Off-Topic: Anyone Here Ride Sound Transit Light Rail?

Pretty big weekend with the opening of Sound Transit's light rail line from Tukwila to Seattle. Just wanted to know if anyone here decided to test it out while it was still free to ride. I didn't go but I saw people heading for Westlake when I was downtown yesterday.

over 2 years ago SSreporters 6 comments 0 recs |

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I haven't used it.

But I saw it come through downtown. It looked pretty awesome, kind of like the St. Louis Metro. Finally we have a public transit system worthy of a top 5 US city (which Seattle is, it’s #1).

by LantermanC on Jul 20, 2009 2:15 PM PDT reply actions

I grew up with the BART so I’m not all that impressed with this. It could become something great in 2030 but I just hate the idea of major light rail having several stretches of being on street level. Considering the drivers here that’s a recipe for disaster.

It’s probably unrealistic but something similar to SkyTrain would’ve been ideal.

"And Joe for Matt Hughes, dislike may not be a strong enough adjective!" - Mike Goldberg

by SSreporters on Jul 20, 2009 2:38 PM PDT up reply actions

London has a large part of their transit system on the roads, as well

Prior to opening weekend, just on test runs we’ve already had 6 incidents, 4 car & 2 pedestrian, and I have the same feeling, it’s stupid to run them along the streets, without them being encased, like the Metro system in DC. There, it’s all encased, and as such it runs very fast. Being in the open slows it down quite a bit.

But London makes it work. The SLUT is actually a good deal more complicated and demanding of street level awareness, and people don’t seem too bothered by it. It pretty much comes down to a metro area being thoroughly established and having only so much latitude to retrofit it’s infrastructure to make room for a rail line. London simply couldn’t. It was probably cost-prohibitive, for us, to go completely underground, to get all the real estate we needed, and still make it efficient — the collateral PR damage from leveraging eminent domain too much was probably cost-prohibitive, too. It’s not an answer with a solution, but the answer is we just should have done it years ago. Too much bickering and infighting, I spose.

by jacobstevens on Jul 20, 2009 3:57 PM PDT up reply actions

Yeah I used it

took the wife & 3 kids from Tukwila to Westlake. Seemed the weekend was pretty well planned, they were ready for about everything they got, but one big kink they have to iron out is getting the trains off the tracks and the buses back in the tunnel. And disclosing information on where & when the tunnel buses run, when not in the tunnel (they’re out of the tunnel in the evening but with the train running they were out already).

by jacobstevens on Jul 20, 2009 3:51 PM PDT reply actions

I used it.

I loved it, but I live only about two blocks from one of the stations. When it gets to Cap Hill and the U-District it may well be awesome. But using it to get to Belltown for a business dinner was pretty convenient.

Although I have no idea how they’re going to make money from it — there was absolutely no oversight of payment at either the Columbia City station or the Westlake station Tuesday night. Theoretically you can ride for free.

But it’s cool. It will be mega-extreme-awesome taking it to Qwest in a couple months.

--Shrug
Field Gulls - The SBN Seattle Seahawks Blog

by Shrug on Jul 23, 2009 5:40 PM PDT reply actions