Aus-car the Transit Grouch

What's with all the hit-and-run drivers lately?

2011-10-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

Is it a symptom of broader economic woes, a backlash against the expanding bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in the more forward-looking American cities (too often I see badly misinformed comments in newspaper articles that bicyclists and pedestrians "don't pay" for these facilities), or something else?

I had my first experience with a hit-and-run driver this summer, fortunately while I was driving my car to work rather than bike-commuting. I made a right turn on a green light and a driver to my left ran a red light, plowed into the side of my car, wobbled a bit as if deciding whether or not to pull over, and kept going. I believe he was doing about 40 mph when he hit me, and there were no signs that he attempted to brake beforehand.

Fortunately for me, the driver who'd been right behind Mr. Hit and Run saw the whole thing and returned to the scene as a witness by the time the police detective arrived to investigate. Unlike me, he also supplied a full license plate number (I only got the second half of it -- which was probably wrong -- from the rapidly receding car). I haven't heard yet if they caught the guy, but they should have enough information to do so if more important police investigations don't intervene.

My sincere condolences go out to those who have not been as fortunate as I was in my hit-and-run encounter (while my car was nearly totaled, I was unharmed). I will be very happy if some of the hit-and-run drivers who killed or injured people in the Seattle area this year get caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law before the idiot who ran into me. But still, it would be nice if some of the drivers who're impaired, angry, or distracted enough to cause a collision get taken off the road before it's too late and they hurt someone far worse than they banged up my car.

A bus padiddle

2011-01-29T18:17:00.000-08:00

My wife and I play padiddle sometimes. We used to play more often, when it was just the two of us before the kids came along. When either of us saw a vehicle without a working headlight, we would call out "padiddle!" and if we did it first, the other person had to give a kiss. We very rarely saw a bus padiddle. This week I may have figured out why.

On my return bike/bus commute, I arrived at the Tukwila Park & Ride a minute before my bus arrived to ferry me to downtown Seattle, but there was a maintenance truck parked in the bus pullout just ahead of where the bus would normally stop.

A man was standing there and told me "hang loose, I have to change a headlight".

"How long will that take?" I asked, wondering why he 'd told me that.

"A couple minutes," he replied.

Then the bus arrived with only one headlight working, and as the maintenance guy pulled down the bike rack, I realized why he'd asked me to hang loose … mounting my bike on the rack would put it partially in between him and the headlight he was replacing.

There wasn't very much light for him to work by, so I leaned my bike against the rack out of his way and took my bike headlight off my handlebar to illuminate his work area for him.

The bus driver came out after a minute. Maybe he was concerned about me standing close by the maintenance guy -- I understand that the biggest concern bus drivers have with their job is their safety with passengers they usually know nothing about, at least in some other parts of the world -- but neither of them said anything.

It only took him a couple minutes to unscrew the frame, replace the headlight, and put everything back the way it was, as advertised, and he wished me a good night.

Pretty cool to have a headlight changed while en route, I must say, and no wonder it's been so rare for me to see a bus padiddle.

Transit on summer holiday 2010, Part 1

2010-10-18T21:49:00.000-07:00

Our family traveled a lot in July. Texas, Nevada, Eastern California, and Washington D.C. And yes, I tried to use transit whenever possible. Here's part 1 of what worked and what didn't.

First, North Texas. To get to Sea-Tac Airport, I took an express bus with my 12-year-old son from home to downtown Seattle, then caught Central Link light rail to the airport. No problems there, though light rail is slower than the #194 express bus it replaced (to say nothing of taking twice as long as driving), and drops you off about 3/8 of a mile from the terminal, but it still saved us a bunch in parking costs.

From Amarillo, Texas to a farm 100 miles north was a transit vacuum. There was no expectation that any such thing was possible, and it would have been foolish to try -- there are places where transit works and where it doesn't, and one of the places public transit simply does not work is in rural areas. Interestingly, I was able to attend a wind farm presentation there -- North Texas is home to some good-sized wind farms, with more on the way once the grid gets upgraded to accommodate them.

Then it was back to Seattle for a week in the office (heading home from the airport on light rail and an express bus, of course) before driving to Reno and then to Mammoth Mountain in Eastern California, where the rest of my family had gone while I was working back home. They flew there from Texas, but driving to meet them gave us increased mobility plus the ability for everyone to drive home without having to pay for return flights.

Reno has a bus system, of course, but its service to my parents' part of town is very limited, and frankly I would rather bike. Reno has remarkably extensive bike facilities despite not much usage that I've observed. In any case, I was only there for a couple days visiting my parents, so didn't get out of the house much or beyond their activities at all. I played a bunch of guitar and listened to a lot of good music over copious quality libations with my Dad, though, so it was a wonderful side trip.

I usually find a way to use the bus system in Mammoth on our vacations, and this trip was no exception, though even at 8000' altitude the bus still has to compete with the ease and convenience of bicycling. With my younger kids, though, those free buses can be very handy. There's a Mammoth Jazz Festival that coincided with our visit, and there were some complicated transfers of kids that happened around it, involving our minivan, my bike (which I'd brought on our rack along with one belonging to my kids), and the bus, which is configured to look like a trolley with all the windows removed, a big hit with my kids. The difference in the feel of riding around in a bus without windows vs the closed-in feeling of riding transit buses is remarkable, but I don't know how easy it would be to translate that experience to Seattle.

More on the second, more transit-intensive portion of our July trips next time.

The Seattle Transit Quat Trick

2010-10-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

OK, nearly a year after I first wondered about this, conditions finally aligned last Friday so that I was able to go ahead and use a bus, light rail, Sounder commuter rail, and my bike on the same commute day. Like a hat trick, but with four goals instead of three. I'll call it a "Quat Trick".

In the morning I rode a King County Metro #355 express bus from Greenwood to south downtown, loading my bike on its rack. Then I biked from 5th & Jefferson past the International District tunnel station and down 6th Ave to the Sodo Trail, where I barely missed my usual connecting King County Metro #150 bus to Tukwila. My backup bus, a KC Metro #101, had been just in front of the #150 bus. So I had a choice to either wait 15 minutes for the next #150 bus, bike the rest of the way to Tukwila (which takes half an hour longer than piggybacking on a bus) or get on Link light rail instead. Light rail is less direct and 10 minutes slower than my #150 bus, but if a light rail train came by soon, I could still get to work more quickly than by waiting 15 minutes for the next #150 bus. Sure enough, the light rail train came by 3-4 minutes later, so I walked my bike over to the light rail station and hopped aboard. I actually had to move someone's luggage out of the bike slot.
About 30 people were aboard the first vehicle with me, with most of them still on board when I got off at the Tukwila International station.

A big red & yellow RapidRide (Bus Rapid Transit) bus was pulling into the parking lot just as I pulled out. No passengers were aboard -- they must be testing the new equipment before opening the first RapidRide line this month.

From the Tukwila International station it's a sharp downhill to the cartopia that is Southcenter Mall, without any bike facilities after the first downhill mile, another reason I generally don't like biking this route.

I had to get home earlier than usual on my return trip. This put my departure into the same window as the two daily afternoon northbound Sounder trains from their Tukwila station. I ended up leaving my office early because I'd misread the Sounder schedule, but the train was early too, pulling into the station just as I did, so I was thankful for the ORCA kiosk they put in since my last Sounder ride -- I just swiped my card on my way to climbing into the lead train vehicle. About 20 people were aboard, leaving well over half the seats empty, but this is still significantly better ridership than the last time I rode Sounder months ago, when it was typical to see no more than 5-6 people in that first vehicle. From King Street station I ended up biking the rest of the way home, including straight up Fremont Avenue into the Phinney neighborhood, always a fun climb.

But I did it, the Seattle Transit Quat Trick, nearly a year since first entertaining the idea. I'll go back to using a straight bus/bike commute whenever possible, of course … faster, cheaper, and usually more convenient.

Good ORCA, Bad ORCA

2010-08-10T07:29:00.000-07:00

First, let me say that after months trying to add credit to my ORCA card, much of it the fault of that system, I was finally successful thanks to some help from ORCA telephone support when all other forms of advertised support had failed, where I spoke with an someone who said she gets calls like mine all the time. Many thanks to her not only for applying the credit that their system recognized, but also the earlier credit that had been invisible to them, even though they charged my credit card. See earlier chapters in my overlong saga here:

ORCA
ORCA again
ORCA, Part 3
ORCA, Part 4

The fix finally happened a few months ago, and I've been using my ORCA card largely without trouble since then. I sincerely hope that disappearing credit purchases like mine are an ORCA card issue of the past, and that people don't continue to see them going forward!

However, ORCA card usage is still not entirely smooth sailing. I spent most of July on vacation, taking three separate long trips, two of which had transit components, one of them significant. More on that in a later post. On two of those trips, I took a bus/light rail combo to Sea-Tac Airport on my way out of town. Both times I saw new and unexpected behavior from light rail and from my ORCA card.

In a previous post I wrote that every trip I've taken on light rail I've seen transit cops go through the train and verify that every passenger had paid for their trip. Well, on one early-morning trip to the airport last month, that didn't happen. I paid for our whole family to get on a bus to downtown using my ORCA card, with the bus driver manually indicating to his console that I was using it to pay for multiple people. But there were no transit cops on the light rail trip from downtown to the airport. No big deal, right?

Except that on my next trip on light rail to the airport, I learned something else interesting. I took a bus to downtown with my son, paying for both of us with my ORCA card. And then on the light rail train from downtown to the airport, when a security cop took my card to verify that we'd paid for that trip, he told me that ORCA cards can't accommodate transfers on trips made by additional people. It recognized my personal transfer just fine, but apparently I was supposed to pay for my son's trip on light rail separately, even though it should have been a simple, no-additional-fare transfer for him as well as for me.

Major hole in the ORCA system here, it seems like.

On the return, my wife used my ORCA card to pay for her trip from the airport to downtown on light rail, knowing from me that she needed to buy separate tickets for the kids, which I believe were recognized as transfer slips by the King County Metro bus driver who drove her the rest of the way home from downtown.

Two flats, two apologies, and one close call

2010-06-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

On Bike-To-Work Day last month I biked to work and most of the way back. I would've biked the entire 45-mile round trip except that I got a flat tire about halfway to work, which made me late, which made me stay later at the office, which made me have to piggyback on a bus for part of the way home at an hour early enough for our family's evening plans to stay on track.

Otherwise, Bike-To-Work Day was as fun as it is every year, though a bit chillier and wetter. I stopped at three commute stations along the way and got some of the usual swag and registered for the usual giveaways that I won't win. I missed Mayor McGinn's ride to downtown from the Fremont Bridge by a few minutes, but no big deal -- at that point I still had a long way to ride and more swag to pick up along the way.

