djmy2h .
Posted Fri, Jan 8, 3:18 p.m. Inappropriate
"Upgraded buses" in the paved world of John Niles = worse than we have now.
I say worse, because projected job and population growth will further degrade the existing bus network, as already crowded arterials will become parking lots in a decade or two. And rush hour will stretch out to almost the entire day.
Niles uses buses as a wedge issue, as opposed to an actual viable alternative to light rail.
Which explains why he has spent decades meticulously dissecting every last nitpicking detail related to light rail - while carefully avoiding even the most faint detail when he mentions mysterious "upgrades" to buses and the roads upon which they travel.
Posted Fri, Jan 8, 3:31 p.m. Inappropriate
That parking garage jniles wistfully refers to (in true Kemper Freeman form) costs $130 for 5 days of parking.
So, while Niles and other anti-transit voices bemoan the tragic 5 minute "windy, rain soaked death march" from the Link station to the airport terminal, I would imagine the average Puget Sound resident is able to calculate the difference between $5 and $130.
Posted Fri, Jan 8, 4:50 p.m. Inappropriate
Madison, the upgrades to local bus service in the form of full line upgrades like Metro Rapid Ride and CT Swift, not to mention ST Regional Express, plus the use of unbundled transit elements like expanded stop spacing, bus-only lanes, and transit signal priority are not mysterious -- they are all well detailed in professional literature. Google up.
With more money for buses deployed responsively to meet customer demand and less for light rail running mostly empty, we would have more mass transit around here NOW, and less ma$$ive tran$it that is still years away.
Posted Fri, Jan 8, 7:02 p.m. Inappropriate
The light rail does look very cool -- as Philip says, not only a convenient and uncrowded way to travel, but you get to see how the "other half" lives as you roll by overhead. Plus, by and large, it should only take a couple of hours to get from your house to the gate. In answer to Bill Angle's original question, I read somewhere that there isn't any long term parking anywhere near the stations -- this is just not the way it's supposed to work. So it's bus to train, and particularly good if you live nearby a bus line that runs on a schedule where it gets you to the train stop downtown at a good time for you to take the train to the airport. If you're close enough, you can walk to the bus line with your luggage. Those comfy Community Transit buses run at least every couple hours, don't they? If you are too far away to walk to the bus stop, you can get someone to drop you off. Or, you could always take a cab to the bus stop, and the bus downtown, and the train to the airport.
And, another advantage, once you get to the airport, a nice long walk from the station through the parking lot to the gate. I personally always make a point of walking as much as I can prior to a flight where I'm going to be sitting several hours. And, especially with these new TSA regulations where you can't get out of your seat on longer flights for the last hour, because of the heightened danger during the last hour of the flight that we learned about from the last terrorist bombing attempt, presumably.
Going home from the airport, if you arrive during rush hour, probably you won't have a very long wait at all for a bus home. (I haven't heard but I'm assuming light rail must be sort of coordinated with the bus schedules, though it seems a little hard to understand how you'd coordinate one light rail line with so many bus routes.) Other times, you'll get another great urban experience of hanging out at a bus stop, and if you come in during the evening, maybe even the exciting experience of hanging out downtown on the street for an hour or two. Or maybe this is when you take the rail one way and a family member or friend comes to pick you up, or where you stop off for a drink somewhere while you wait for the bus.
My impression is, rail advocates haven't done a good enough job yet of explaining how quick and convenient it is for most people to get to the bus stop and take a bus to the train and take the train to the airport, and the benefits of the walk after you get to the train. Perhaps this is why when I look at the train, I haven't seen it with very many people on it. There must be thousands and thousands of people leaving from the airport every day who could save lots of money and have a very nice ride in return for only a few hours of their time.
And don't forget, the train also great for anyone commuting from the vicinity of the airport or south to downtown -- just take a bus to the airport and you're on your way! Those south end folks who were protesting the removal of bus lines near the light rail tracks seem to have overlooked this advantage.
Posted Sat, Jan 9, 2:03 p.m. Inappropriate
I wrote my question tongue in cheek. It was only a little serious...I was pretty sure I knew the answer: there is no 'safe' place to park for a week or two somewhere along the light rail line. Below I'm going to discuss what I believe to be 'realistic' alternatives. They vary somewhat depending upon whether one is traveling for a couple of days or eleven days, like my upcoming trip. Other important criteria have to do with how early my plane is departing? How late at night am I returning? Am I likely to be delayed? Are departing and/or returning flights scheduled on weekdays or weekends? And of course, all those timing issues significantly impact the ticket prices that I am willing to pay the airlines.
1. Shuttle Express – Private shuttle service; door to door, reasonable rates @ $39 plus tip each direction; takes longer than driving / parking at or near SeaTac; two bags included, more for extra fee; 24 hour service; this is what I'll do for the long trip where I depart at 6:10 a.m. and arrive back at 9:00 p.m. eleven days later.
Can you imagine trying to get a CT bus from Edmonds to a ST train to SeaTac so as to arrive at 4:00 a.m. in time to check in and go through security? Actually, this is not currently possible any day of the week with the limited hours CT busses run into downtown Seattle.
2. Drive & Park at/near SeaTac – Private automobile; door to door, almost; parking will cost $12/day so approx. $150 including tax; fastest; unlimited luggage; 24 hour service; and this is what I'll do when I'm only heading out of town for two to five days;
3. Taking Sounder or a CT bus into downtown Seattle to transfer to the Sound Transit Light Rail would require thinking through the total transportation schedule. Since about the earliest that I could depend on getting to SeaTac is approximately 8:00 a.m., the consequence is that I require a mid-morning flight out of SeaTac...and a 'rational' return time so that I could take the light rail and a bus back.
Contrast my customer / traveling requirements, which are 24/7 requirements because of airline schedules, with the limited schedules for Community Transit and Sound Transit. To my way of thinking, there is a huge disconnect between real world requirements and the planners of these transportation agencies. So, Sound Transit made a decision to run its light rail line to SeaTac Airport, then after 9-11 agreed to terminate the run short of the terminal, but clearly anticipated that riders were going to use the train to get to the airport. Which riders? At what times? It ain’t happening for us here in Snohomish County. I don’t think it’s happening for citizens on the greater Eastside. I even have doubts whether many Metro busses run early / late enough for the manner flights are currently scheduled in/out of SeaTac.
Final question: if this is so difficult for CT / Sound Transit / Metro, what is it that makes it so easy for Shuttle Express? Flexibility perhaps? An ability to respond to changed conditions? Those agencies have a difficult time being flexible. A friend of mine expected to take Sounder Heavy Rail from downtown Seattle to Edmonds late afternoon on January 1st. Could not do it. It’s a wonder, no? Took a CT bus instead.