My flat was due to a tire failure; a belt in my tire snapped, with one end of a metal wire then protruding into the tube and the other out through the tire. I had a patch kit and all the tools I would've needed to patch the tube, but I went flat right at the Tukwila Park and Ride, and decided the better course was to ride the bus from there to within half a mile of my office, and in the afternoon see about heading to REI for replacement items -- tube and tire. Which made me late getting home, as previously mentioned. Not the best Bike-To-Work Day I've had, but not too bad. I ended up riding my bike about 27 miles on my commute that day.

The following Monday I biked to work again, on my road bike this time, and sure enough I got another flat. Unfortunately I left my frame pump on the other bike, and so I had to rely on the kindness of strangers to finish my morning commute. Fortunately this was not in short supply, and not long after I started taking my bike apart in some unknown company's parking lot right off the sidewalk, a woman drove in, asked if I needed help, and when I said I needed a pump, she brought me inside and introduced me to another bicyclist there who had one. Turns out the unknown company was a Parks & Recreation office, which seemed highly appropriate. Many thanks again to all our Parks & Rec employees and all the great work they do!

2-3 miles further down the road in South Park I had one of the closest calls I've ever had on a bike. I was cruising along a wide, quiet residential street when a medium commercial truck pulled up to an intersection a little ahead of me -- he had a stop sign and I didn't. The driver didn't see me and pulled out to make a left turn in front of me. I hit the brakes immediately and started a guttural shout that began rising in pitch: "aaaaAAHHHH!"

About the time I reached the front of his vehicle, dodging into the oncoming lane to postpone it the collision, I'd slowed to walking speed but the driver would've hit me if he hadn't finally seen me or heard me, or used whatever sense he finally used to tip himself off to my presence. I stopped a car length away, seething. The driver seemed amused, sharing grins with his passenger. "I didn't see you, sorry," he said.

I could've given him an earful at this point, telling him to watch for all road users and not just the ones that could damage his truck or threaten his own life, but said only "Be careful." And I hope he does.

Another few miles down the road, along the Green River Trail in Tukwila, approaching the same Park & Ride where I'd gotten my flat the previous work day, there was a Parks & Rec truck sitting in the middle of the trail, taking up nearly the entire path. As I wasn't able to see anyone and there was space behind the truck for someone to pop out, I dismounted and walked the bike past it. Sure enough, the driver was behind it. He apologized, pointing to a graffiti-ed warning sign on a pole. "Sorry about that," he said, meaning he was sorry for taking up the whole trail with his truck.

"No problem," I said. "Have a great week." And I hope he did.

ORCA, Part 4

2010-05-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

A couple things that haven't yet been mentioned in my saga of trying to get an ORCA card to work (See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 for previous history):

1. I lost the card for more than a month. It was right after I purchased my second credit for it back in February. I did it from my laptop in bed just before going to sleep, and the next time I went looking for the card a couple days later, I couldn't find it. The card showed up in April on my desk. I think my wife found it someplace and moved it there, knowing I was looking for it. I still don't know where she found it.

This complicated my attempts to get resolution on having made this $20 credit purchase, which at that time appeared as "pending" on the ORCA card website, to say nothing of the $15 I'd spent which had never been acknowledged at all.

2. My first attempt to resolve this situation was via e-mail, back in early March (or maybe even February). I laid out the situation in brief, including the fact that the card had gone missing, and requested that the credits be applied to one of the other two ORCA cards we had and which appeared on our online account. The e-mailed response was simple and sunny: tap the card and all will be well. However, since we couldn't even find the card at that point, this response was no help at all. A polite request for further guidance to this "help" e-mail was never answered.

Needless to say, after trying three different methods to try and get resolution on this issue by mid-April (e-mail, talking with a representative at the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel's Westlake Station, and on hold for 15 minutes on the telephone), all of them fruitless, I was getting quite annoyed.

Headwinds

2010-05-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

In my bike commutes over the past several weeks I've noticed something I hadn't really encountered since last fall: headwinds. I've observed the typical warm-weather wind pattern in the Puget Sound region is for winds from the south or southwest in the morning, shifting to winds from the north or northwest in the evening. Since my current office is south of my home (about a 45 mile round trip), what this means for me on a typical warm-weather day is headwinds on both legs of my bike commute. Usually these are not particularly significant (I only really notice when sustained winds are more than 10 mph and/or have higher gusts), but they certainly don't make bike commuting easier.

Well, for the past few weeks, and after six months without significant wind on the days I've bike commuted (usually 1-3 times per week -- I also telecommute twice a week), the typical Puget Sound warm-weather pattern seems to have returned. The first time I noticed this was about three weeks ago. I took a bus downtown, then biked from there to my office in Tukwila. For most of that bike ride I had to drop a gear because of the persistent headwinds, and along one stretch alongside Highway 99 south of South Park, I had to drop two gears.

Two weeks ago I biked the entire distance to my office and arrived pretty well spent from the relentless headwinds. And Monday, just as I started climbing the Dexter Hill southbound from the Fremont Bridge towards downtown Seattle, on a day when windstorms littered my route with tree branches and leaves and caused a lot more mayhem elsewhere in the region, a gust hit and forced me to drop a gear, which I never was able to make up. I felt almost as out of shape as I had been back in January.

On the other hand, maybe my commuter bike's semiannual tuneup is overdue, or maybe I really am getting too old for this. I will have to try breaking out my road bike later this week to see how much it helps -- I haven't ridden the road rocket since about October.

One fun note about that first windy bike/bus commute three weeks ago: at the stop after I boarded my morning bus to downtown, new Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn boarded too, loading his bike behind mine on the bus' bike rack. He greeted me by name when I gave him a wave hello -- we know each other from our intersecting neighborhood work on issues of bicyclist and pedestrian safety and urban planning over the past few years, but I hadn't seen him since before last summer's primary election when I was working on his campaign. It was nice to see him again. No one else on the bus seemed to recognize him, which surprised me.

ORCA, Part 3

2010-04-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

A week ago Friday, on another bike/bus commute, I biked downtown from my home in Greenwood, went downstairs to the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel's Westlake Station, had a nice chat with Tito the Tunnel Flautist, even buying a copy of his new CD, then descending further to the ORCA Service Center to see if I could get them to apply the $35 in charges I'd added to my ORCA card this year, none of which has appeared on the card to date. (See Part 1 and Part 2 of this developing saga for details on what came before.)

The woman behind the window seemed a little nervous about my reaction. I can understand why, as I imagine she's been yelled at before by people in my situation -- probably more than once -- because of the appalling hoops that ORCA customers must jump through in order to get their charges applied, but I'm a bit more civilized than that -- it's not her fault that her employer's service system is FUBAR. Basically, what I learned was partly what I already knew, and partly that the ORCA infrastructure is even more screwed up than I'd realized. No, she couldn't apply the charges I'd purchased for my card. I would have to call their service center for that. Yes, she found one of the two purchases I'd made in their records, but not the other one. Yes, both purchases were charged to me by my credit card company, but ORCA will not recognize one of them, though I will be following up on this. This much I hadn't known before.

What I did already know (or thought I knew) was that I need to "tap" my card in order for the purchases I'd made to be applied. Unfortunately, when I did so later that day, even the purchase they acknowledged was not applied.

Last Monday morning I got on the phone with their service center. And I stayed on the phone -- on hold -- for about 15 minutes before finally hearing a message that call volumes were unusually high. Until I had to hang up or miss my Monday morning bus.

To be continued in a Part 4, I guess ...

Light rail ridership looking up in 2010

2010-03-16T06:38:00.000-07:00

I have to say, since about a month ago I've noticed that Central Link light rail ridership seems to be up from its dismal 2009 numbers. The last 7-8 times I've seen a southbound train go by from stations in the downtown Seattle transit tunnel, they've seemed to be carrying about twice as many riders as I was counting last year, or even in January. Yesterday morning the one train that went past me while I was waiting for my bus to Tukwila had 33 riders on board. This isn't nearly as many as were on the articulated bus that brought me downtown in the first place, which was carrying about 50 passengers with hardly a single seat free, much less the articulated bus that brought me home from downtown that evening, which had 65-70 people on board, about 10 of them standing, but it's a nice improvement nonetheless.

This is as expected, of course, now that the King County Metro #194 has been canceled; people who used to take it to the airport now have to take light rail instead even though it's several minutes slower and drops you off twice as far from the nearest terminal. I will miss that #194. But at least King County Metro can save a little money by not having to operate it any more.

Bike helmets and a cold ride home

2010-03-09T20:02:00.001-08:00

I forgot my bike helmet yesterday morning. Caught my bus to downtown with half a minute to spare, but I'd hurried getting out of the house, and in my haste forgot about three things that would make for a much more comfortable bike ride: my helmet, my fingerless gel gloves, and an unmentionable. Once on the bus but while still digging for change to pay for it (the bus was already moving towards the next stop), I bonked my head on the high handrail, which immediately brought to mind the fact that I was not wearing a helmet.

So at the next stop, transfer slip already in hand after paying for it, I dismounted my bike from the bus, rode the 3 blocks home, and got all the stuff I'd forgotten earlier.

As a bike commuter for the past 25 years, even though I've never had a significant accident during that time, I can't say enough good stuff about bike helmets. As a little background, there's some debate within the bicyclist community about whether bike helmets are a good idea. The argument against requiring wearing bike helmets is, as near as I can puzzle it out, that in communities where bike helmets are not required, and are in fact often not worn, that bicyclists are actually safer than they are where they are required. The cost of a helmet is also characterized as a barrier for some who would otherwise bike.

There is some merit to these arguments, of course, and I'm doubtless not relating all of their subtlety (if not entirely omitting other arguments against requiring bike helmets), but the fact of the matter is that you are dramatically safer from head injury -- especially catastrophic head injuries -- while wearing a bike helmet. Which is good enough reason for me. Sure, it would be great to be able to live in a city where drivers are aware enough of bicyclists, and where bicyclists have safe enough bike facilities (and ride safely on them!), that the danger of such a head injury is so small as to make bike helmets unnecessary. But we don't live in such a community, however much progress we might be making in the right direction … the greatest threat to adult bicyclists in Seattle, as it is most everywhere else in the United States, is from drivers who don't see them.

Wear your bike helmets, people!

Once back on the road, I biked towards downtown along the Greenwood/Phinney/Fremont corridor towards the Fremont Bridge. As I rode south past N 80th Street, I spied a King County Metro #5 bus almost half a mile ahead, and thought how nice it would be to put my already-purchased bus transfer slip to good use by overhauling that bus sometime before it made its turn onto Aurora Ave, then riding it the rest of the way downtown -- I might be able to shave 5-10 minutes from my commute by doing so. At that point, my bike ride was mostly flat, and I can almost always outrun a local bus on the flat, much less downhill, even though it has a higher top speed than I do, simply because it has to make all those stops.

Sure enough, I'd nearly caught that bus just after it crossed the N 46th Street arterial, but unfortunately there was a red light between it and me, so it receded into the distance again. The green light came a minute later, and I caught the bus again just as it was turning from N 43rd Street onto Fremont Ave N. Then I passed it as it stopped a little ways down that hill, and pulled into its last stop before it entered the Aurora Ave expressway. So I got to ride a #5 bus to downtown after all, then biked from its stop on Wall Street to Westlake Plaza. At Westlake, a pedestrian asked if I was cold, as I was wearing my usual swim trunks and T-shirt (plus a thin day-glo vest), but I hadn't thought about the temperature at all, and found that I wasn't cold. Then down the first set of stairs where I normally see Tito the tunnel flautist (who has a new CD out!) there was a fellow with a blind man's cane and a guitar, playing a very credible Ray Charles blues-y version of "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys", which made me smile so I dropped a buck into his guitar case. Then when I got to the platform, my connecting bus was just pulling in. It ended up being a great morning commute -- this is just not the sort of great experience I get while driving!

It was considerably colder on the ride home, but I still biked about 10 miles of my return commute even though I was still wearing just swim trunks and a t-shirt with a thin nylon dayglo-vest over it. But my experience with the #5 bus getting home was the flip side to the excellent timing I'd enjoyed in the morning; as I was passing that #5 bus at its last stop in Belltown it abruptly pulled out alongside me and I came to a screeching halt to avoid a collision -- it had not signaled its intent to merge back into traffic until the very moment it began moving. I sat behind it as it waited to turn right onto Battery Street and then again at its next stoplight, but there was only one person waiting to get on at its next stop just before Denny, and as I rode up on the sidewalk alongside, it took off without me. So I ended up biking the rest of the way home, which I hadn't really wanted to do in this cold while wearing as little as I was. I could see that it had even snowed that day along my route, though that snow hadn't stuck. Ah well, the hill-climbing did me good (and kept me warm!).

When buses are on schedule

2010-03-08T08:02:00.001-08:00

Last Monday morning my bus to downtown was on time. It might even have been a minute early, as it was pulling away from my bus stop just as I got to within a block away. I had to pedal on down the sidewalk after it for 20 yards (no pedestrians were in sight) then drop down a curb cut onto the street. This was the first time I'd ever bicycled on N 85th Street -- which in my neighborhood is little more than an extended freeway on-ramp -- especially during rush hour. However, no cars were visible behind me, I would only be riding on the street for a block and a half, and this street went downhill right after I merged onto it, enabling me to go as fast as motorized traffic there. As it turned out, no cars came up behind me for that block and a half, so my concern was moot.

The light turned red ahead of my bus at Aurora Ave, enabling me to get back onto the sidewalk, slow way down for a couple pedestrians there, and get onto the bus. That bus encountered no traffic on its way to the U District, light traffic in the U District itself, and no traffic from there to downtown. This allowed me to get downtown a little ahead of schedule, which is a rarity in my experience. It also allowed me to get to my transfer station two minutes before the next bus to Tukwila arrived, which was also on schedule. So basically that morning was an almost perfect bike/bus commute, with almost no waiting for buses and some fast bike connections where the buses couldn't take me.

In total, my virtually perfect bus/bike commute Monday morning took about 65 minutes -- a little more than an hour. Contrast this to the time it would have taken in a car: 25 minutes without traffic, or up to 60 minutes with traffic, depending on how heavy that traffic is.

My return bus/bike commute wasn't as good, natch -- the ride downtown was fine, but I had a 15 minute wait for the bus that would take me from Belltown to North Seattle, mostly because that bus was 10 minutes late.

Bad collision in the express lanes

2010-03-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

Written Friday morning, on a bus headed downtown.

This morning I'm riding a King County Metro #355 bus to downtown Seattle in the express lanes, which have been jammed up solid for the past half-mile. An ambulance just passed us, siren wailing and lights flashing, our driver plus a bunch of other vehicles scattering to get out of its way. I can only assume it's on its way to reach someone who was injured in a collision ahead of us, which caused this traffic in the first place. I hope the ambulance makes it in time.

We're passing the collision now, and it's a bad one. We're down to one lane, with two fire engines, three state patrol cars, two ambulances, a WSDOT emergency truck, a lot of orange traffic barrels with lights on top, four other cars stopped, at least two of which appear damaged, and guys in orange and yellow day-glo vests everywhere. A bunch of them are bent over in a cluster behind a minivan that looks as if it were rear-ended by a union van that might have been in use during a construction project. I can only assume it's a medical emergency, and I hope s/he makes it.

ORCA again

2010-03-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

I'm getting kind of annoyed at ORCA. As I mentioned in a previous entry, my wife bought two ORCA cards last year, each preloaded with $5. I used one of them once, which was manageable. Then I tried purchasing $15 more credit for that card, and the transaction didn't take -- my online ORCA account didn't show any more credit than before. I don't recall ever completing an online transaction that just disappeared into the aether before.

So I tried again two weeks later. This time the transaction was marked "pending", which is still how it's indicated on the ORCA website. And so, two completed credit card transactions later, on a credit card that every other online merchant is happy to accept, my ORCA card still has exactly the same credit value on it that it had more than a month ago, which is to say exactly one ride's worth. I got my credit card bill last night, and checked my ORCA account this morning. Sure enough, ORCA has charged me $35 in two transactions, but my ORCA card still hasn't been credited with either of my purchases. On the plus (?) side, earlier this week an ORCA card with no value on it showed up in our mailbox, which neither my wife nor I ordered.

So yes, I'm annoyed. Good thing King County Metro's bus system continues to accept cash, and to issue paper transfers. Because while it might be nice to have the option to use that ORCA card to ride Sound Transit's Sounder commuter rail or Central Link light rail once in a while, these are both slower and less convenient than the buses I'm riding instead, so maybe I'm not the target ORCA card market after all.

But given this quality of service, I have to ask myself "Who is?"

Winter cold returns

2010-02-22T19:18:00.000-08:00

I took an earlier bus to downtown than usual this morning. I hadn't really planned on riding a bus for this leg of my commute to Tukwila; I'd hoped to bike it instead. But I checked the forecast before leaving the house, and the temperature was 35ºF. This led me to put on a fleece jacket, which I don't usually do until the temperature drops below 40º.

Boy, we've been having some nice weather in the Seattle area lately. This weekend was sunny with highs that must've been around 60º. I did some gardening and even led an early baseball practice in the unexpected sunshine, on a dry field which is almost unheard of at this time of year. So seeing that temperature this morning was an unpleasant reminder that even in a warm El Niño winter like this one, we still have a month to go before Spring.

I took the garbage out, where it felt even chillier than 35º, so I put on some sweatpants. Then in checking the bike before starting my ride, I noticed that my rear wheel was starting to rub up slightly against a brake pad, and since this can take 5-10 minutes to adjust, I figured I could live with it for the ride downtown. Starting off down the street, the bike was fine but it was darned cold, especially after all these sunny warm days.

I bailed out of the bike ride and caught that earlier bus downtown instead. Traffic was ugly on the freeway, but the bus sailed right through it in the right lane to the University District, and then on the express lanes to downtown where I caught my connecting bus to Tukwila without having to wait more than half a minute at my transfer station. Quite a nice alternative to driving in that nasty freeway traffic or down Aurora Ave where lane closures are in effect, albeit later in the morning. I'll give it another go tomorrow, though tomorrow's forecast calls for rain in the evening. Hopefully I'll beat it home.

(Not) Training for the holidays

2010-02-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

Last year I did a lot of bike commuting in October and November leading up to the holidays. I gained my usual 10 pounds during those holidays, but I'd lost more than 5 of those pounds beforehand, and the holiday pounds came off by the time baseball season got into its full swing.

This past year hasn't worked out nearly so well. I didn't lose weight going into the holidays, and instead of gaining 10 pounds between Halloween and the day after New Years, I gained 15. I hit the heaviest I've even been, 10 pounds more than I've ever weighed before. And even though I'm bike-commuting more now that the weather has gotten drier this past month (about 100 miles on the bike so far this calendar year), I've really only put in a single long day on the bike since New Years.

Yes, I have to bike more even though biking is too mechanically efficient to make a good weight-loss sport unless you put a lot of effort into it -- the bike/bus commutes I usually do aren't really strenuous enough unless I do it more than my usual twice per week. It would also help if I cut back on the calories, heh.

So, my project for the solstice is to lose those 10 extra holiday pounds plus 10 more, which should get me back into somewhat better trim, though if the truth were fully told I could stand to lose 50 pounds more than that to get back to the kind of shape I was in when my lovely wife married me.

So far I've lost three of those pounds. My wife thinks I look like a sausage in my day-glo vest, though she puts it more kindly than that.

Wish me luck!

Bus breakdown

2010-02-09T20:18:00.000-08:00

Last week I saw Tito the tunnel flautist again, this time in his more usual morning habitat. He was deep in conversation with another commuter as I walked up, so I didn't have time for much more than a few words before I had to get below to catch my bus to Tukwila.

Maybe I should've waited, as once my bus got onto the freeway and was passing Boeing Field, the driver pulled over. Then I saw smoke coming out of the back of the bus, where the engine is. The driver announced that he was having engine trouble, and that another bus would be along presently to give us a lift. He offered his cell phone to anyone who would need to call ahead, which I thought was awfully nice of him. I heard someone say the delay would make him late for an interview, but aside from him and another couple takers for the cell phone, the 20-25 passengers on the bus sat quietly while the minutes ticked past. I think it was half an hour before the next bus came by, another regularly scheduled King County Metro #150, which had about the same number of riders, and therefore plenty more room for us, though seats did get scarce. I missed my morning meeting, alas.

This is the first time in 20 years of bus commuting that I've experienced a bus breakdown, but it could've been a lot worse. I remember when I was in grade school near the Hudson River and my father bought our family a second car, a 1964 Mercury Comet we promptly dubbed the "Vomit Comet" 'cause that's kinda how it smelled, so he could drive it back and forth between our home and the nearest rail station, where he rode the subway to his office in Manhattan. But then one hot summer day his train broke down and he had to wait for three hours day in cramped standing-room-only conditions in a subway tunnel. I didn't hear many details, but he did say he would never ride the train again, and so far as I know he never did.

On my trip home, I was more than 10 minutes early for my bus at the Tukwila Park and Ride, so I rode my bike from there to downtown Seattle. On the other side of downtown, where I'd hoped to catch a second bus home, I was more than 10 minutes early for that bus, too, so I ended up riding my bike all the way home from Tukwila, more than 22 miles, ending with a climb straight up Fremont Ave from the Ship Canal, which is I think is about a 350' elevation gain in just 3/4 mile.

It wasn't a climb I'd wanted to make when I'm as out of shape as I am now, but if I have that much of a head start I can generally beat the bus home even with as much uphill as there is up Phinney Ridge, and maybe even when I'm this far out of shape, and the same was true on this trip.

I definitely needed a rubdown afterward, though.

Tunnel flautists

2010-02-08T20:54:00.000-08:00

One morning two weeks ago I got out of the house a little too late to repeat my usual winter routine of riding downtown on the King Country Metro #355, so I had to ride my bike downtown instead. This would be a good thing, as it had been about three months since I'd tried riding a route with an uphill of any consequence, this ride had a nice manageable one, and I'd been feeling out of shape on my previous ride. The only way to get in shape for bike riding is to ride your bike, so away I went.

One hill turned into several: first up Dexter from the Fremont Bridge, then a much smaller hill on Dexter from Mercer to Denny. And last, up 5th Avenue through downtown. I was really sucking wind by the time I got halfway up the last hill; out of shape indeed. I'd actually hoped to stop before that last hill, to visit with Tito the tunnel flautist, who I hadn't seen in a couple months, but a slow-moving Sound Transit #545 bus in 5th Avenue's right lane was in the way of the right turn I'd planned. Plan B was to continue on 5th Avenue to the International District station, which I did, getting there about 4 minutes before the King County Metro #150 bus that would take me on to Tukwila.

That bus was fairly full, but a seat in the middle was open.

Just as I settled into it, someone said hello and darned if it wasn't Tito himself. We had a nice chat all the way to Tukwila, talking music, family, brotherhood, jobs, and more. Drop a buck in his tip bowl some morning if you see him at the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel's Westlake Station. He's brightened my commute many a time.

Interestingly, on my way home, I saw a different tunnel flautist at the University Street tunnel station, where I've never seen anyone playing before. I wonder if he'll become a regular there. I have to think that word of Tito (and his good nature) has gotten around in more than one community.

If it comes to it, I'd recommend tipping any musician around public transit who brightens your day. For many, it's their job.

ORCA

2010-01-22T23:49:00.000-08:00

I started my bike/bus commute today thinking I would try for my first Seattle Transit "Quat Trick", riding a bus, light rail, Sounder, and my bike on different legs of a single two-way commute. But my morning #355 King County Metro bus was 10 minutes late, and now that Sound Transit no longer accepts King County Metro transfer slips as payment, I was looking at trying out one of the new ORCA cards my lovely wife bought for us last month, and I didn't really want to do that in a situation where I wasn't certain that it would work correctly, and where I would have no backup way to pay.

Turns out that at the International District station of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, where I would have the choice of transferring to a #150 bus or a Central Link light rail train to Tukwila, the bus came first, so I went ahead and took it. No Quat Trick today for me.

I can't say I'm too fond of paying separate fares for a bus and then a light rail train over my usual method of paying once for a bus and then having a second bus accept my transfer slip as payment, on top of the slow light rail leg adding 10 minutes to my total commute. Paying twice as much for a slower ride is not exactly a bargain, I think most would agree.

The Olympic mountains were gorgeous from the window of my #150 bus as we passed Boeing Field, by the way, with only a cluster of snowy summits visible, all glowing a pale yellow-orange. I wished I had a camera. Heck, I wished I was a photographer.

On my return trip as I boarded a #150 bus headed back to downtown from the Tukwila Park and Ride, I had another chance to try out one of our new ORCA cards, which my wife had preloaded with $5 when she bought them. And if that didn't work, I could always pay cash. So I used the card, and it turned out to be easy. The driver even said that I wouldn't need a transfer slip, all I had to do was wave (he said "tap") my card at my second bus' card reader and it wouldn't deduct additional funds if I did so within two hours.

It took a few tries before that second bus' card reader would accept my card, though.

Boy did I feel out of shape today.

Winter biking begins early

2009-12-08T21:59:00.000-08:00

Last week the weather improved enough (and the timing worked out) for me to do another bike/bus commute. I caught a King County Metro #355 to downtown, hitting some traffic along the way, and then a #150 from the International District station to Tukwila, with a bike connection on each end and in the middle. Before my bus arrived, a light rail train went past at the station with exactly four people aboard. My bus, by contrast, had more than 40 people riding with me. I sincerely hope that opening the light rail station at the airport will improve its ridership more than the incremental increase I expect, because I have not been impressed at all by the Central Link ridership I've seen so far, excepting its opening weekend.

On the way home as I rode up to the Tukwila Park and Ride where I would pick up the #150 bus, that bus passed me and slowed but did not stop, so I was out of luck. I'd worked a long day and it was after 7:00 PM, so my next bus wouldn't come along for another half hour. Rather than wait in the cold for that long I continued biking to downtown, adding about 12 miles to my bike commute. I hadn't expected the longer ride and didn't have double socks on, so my feet were fairly frozen before I reached downtown, though fortunately they warmed up again while I was riding the #358 bus home from Belltown.

This morning I tried a repeat of last week's commute, though this time the weather was more than 10 degrees colder: it was about 21ºF when I left my house. The morning ride was fine though freeway traffic was even worse, so my bus ride to downtown took about 10 minutes longer than it should have, but this was no problem since I have about a 12 minute wait for my connecting bus there anyway. Sure enough, that bus drove up about a minute after I arrived at the station. This sort of traffic is unusually bad in my experience, though certainly not unheard of.

By the way, in warmer weather (and in daylight) I'm much more likely to take more of these bus legs of my commute on my bike, but at this time of year I'm content to ride nice warm public transit, slow and infrequent and occasionally crowded and even more occasionally peopled with crazies and/or drunks as it is.

That said, and now that I'm home with the kids abed, in between the return legs of my commute tonight, as I was biking north on 3rd Ave through downtown, a #70 trolleybus pulled up in the right lane at a stoplight, and out of the corner of my eye I saw someone in the back look over at me. I looked back, and it was Rob Johnson, executive director of the Transportation Choices Coalition, his eyes moving back to his paperback book.

"Hi Rob," I said.

No response.

"Hi Rob!" I said somewhat more loudly, waving my arms.

Still no response.

"Hi Rob," I heard someone else nearby say, I know not where.

Rob was having none of it, though granted, the bus windows were closed. He probably recognized me, just as I imagine he did at a Mariners game last season when he walked with a date past me and my family, again looking full into my face before turning away. He probably felt some cognitive dissonance then, too, as I imagine some others also do when they are faced with supporters of truly sustainable public transit modes that they do not themselves endorse.

Yet.

I raced the bus up 3rd Avenue for a couple more blocks before it turned east towards Capitol Hill. I won, natch.

After getting off a #5 bus in Fremont and biking to my home neighborhood of Greenwood, I stopped at a store to pick up some "Secret Santa" treats for my kids. A man selling "Real Change" newspapers at the market asked me how cold I thought it was.

"About 28," I guessed, then wished him warmth and headed home.

Express bus vs light rail on my commute

2009-11-03T19:31:00.000-08:00

I rode the King County Metro #355 bus to downtown again this morning, proudly wearing stickers for Mike McGinn and Mike O'Brien.

I got to thinking last night about exactly how long my morning commute took using various transit combinations, door to door. When driving and without significant traffic, it takes about 30 minutes plus another 5 minutes walking from one end of the parking lot to my office, though traffic often makes it worse. By comparison, yesterday it took me about 85 minutes to do the same trip using a bus/bike/light rail combo.

Yesterday's commute seems to me to have been about 15-20 minutes longer than it should have been, mostly because I perceive the light rail segment of the trip to be so much slower than a King County Metro #150. But it may also have been because my #355 bus was about 4 minutes late, which caused me to miss the connecting bus downtown.

So this morning I tried a direct comparison to yesterday's bus-LRT trip (with bike connections in between and on each end), this time substituting the King County Metro #150 for the light rail leg. The bike portion of the commute would be very similar, with a flat 3.3 mile bike ride at the end of the trip today compared to yesterday's 3.2 mile ride with a long downhill, though yesterday's ride had me waiting at one traffic light for more than a minute.

The first difference was that this morning's #355 bus didn't have a working Wi-Fi connection, unlike yesterday's. Must be a different bus, even though it ran at the same time, with the same driver. So unfortunately I couldn't post this as it was being written. Oh well.

Status halfway: my #355 bus was three minutes late from Greenwood, almost exactly like yesterday, which would again make me miss my connecting #150. The #355 made good time to the south end of downtown, and when I biked from its first downtown stop to the International District tunnel station and reached the top of the stairs leading down to the platform, I saw my #150 bus just then pulling out. Argh. It was also three minutes late, however.

Three minutes later, a light rail train arrived, giving me the same choice I had yesterday: take light rail or wait seven more minutes for my next bus. Yesterday I chose the train, today I waited for the bus.

The next #150 bus to arrive was also a couple minutes late, but I climbed on. With all the delays, my guess was that I would get to work at about the same time today as I did yesterday.

However, even while starting seven minutes later than the train plus a couple minutes of delay, I still arrived at work 10 minutes earlier today than I did yesterday (74 minutes today vs 84 minutes yesterday), with the only significant difference being that riding the train took a lot longer (more than 15 minutes longer) than riding an express bus, with all other factors being almost exactly equal.

Political Endorsements

2009-11-03T03:33:00.000-08:00

Yes on R-71

No! on I-1033

Dow Constantine for King County Executive

Mike McGinn for Seattle Mayor

Nick Licata, Richard Conlin, Mike O'Brien, and David Bloom for Seattle City Council

Rob Holland and Max Vekich for Seattle Port Commissioner

The Seattle Transit Hat Trick

2009-11-03T02:46:00.000-08:00

After riding the bus on the first leg of my bike+transit commute yesterday, from North Seattle to downtown, and riding Central Link light rail on the second leg (from downtown to Tukwila, followed by a 3+ mile bike ride between the Tukwila station and my office), I looked into riding Sounder on the first leg of my commute home, from Tukwila back to downtown.

Alas, northbound afternoon Sounder options are very limited, only two per weekday, at 5:04 PM and 5:39 PM. And I wouldn't have been able to catch one until about 6:00 PM.

No matter, I rode the King County Metro #150 bus from Tukwila instead, which is actually a more convenient option (except that it lacks Wi-Fi) since it continues up through downtown rather than stopping at King Street Station, south of downtown.

While riding all three commuter transit options available to Seattleites into and out of our fair city would have been fun, it would also have been a "Quat Trick" for alternative transit when my use of the bike on the same trip was considered.

Anyone else ever ride the bus, light rail, and Sounder on the same commute day?

Back in the saddle

2009-11-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

Speaking of Central Link light rail, I rode it the rest of the way to Tukwila on my Monday morning bike/transit commute. I got on at the International District station.

Oddly, there was no operative Wi-Fi network on the train, whereas there had been on the King County Metro #355 bus on my earlier leg. This is the opposite of the usual circumstance.

When I boarded, five people got off the train, with a dozen people remaining on the first vehicle in the train, which I boarded. The first bike hangar in the vehicle was unoccupied, so I took it, my bike sticking way out into the aisle (I'm a tall guy, and my seat and handlebars stick way up). At the next stop, a woman in a KC Metro jacket and her own bike saw me sitting there through the window, shrugged, and headed farther back, I assume to the bike rack in the rear vehicle. A Transit Security guy got on, too, then asked everyone for proof of payment once we got underway. This seems to be the usual drill now. By the time we reached Rainier Beach station, there were only seven people left in the vehicle.

As I've noted in the past, this is abysmal ridership, down even from last month's disappointing totals, with no prospect of improvement before the #194 bus line closes early next year and not much prospect for improvement even then (except for people now riding the #194 plus a few more because an incrementally larger number could be expected to ride light rail who wouldn't ride a bus, even though the bus is faster), since the light rail line really doesn't have much built-in ridership, and won't until more residential development occurs around the four stations in the Rainier Valley (plus the Beacon Hill station).

Unless, of course, Sound Transit gets serious about providing fast, safe, and convenient feeders between those light rail stations and neighborhoods that are nearby but more than a quarter-mile walk away, and which by-and-large are already well served by King County Metro buses. The Personal Rapid Transit demonstration that Sound Transit committed to funding and building during the same Sound Move vote in 1996 that brought us Central Link light rail in the first place (and which has been ignored ever since) would go a long way towards demonstrating Sound Transit's commitment to serving a constituency beyond the big-money developers who will benefit most from what the light rail line is now and will be until additional segments are completed (University Link will be first, to open no earlier than 2016): development-oriented transit (as opposed to transit-oriented development).

Postscript: When I got off the train at its current end of the line in Tukwila, only four other people got off the entire train with me. Abysmal ridership indeed. But on the plus side, the Park and Ride Lot there was full, a few cars driving around in it and clearly looking for a parking space, so at least a few hundred people a day are able to use light rail to commute from there to downtown. I wonder what the people looking for a parking space there ended up doing, however.

Post-postscript: On the return to downtown on a King County Metro #150 bus from Tukwila, with about 20 other people on board with me, we came even with a light rail train heading in the same direction at the Stadium Station. It had 10 people on board.

Abysmal ridership indeed.

A bus to Boston

2009-11-02T19:39:00.000-08:00

OK, not ALL the way to Boston

Last weekend I flew to Boston with my kids. My cousin was getting married there and I wanted to bring as much of my family as I could. Unfortunately my wife had other long-simmering out-of-town plans, so she couldn't join us, but at least my daughter and two sons were able to come.

We had an 8:50 AM flight. If we wanted to arrive at least an hour early, we had to be at the airport by 7:45 AM. Driving to Sea-Tac would take about half an hour, plus at least a few extra minutes to park. Taking a bus to downtown and then a transfer onto the King County Metro #194 would take about twice that long, but would save us at least $70 in parking costs for our four-day weekend, and as much as $140 if we parked at the airport garage. Taking the bus would mean we would have to get out of the house before 6:45 AM, no small feat with three easily distracted children and only one parent (me) to ride herd.

It was doable if the kids had everything packed and ready beforehand. Not that this would have been remotely possible under normal circumstances, so I fudged our usual rules and threw in some incentives. A buck for everyone who had their bag packed and ready and who was in bed by 8:00 PM, not a minute later. Another buck for everyone who was at the front door by 6:35 AM, bags in hand, and breakfast already eaten. And a third dollar if everyone could do it.

My second son, the one who rode home from SAFECO Field with me this summer when a lot of yelling and shoving broke out on the bus next to us, took a little convincing, but on assurances that this experience wold be nothing like that one, he went along in the end.

Well, only my daughter was able to get to bed by 8:00 PM. One son almost made it but couldn't tear himself away from his computer game in time. My oldest son -- the preteen -- announced that he didn't care one way or the other, and so got chased into bed by 8:30. But next morning, with the example of my daughter's successful evening in front of them, everyone was ready to go on time and with a minimum of fuss.

We walked two blocks to the nearest King County Metro #355 bus stop, arriving with five minutes to spare. The bus flew south on I-5, made its three stops in the U-District, and rode the express lanes the rest of the way downtown. We got off at Jackson Street, walked two blocks downhill to the Pioneer Square station of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, and a #194 bus came by five minutes later. Then it flew the rest of the way down the busway and I-5 to the airport, dropping us off a short walk from the terminal. I showed the light rail line to the kids as we passed under it and then rode alongside, explaining that in a couple more months, not long after the light rail station at the airport was opened, the #194 bus we were riding would be discontinued even though it's quite a bit quicker from downtown to the airport than light rail will be. So this would very likely be our last trip on the #194 even though it has been a tremendously useful and (relatively) cost-effective service for us and for many others in the past.

Our trip went off without a hitch, including the long flight to Boston. On our return to Boston's Logan International Airport, because a couple of my sisters wanted to bring my daughter to a doll store in suburban Natick, and my sons had exactly zero interest in that. I'd hoped to take a train ride from there to the airport, but plans changed when we had a horrific traffic jam waiting to cross the Sagamore bridge from Cape Cod, so time ran out for the luxury of a train ride on Boston's fabled "T", which I've ridden on several occasions before but my kids had never heard of. My sons and I went to the Apple Store instead while my daughter visited the doll store with her aunts. Now my oldest son wants a new iPod shuffle. Great.

My wife, who drove to Sea-Tac airport and parked at a remote lot the day after our trip to Boston, returned there an hour and a half before we did, so we had an easy ride home without having to wait for a late-night Sunday bus, which would have been a much dicier trip than our Thursday-morning departure.

Sick

2009-10-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

Yup, I'm sick. Been sick for more than three weeks now. Started out as a nasty sore throat from a post-nasal drip, and worked its way down. Got it from my wife and daughter about two weeks after they came down with it. None of us ever had a fever.

It's never been debilitating, but it hasn't been fun, either.

I stayed home from work for a good portion of the time, but not before getting everything I needed to telecommute. Going forward I will probably telecommute one day a week, compared to zero days per week before.

When I've gone to work at all, I've driven. No sense in subjecting a busload of strangers to whatever it is that I have. I still have a cough and some sinus congestion, but every day there's less of it. I will probably return to biking to work later this week.

Trains, buses, and some more yelling

2009-09-14T22:51:00.000-07:00

In the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel this morning, I saw two trains go past, one in each direction, as well as one #194 bus going south. I was in the Pioneer Square Station, waiting for my #150 bus to Tukwila. The first train to go by was northbound during the peak commute, and about 1/4 of the seats were occupied as it pulled into the station. The second was southbound, and there might have been 15-20 people on the whole train -- I counted 4 in the last vehicle, of whom one looked like an employee. A minute later, a King County Metro #194 bus came by, on which 1/3 to 1/2 of the seats were occupied, roughly 30 people. Now, noting that the light rail train and the #194 bus were both heading for the airport, and the #194 bus would get there at least five minutes sooner even if the light rail line to the airport were complete, which it isn't yet -- despite starting a couple minutes later -- it's easy to see how people would choose the bus over the train in this situation.

Granted, the final destination of the bus isn't the airport; it goes on from there to Federal Way. But on previous trips from downtown to the airport on this bus, basically everyone got off at the airport. But still, perhaps 50% more people this morning were taking the #194 bus to the airport while I watched than were heading towards the airport (and who might be getting off earlier) on light rail.

There was a little yelling on my #150 bus once it came. A guy sitting across from me made the mistake of looking towards the back of the bus, and a woman there started yelling at him: "Don't look at me, bitch! I don't need no ugly ***** *** looking at me!"

So he stopped looking at her. And she stopped yelling. He seemed upset by it, commented to the fellow sitting next to him, who was reading, about it. That fellow tapped the side of his head. "Crazy," he said, "Don't let it bother you."

I snuck a peek backwards as I was just about to get off. There was one woman back there who looked like she might've been the one who'd been yelling. She had wide eyes that moved around a lot. She looked back at me, not aggressively. And then I was leaving to dismount my bike and ride the rest of the way to my office.

Critical Mass goes to SAFECO Field

2009-08-28T22:49:00.000-07:00

Critical Mass went by SAFECO Field tonight, not long before the Mariners game started. I was standing near the corner of Royal Brougham Way and 1st Ave S., waiting for my wife to drop off my kids so I could bring them to the ballyard. My cell phone rang; she was on Aurora driving past Queen Anne, and traffic by the stadiums was good. It looked like she would get there in about 5 minutes. And then I saw Critical Mass coming.

I've seen Critical Mass once before, in fact I even rode with them for a couple blocks downtown this Spring. I came up from the University Street tunnel with my bike, all decked out in my usual dayglo commuter gear, and there they were, streaming past. Several among them asked me to join them. Of course they didn't make room so that I could actually do so, but it was nice of them to ask. Once nearly all of them (and there were about 100) were past, I mounted up and caught them -- they hadn't been riding fast. I don't suppose they normally do. It felt kind of like a rolling party, though they were riding together in a rather disciplined proximity. Then they turned left towards the Market and I continued straight up 3rd Ave, and that was that.

Today, there were about twice as many of them. Nearly half were wearing helmets. I only noticed a few of the bikes before one of the bicyclists cheered at me; I was wearing a baseball cap that one of them thought looked like it came from Roosevelt High (it didn't, but I can see how they might have gotten confused) and she yelled 'Go Roughriders!". Heh. They seem like a nice enough bunch of kids. I was sort of grinning goofily at them the while.

But of course that light at Royal Brougham Way is closely controlled by traffic cops on game days. And of course there were a whole bunch of slow-moving cars. The bikes all streamed between the lanes amidst them. A few cars crossed the light with the bikes, which I don't expect is usual for a Critical Mass ride. But then again there were cops everywhere. No one was particularly misbehaving, unless you consider bikes riding between lanes to be misbehaving, which I guess it is. Then halfway through the crowd of bikes, the light changed, splitting the Critical Mass riders. Normally I think they would "cork" the intersection and proceed through on the red light to stay together, but of course they were surrounded by cops here so they didn't. A sensible move for all, if you ask me.

A police car with lights flashing trailed the main body of cyclists. Then a couple black SWAT SUVs came by, filled with cops in monotone black uniforms. Dunno if they were following Critical Mass, too, or if they just happened to be in the same place at the same time, much as I'd been this Spring.

Meanwhile, traffic had snarled significantly in the immediate neighborhood. I think my wife ended up taking 12 minutes to drop off the kids when it should've taken 5. Big deal, I know, except that the delay meant we didn't get inside the ballpark in time to pick up the freebie DVDs the Mariners were giving away that day ("Mariners Commercials, Volume 2"), which is the reason my kids had wanted to see this game in the first place. Bummer for us.

Anybody have extras that they'd like to trade us for extra "Mariners Commercials, Volume 1" DVDs that we picked up at a previous game a couple months ago?

On Seattle's Primary Election

2009-08-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

Way to go Mike(s)!

And way to go Nick!

Not-free Light Rail

2009-08-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

I missed my downtown bus connection this morning. I'd taken a mostly-full King County Metro #355 from North Seattle to 5th & James, then biked to the International District Station, but arrived just one minute after my connecting bus, a King County Metro #150, had gone past. My next bus wasn't due for another 14 minutes.

The roads were wet from this morning's rain, so I didn't want to take the King County Metro #101, my usual alternate, because it has a pretty ferocious downhill and my bike's rear brake was disconnected -- the rear wheels on both my commuter bike and my road rocket have gotten out of true over the past month, and I would be dropping off my commuter bike at REI for repairs this afternoon, but in the meantime the only way to keep the rear wheel rolling was to unhinge the rear brake, making it non-functional.

A light rail train went by a couple minutes after I arrived. This gave me an idea. I work in Tukwila, after all, even if nowhere near the Tukwila light rail station. I'd scouted a bike route from the Tukwila light rail terminus to my office a couple weeks ago, and while it didn't look great, and I find the Southcenter area notoriously unwelcoming to bikes, I'd heard that bike lanes had recently been painted on Southcenter Blvd, which is the route I'd scouted.

I didn't catch this particular train, as it stopped too far away from where I'd been waiting, but I figured if the next train arrived before my bus, I might take it.

So I did. I hadn't thought about how to pay for the train ride before I climbed aboard, but I had a transfer slip from my earlier bus, which I hoped would be enough. There were a total of six passengers on the vehicle I boarded, which was the forward vehicle in the two-vehicle train. I'd looked into the previous train as it passed, and counted four passengers in its second vehicle, though there were more in its first vehicle.

A couple transit cops got on at SoDo Station, calling for tickets. I pulled out my transfer slip. One cop glanced at it as he passed and thanked me. Sweet, Seattle's light rail apparently accepts bus transfers after all. The two cops got off at Beacon Hill Station. Later in the day I learned that bus transfer slips will be sufficient payment on light rail trains for the rest of the year.

A few passengers boarded while others got off as the train proceeded south. I don't think the number of passengers in my vehicle ever exceeded eight, which I might say is outrageously poor ridership, especially in light of Sound Transit's revelation that its first-week ridership averaged just 12,000 boardings per weekday. But this will improve as more destinations come online, increasing slightly when the segment to the airport opens later this year and more significantly to the UW seven years from now, and as more massive housing developments get built in the immediate vicinity of stations in the Rainier Valley, though of course Sound Transit could drastically increase light rail ridership by following through on its 1996 commitment to build a demonstration PRT system and then extending that to neighborhoods near those light rail stations. That would be nice.

It's also unfair to judge system ridership by counting passengers on two reverse-commute trains even if those counts were taken during peak hours -- I should note that the one train I saw coming into the ID Station while I was waiting there looked like it had considerably more riders, with as many as 2/3 of the seats taken, similar to the 355 bus I'd ridden earlier this morning.

With so few passengers on my train, I felt freer to look around the vehicle, and counted only two bike slots in it-- that's just four bike slots for the entire train, though I suppose additional bikes could still be brought aboard even if they couldn't be stowed properly. My bike protruded halfway into the aisle. The train really has quite a violent shimmy as it speeds along the fast section nearing Tukwila -- I have to think that'll be addressed someday.

When I got off the train in Tukwila, only five other people got off the entire train with me. Yes, this is abysmal ridership, though I feel certain that Sound Transit will contend that ridership is ahead of estimates anyway. Again, it's too soon to make a lasting judgment, but this is not what I'd call a good start.

My bike ride from the station turned out surprisingly well. Southcenter Blvd had a bike lane for more than a mile, all the way to where it crossed under I-5, and traffic after that was light enough that I was able to change lanes as they turned to side roads the rest of the way across Interurban Avenue, where I caught the Interurban Trail, which I rode the rest of the way to my office. I was surprised to see that the ride had taken 10 minutes longer than it would have if I'd taken my usual #150 bus.

I should also say that last Friday, while I was driving with my 12-year-old son to climb Mt. Adams, my wife repeated my light rail trip to Columbia City with our other kids, stopping at Jones Barbeque and having lunch with them there. She says the food is better when it's hot, which it hadn't been after I used light rail to carry a batch up to a ZooTunes concert a few weeks ago.

P.S. A couple transit cops boarded my return #150 bus at Stadium Station this afternoon, one through each door. One walked from the rear to the front, then both climbed off again. In 20 years of bus riding in Seattle I don't think I've ever seen transit cops board a bus like that before. I appreciated it, actually.

Free Light Rail

2009-07-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

My seven-year-old daughter and I took a ride on Seattle's new Central Link light rail line on Sunday, just to see what it would be like while rides were still free and the line was still heavily used. More of us had originally planned to go, but our family was deep in the midst of a game of Monopoly™ (the National Parks edition), and we couldn't tear free until time got short. We were also going to a Los Lobos concert at the Woodland Park Zoo later that night, so our options at that point got quite limited. We decided that my wife, one of our friends, and some of our kids would drive to the Zoo to wander around beforehand while I took as many of our kids as wanted to go on the bus to downtown, where we would climb aboard a light rail train and have an adventure.

My oldest son said no way. "Why doesn't someone else go?" he asked. My second son, the one who'd been with me a couple weekends ago when a fight was breaking break out right next to us asked if it would be any different from a bus ride. "Well, yes," I answered. "It's a train."

"Have I ridden a train before?" he asked.

"Yes, several times. Remember when we rode the South Lake Union Trolley? It's sort of like that, but bigger."

"Is it like the Santa Train?" my daughter asked.

"Is it like a bus?" my second son asked.

"Well, it's sort of like the Santa Train," I said to my daughter. "But that one is old and this one is brand-new. And it's sort of like a bus," I told my son, "but it won't be like your last trip where those people said all those bad words and started pushing each other."

"I don't want to go," my son said.

"I'll go!" said my daughter, brightly. Bless her.

"More than one of you can go," I said to all my children, but the others were already leaving.

So my daughter and I walked down to the nearest bus stop at about 2:30 on a bright Sunday afternoon to wait for a King County Metro #358 bus, which was due about three minutes after we arrived at the stop. A couple other people were waiting, too, one of them smoking. The bus came on time and there were plenty of seats, so we climbed aboard and got two together near the front of the bus. We got off at 3rd & Pike and walked a block to go down to the Bus Tunnel, which will henceforth be referred to here by its new official name of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. No buses were operating in the tunnel over the weekend so as to make it as easy as possible for as many trains as possible to carry as many passengers as possible on their inaugural weekend.

There were a ton of people in line. In fact there were two lines, starting at the far end of the Westlake Center Station Mezzanine and threading something like 100 yards to the other end. After a few minutes in line at the bottom of the escalators from street level, our line moved in a big pulse and then stopped. A few minutes later it moved again and we passed a sign telling us that there would be a 30-minute wait from that point. A few minutes later and the other line moved in a big pulse past us. Various buskers performed between the two lines. One guy did card tricks. A woman juggled two Koosh™ balls and a rubber chicken, which she seemed to drop frequently. My daughter was a lot more interested in peering over the railing to see the top of the trains as they pulled into and out of the station below us. The line moved in another big pulse past a sign that said there would be a 20-minute wait from that point, and we waited some more. The other line moved in another big pulse. From where we were standing we could now see the top of the escalator to the lower level. And then our line started moving and we followed a few hundred people down the escalator to the next train, which was filling up rapidly. My daughter and I sat in the train's very last row, a few more people got on behind us, and we were underway.

A couple women in the row ahead of us seemed to tune in as I explained to my daughter all about how the tunnel worked, where I would stand in the various stations while waiting for my bus(es) to work, the differences in each station's design, plus some indication of what would be coming next. We emerged into sunlight after the International District station and stopped at the Stadium Station, where my daughter proudly pointed out SAFECO Field near the tracks and pronounced that she knew why it was called "Stadium Station". The women in front of us smiled. I told my daughter to watch out for buses in use on the busway next to the light rail line, and we saw several go past. Beyond the SODO/Lander station, which I think was the first one ready for light rail (perhaps not including the ones in the Downtown Transit Tunnel), we climbed the ramp that would take us over the light rail maintenance facility (which I named "pylon land" for her after all the green-and-black pylons there) and then plunged into the darkness of the Beacon Hill tunnel. I noticed that some playing cards were flashing on the walls and tried to show my daughter, but she didn't see them. They weren't done very well, actually, and seemed out of sync, usually showing part of one card and part of another in each frame. The Beacon Hill station seemed very cramped and dark -- Morlock habitat for sure. And then we came into the light for the elevated Mt. Baker station. Which seemed an incongruous name since Mt. Rainier was right ahead of us, looking glorious.

"Your brothers and I are going to that mountain next weekend for a big hike," I told her, pointing to it, "though we're not climbing to the top."

Then we descended to street level for several more stations. I'd already decided that we would go all the way to Tukwila and then come back to Columbia City for some barbeque takeout at a restaurant where my wife and I attended a party last year, which I would bring to the ZooTunes concert for our dinner. At that station I saw a friend of mine who works for Sound Transit and made a mental note to seek her out on the way back.

On the elevated section beyond the Rainier Valley, the train sped up. The ride had been very smooth up until then, if not particularly fast, but with the faster speed here the train had a noticeably rougher ride. I had to ask my daughter a couple times if she was scared, both because of the pronounced fishtailing motion and also because of our altitude, which in places seemed to approach 100 feet above the creekbed below, but she said she was fine.

We stopped before arriving at the final station and at first I wondered why, but then I saw the train ahead of us just pulling into that station. When it was nearly all the way in our train started moving again. And when we got out of the train and into the station, it was hard not to notice the enormous size of the place. Huge high glass ceilings, a giant molecular sculpture with messages on it that might be regarded as inspirational, or at least as promoting Tukwila's civic spirit. Sort of the polar opposite of the Beacon Hill station. And there were probably a thousand people waiting in line for the next train back. I asked my daughter if she would rather wait in line for the next train, or hop onto a bus for a quicker return. She opted for the bus. I checked with the driver of the first bus we came to, which was heading directly back to downtown, so that wouldn't work, but he motioned us to the next bus in line which was a "local". The driver of that bus told us that he could indeed drop us at the Columbia City station, so we hopped on board and a couple minutes later started up.

There were a total of four passengers on the bus.

Heh.

Yes, I know, this was a tourist day, and people were there to check out the new light rail system and not some old buses (even though this was a cushy Sound Transit bus). My daughter was enchanted by the comfortable near-empty bus, however, since (as she put it) "We had it almost all to OurSELVES!".

The bus took a little time waiting for a couple left-turn signals before we got onto the freeway, but once that was out of the way it flew up I-5 to the MLK Way exit, and then flew up MLK Way itself. Driving this way with help from the signals tuned for fast light rail operation was very quick, but it gave us a view that we wouldn't have gotten from the trains themselves: the view of the MLK corridor from the street is actually quite ugly; seven lanes of gray pavement and gravel cluttered with the soup of power poles and interconnecting cables, especially when no train is there to focus the attention and mitigate the blight. It looked kind of like a tidal flat of rebar.

We passed a train as we got onto MLK Way, then passed another by the time we'd arrived at the Columbia City where all four of the bus' passengers got off. We walked to the corner of Edmunds St and my daughter pointed to a bicycle cab and asked "Can we ride in it?!"

The bicycle cab had a sign on the back advertising rides for one dollar. How could I resist? So we climbed in and rode the two long blocks to Rainier Ave, and then one short block to Ferdinand Street, where we got off and paid (and tipped) the bicyclist. And there was the barbeque place: Jones Barbeque, looking just as I remembered. We ordered, waited for our order to come up while sipping a pink lemonade together (it tasted of Aspartame, which my daughter loved but I thought was awful), then refilled it with root beer on our way out and walked back to the station. We might've ridden in another bicycle cab, but none was waiting. Maybe no one wanted to lug back 300+ pounds of passengers on that two-block-long slight uphill, I don't know.

By this time it was after 5:15 PM, and the signage at the station described the last train as having departed 15 minutes earlier, but we'd just missed catching another train, and no one told us when we asked them that no more trains would come, so we sat down and waited. A volunteer told us that the friend I'd recognized here earlier had already departed for the day, but promised to pass on our greeting. Sure enough, another train came by a few minutes later and we climbed on -- I imagine that quite a few people that had ridden trains south from downtown earlier that day still had to get home, and it wouldn't have been very good publicity for Sound Transit to strand them in Tukwila with only buses (cushy though they might be) to take them home. This time we were in the middle section of the car, standing, with many more opportunities to chat with our fellow passengers. A pretty festive crowd, actually. One person even seemed to know the barbeque joint where we'd stopped, which is pretty remarkable considering that the bag didn't have any advertising mark on its side, and there's more than one barbeque joint in Columbia City. He even let me know that there's a location closer to downtown, near the SODO/Lander station.

Back in downtown Seattle, I had us get off at the University Street station rather than Westlake, figuring that we could avoid the Westlake crush as well as get a seat on our bus earlier than the Pike/Pine zoo. We were nearly 10 minutes early for our next bus, a King County Metro #5, and that bus was nearly 10 minutes late, so we had a good long wait. But there were plenty of available seats when it arrived, and we had no trouble taking it to the Zoo's west entrance. The ride took more than 20 minutes for a ride of about 5 miles, and the concert had been underway for half an hour (the band was playing "King Louie's Song") by the time we arrived. This bus/train/bus/bike/walk/train/bus option definitely wasn't the quickest way to get around today, and by the time we broke out the picnic at the concert it was barely warm (the containers were getting slumpy and saturated, too), but it was still some mighty fine barbeque.

And the concert was amazing ... I don't know how accustomed Los Lobos is to playing to 5000 blissed-out liberal-arts-educated white people in the sun, but they seemed to take it as their personal mission to get us up and dancing, and by the time the sun had set over most of the audience and they'd gone to a set of Mexican polka-flavored traditional salsa mixed with extended three-guitar electric funk-rock-folk goodness, everyone was on their tiptoes, with a lot of their kids on their shoulders, rocking out. I only wish that Dave Alvin had been there to get up with them. Their finish, when they'd invited about 50 audience members to come up and share the stage with them, dancing away, may have been the most amazing thing I've seen on a rock stage in my life.

Maybe not so very different from when I saw them 25 years ago in East L.A. with my roommate at a free concert in the park, I think to thank their hometown once their first album had been released even though with about a dozen outlandish-haired punks I think we were the only non-Hispanic white people in that audience.

That, and the couple Los Lobos shows I've seen in between, has been (and will always remain in my memory) a great time for all. Maybe excepting the 2 or 3 guys who tried to pick a fight with my roommate at that concert 25 years ago.

The sunset afterwards was stupefying, too. Heckuva day all around.

Again?!

2009-07-19T22:37:00.001-07:00

Friday morning I biked downtown from my home in North Seattle to the International District station. I waited for nearly 10 minutes for a bus there -- watching three trains go through the station while I waited, and then boarded my bus to Tukwila, a King County Metro #150. There were less than 20 people aboard at 9:00 AM. BY the time we emerged from the tunnel just a couple minutes later, a man in front of the bus started yelling at another passenger.

It wasn't just a random yell, either. He was furious and insistent: "WHAT DID SHE DO?!!"

He seemed to be directing his ire at a pair of women across the aisle. As far as I could tell, they'd done absolutely nothing to set him off. It seemed like just another random outburst by a crazy person at someone smaller and meeker on public transit.

After maybe 45 seconds of this loud, crazy stuff, the man got up and said something, quietly and apparently humbly, to the bus driver. He fumbled for change, though didn't get to the point of paying (this was a pay-as-you-leave bus). Then, quietly and humbly, he moved back to his seat. He seemed ordinary enough, of fairly slight stature, and looked as though he was well cared-for. I would have guessed that he was in his 20s. Not someone I would've suspected of crazy talk like this.

After no more than a couple minutes, he started yelling again. Soon, every other word was an f-bomb. The woman sitting across from me in the middle of the bus got up and moved farther back. He seemed upset that he'd been made to apologize for his sins (more than) a few times. He didn't seem to feel like he'd been getting a fair shake in his life. And he seemed to think it was racial. And for some reason the presence of these two small, meek women, of a race different than his, seemed to be setting him off. We were approaching the last stop on 6th Ave South, before getting onto I-5 for the high-speed ride the rest of the way to Tukwila. The bus driver asked him "Are you OK?" and opened the door. The abusive passenger got up, said something quietly to the driver, and got off, glaring at the two women the whole way, his expression the very picture of injured pride.

As we exited I-5 in Tukwila, 10 miles later, I thanked the driver for her graceful handling of that situation. She smiled in a relieved sort of way and said that when the loud guy had gone up to speak with her quietly the first time, that he'd gone up to apologize for his behavior and to say that he wouldn't do it again, which of course didn't end up working out. But he'd also told her he would get off the bus if it happened again, which he'd ended up doing.

A difficult juxtaposition of behaviors; polite and humble one breath, and aggressive and hateful in the next. I have to assume the guy was mentally ill, of course. I sincerely hope the two women he was so angry with aren't too shaken by the experience. And I wish all three of them well.

Late Friday night on the 358

2009-07-11T10:33:00.001-07:00

My wife's family has been trickling in and out of town for the last couple weeks. We all rented a couple houses in the San Juans for a week around the 4th of July weekend, and her out-of state family has been circulating among her in-state family's homes since then. Her sister wanted to go to a Mariners game and see SAFECO Field. I urged them to take the bus there, while I drove to work and then parked near the ballpark. Afterwards, I would take the bus with one of my kids while my wife, her sister, and our other kids drove home in my car.

The game was OK, not great (we lost), but it was still a good family trip. My daughter gets on the big screen while waving her poster of Ken Griffey Jr. while he's at bat, whereupon he hits a clutch single. Afterwards, we all walked back to my car, and then my nine-year-old son and I continued into downtown to catch a bus home. Since the buses don't come very often at that hour, we did quite a bit of walking along 3rd Avenue before we finally decided to stop and wait at 3rd & Union. It was 10:45 before the bus, a King County Metro #358, finally arrived. We took our seats in the back, as there weren't two anywhere close together farther forward.

First mistake.

By the way, my now-seven-year-old daughter, the one who'd ridden the bus to Hollywood with me a couple Christmases ago, wanted to ride home with me tonight, too, but I know what the 358 can be like late on a Friday or Saturday night, and I wouldn't let her.

One good choice made, at least.

In the very back of the bus a man and a woman are sitting together with a boom box turned up higher than it should be, but not egregiously so. She seems a little high. The stop after we get on, probably at 3rd & Pine, where I know from experience that things can get lively, especially at night, and not in a good way, a bunch more people get on, including a couple that moves to the back. The woman sits down across from my son and me while the man, who's wearing a blue shirt, negotiates with the man sitting in the back row, who's wearing a red shirt, to move a pile of his stuff so he can sit down, too, including the boom box, which gets turned up louder, but the pile of stuff is getting moved. The woman in the back starts sassing the newly arrived man. Talks about the "mafia" and calls him a *bitch*. This infuriates the man in the blue shirt. The n-word starts flying. So do f-bombs. Nobody is backing down. All the antagonists seem impaired by some substance or other, to a greater or lesser extent. The man in the blue shirt's female companion starts pushing him away. He lets himself be pushed but occasionally pushes back past her to reinforce his point, which is (paraphrasing) that he doesn't appreciate being called "bitch". Nebulous threats of violence are made. He allows himself to be pushed far enough forward that there is little immediate instigation for further conflict. The man in the red shirt gets up and starts hassling his female companion. Tells her (paraphrasing again) that she shouldn't have been saying what she did. The sound of what sounds like a loud slap comes, but I can't see past him to see what happened. She becomes quiet and stays that way. My son, who'd been sitting right next to the man with the blue shirt, has wide eyes but doesn't look spooked. I have one arm around him and the other wrapped around a pole with my hands clasped together in front of us. I don't want anyone crashing into my son accidentally -- at this point there've been a lot of angry words, but no indication that the situation is in immediate danger of escalation, and while I'm concerned that my son has to see this, it's also a fairly safe exposure for him to an uglier side of life than he usually sees, and he hasn't seemed frightened by it, at least not yet -- two reasons I hadn't already removed him from the situation.

The man in the red shirt apologizes for frightening my son. then calls out to the other man that he's taken care of the situation from his end, just like the man in the blue shirt's female companion has, so "everything is cool now". He emphasizes their brotherhood (and sisterhood). This seems to annoy the man in the blue shirt, but not enough to rouse him again. He and his companion are talking quietly. The man in the red shirt's boom box gets turned up louder. I'm noticing that so far the loud hip-hop music has seemed to aggravate the situation rather than soothe it. A couple minutes later the man in the blue shirt walk backs again, once again right in front of me and my son, to emphasize that he "is cool", too. The man in the red shirt notices that he isn't exactly apologizing, and points this out. The man in the blue shirt, a little more loudly, reiterates that he "is cool" (with the situation). The man in the red shirt points out that "the kids" (meaning my son) don't need to be seeing this kind of behavior. The man in the blue shirt turns to my son and tells him he may want to move away, then gets a little louder and more aggressive, complaining about being called "a bitch". The n-word starts flying again.

I move my son forward, where seats have started opening up as the bus continues on its route north -- we are out of downtown and near the Aurora Bridge by now. I make eye contact with the man in the blue shirt's female companion as we move past her. The situation in back seems to calm down a little, perhaps as the ramifications of our exit become clearer. The man in the blue shirt's female companion may have gone back to defuse the situation again, too, but at this point my visibility into the situation isn't so good and I can't tell. Another man, older, comes forward too, shaking his head to me: "he just can't leave it alone" and expressing concern for my son. I tell him my son is OK, just as I'd told the man in the red shirt a few minutes earlier.

The man in the red shirt's boom box gets turned up even louder. Soon the commotion in the back gets louder, too. It has now escalated to pushing, apparently. An exodus of people who seem genuinely frightened begins past us. At the bus stop at Aurora & 75th, just outside PCC, after everyone has offloaded, the bus driver opens the rear door and, over the intercom, tells unspecified persons to get off the bus. I figure the aggressors in this situation have exactly zero motivation to comply, and since we're within half a mile of our home, we might as well do so ourselves, before the situation gets even worse. Half a minute later, the bus proceeds past us with all of the aggressors still aboard. Not many people are left in the back of the bus, though the front is jammed. I'm hopeful that with fewer people in close proximity, that tensions will defuse. Especially if the damn boom box gets turned down.

My son and I have a conversation on the half-mile walk home. He tells me it was like being teleported to New York. I ask him why he thinks so and we then discuss the effect of poverty, powerlessness, alcohol, and drugs, and how they can sometimes reinforce each other to create a bad situation where none needs to exist. He seems fine, but I hope will come out of this wiser and better equipped to deal with tough situations in the future. Later, when my wife asks him about it and asks if he heard any bad language, he says nearly all of it was bad. He has no trouble falling asleep. Neither do I, for that matter, but I have troubled dreams.

Trains in the tunnel

2009-07-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to see a train in the bus tunnel nearly every time I wait for a bus there. They aren't taking passengers yet, of course, and won't for a couple more weeks, but it's good to see them operating in close proximity with buses there. I've noticed that they are somewhat louder than buses in the tunnel, and also that some railings are probably going to be moved farther away from the platform's edge, as the trains pass very close, and I could see someone getting hurt if they lean or reach out even a little bit over the existing railings.

As I write this on the King County Metro #150, coming into downtown in the evening with a load of passengers headed to a Mariners home game, one of these trains just went by in the other direction. It makes a bell-ringing sound as it comes into and exits each station, but the ringing sound seems prerecorded -- no actual bell is being rung. It sounds a little cheesy even though it's probably more practical, and of course the sound will be good for the safety of nearby pedestrians who might not otherwise pay attention.

Flat again (and again)

2009-06-24T23:48:00.000-07:00

A day after I flatted and repaired my tube (twice), I bike/bus commuted again, this time without incident, though I was careful not to ride too far. But a week later, with about 75 miles on the patched tube and after riding all the way to work, when I got to my bike for the ride home, my tire was flat again. This shouldn't have been a big problem with an REI bike department about a mile away from my office, so I inflated the tube and rode like heck to get there before I ran out of air again.

The store didn't have the right size tube for my road rocket: 700x25. They recommended a nearby bike shop. I pumped up the tire again and rode a couple miles to find it, but no dice -- their fairly imprecise directions were no help. So I resigned myself to a bus ride downtown, albeit from a little earlier on its route than usual, and parked myself on another bus bench just outside the Southcenter REI. The bus wasn't due for another 20 minutes so I took the rear tire off and slapped a third patch onto the grievously wounded tube. Then when the bus finally arrived, it already had two bikes on its rack, with the next bus not due for another half hour -- I got waved off. The driver shrugged -- there was nothing he could do. I was seriously out of luck and getting frustrated with the limitations of scheduled transit service. My latest patch seemed to be holding, so I started riding my route home, hoping the tube would hold out until the next bus stop. It did, so I took the gamble to the next stop a couple miles farther up the road, the Tukwila Park and Ride. I was actually only about 5 minutes behind the bus that waved me off, with 25 minutes to go until the next one. And my tube was holding at 3/4 pressure. So what the heck, I'm already in about as deep as I can get and with no guarantee that the next bus won't already have another full bike rack, I take a deep breath, mount up, and bike 19 more miles home. Fortunately without further incident.

I ended up riding about 50 miles that day, all the way to work and all the way back, plus all the farting around bike shops at Southcenter, none of which was actually helpful.

At home that weekend, I had an unusual hour to myself, and with my tire flat yet again, I pumped it up and rode it most of the way to the nearest bike shop. The tire went flat about four blocks away from the shop, and no amount of further pumping helped, so I walked it the rest of the way. They changed the tube and I bought a spare for my pack. Here's hoping I don't have to use it anytime soon. I've put about 100 more miles on it since then. If only it were as cheap an easy to change the tire on the old clunker car in my garage.

And, oh yeah, yesterday I got waved off again, at the International District Station in the bus tunnel. Two bikes already on the rack meant I had to wait for a later bus. Luckily I knew my options, and a different bus with a more problematic -- but still doable -- route came by a couple minutes later, so not much was lost. I've spent way too much time waiting for buses this past month, and not nearly enough time actually riding them.

Flat

2009-06-22T22:19:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month I bike-commuted the 22+ miles from my home in North Seattle to my office in Tukwila again. About 2/3 of the way there, I flatted. Doggone. I've only flatted once before on my road rocket, and that time was about 20 miles into a different 22+ mile commute, but it happened less than half a mile from the shop where I bought the bike, easy walking distance for them to take care of it for me.

This time I flatted miles from any similar services, near the First Ave S bridge. I had my pump, a patch kit, and tools, of course, but after getting the wheel and tire off, the pump didn't seem to be getting air into the tube. No problem, there was a bus stop nearby and it would surely take me closer to where I wanted to go. Unfortunately, beyond the route number there was no information at the bus stop describing where that bus actually went. Still no problem, as I had a cell phone and schedules for other bus lines with me, from which I got a rider service number to call.

But no good ... this bus didn't go in the right direction at all, and the service rep I spoke with told me my best option was to go 5 miles back to Spokane Street and transfer to a better bus there. OK, I walked my bike across the street to catch the recommended bus, and once there on a bench in the shade, I had another look at my tube. It'd be 20 minutes before the next bus came along, and I had nothing better to do. Being able to sit was a big help, and I quickly figured out that the pump was actually working -- the twin pinch-flat holes in the tube were big enough that as fast as I could pump air in, it came right back out again. I patched the holes and put everything back together, then fully inflated the tire. The bus finally comes by as I'm almost finished, but I think I have everything under control and wave the driver past. Then I figure out that the tube isn't holding pressure, but I have enough to be able to get me half a mile farther along, where there's a bus stop for a different line. After arriving I stop and check the tube, and it has gotten really low -- the patch is leaking. I sit down on another bus bench to take everything apart again -- this bus won't take me anywhere near where I want to go, either. Sure enough, one of the holes has found an outlet along a tube seam. A second patch overlapping the first did the trick, at least for the time being. I never did see the second bus. I hop on the bike and continue riding. For the first couple miles I stop every couple minutes to check the tube, and while it wouldn't hold full pressure, it held steady at about 3/4 pressure -- maybe 60 psi. I stopped checking so often, just one more time with about 3 miles to go and it held, so I biked myself the rest of the way to work. It took more than 3 hours, twice as long as usual. Next time I'm at the bike shop I'll have to get an extra tube for my pack.

The return trip was fine, though I didn't ride all the way home, just 3 miles to the bus stop, then on a King County Metro bus to downtown and then a #5 to Upper Fremont, then biked the rest of the way home without further incident.

At least not that day.

Youthful exuberance

2009-06-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

As I begin this, I'm on a Friday evening bus from Tukwila along with several kids whose normal communication seems to be conducted at a full yell. It seems friendly enough, if extremely loud, even when one of them is actually threatening to kill another, which has happened several times, or referring to each other at full volume as "fat f*ck" or various other terms of shared identity that seem to be used by some high schoolers these days, a phenomenon confirmed by a high school teacher I spoke with the next day. Those wacky kids. But of course this quickly cleared out the back of the bus of several adults who did NOT seem to want to be in the middle of THAT. The loud kids got off at a stop in the International District, and it was nice to exist in a state of normal ambient noise for the rest of my ride into downtown, where I transferred to another bus home.

40+ years of bikes

2009-05-14T20:59:00.001-07:00

In honor of bike-to-work day: Friday, May 15, 2009.

c1967: I must've had access to a bike back when I was a five-year-old, because I distinctly recall crashing into a car while riding near my family's apartment in the Bronx. The car was stopped at an intersection and I rode right off the curb into it, but I wasn't going fast enough to cause more than a scratch to myself or either vehicle.
c1970: Groovy custom-built banana-seat coaster-brake with chopper handlebars, a trim little sissy bar, rear shock absorbers, chrome fenders, and a leather carry bag on the back. See snapshot. Rear wheel was a fat-tire slick, front wheel was much smaller and a bit narrower. My uncle built this, just as he custom-built bikes for everyone in my family. This is the bike I learned to ride on -- no training wheels. I think the first of my two relatively serious bike accidents was on this bike, when my stupid kid self put his foot between the front wheel and the fork while moving fast. Wheel abruptly stopped turning and I went flying over the handlebars onto the pavement.
c1971: My uncle built a much more rugged bike for my younger sister. Same-size fat knobby tires front and back. It wasn't really mine but I borrowed it a lot so I could ride off bluffs into gravel pits, jump dirt piles, the usual crazy kid stuff. Don't recall ever wiping out. The bike was very popular among my friends, but I didn't share it much -- it not really being mine to share. Basically a BMX bike before the term existed.
c1974: Montgomery Ward 10-speed with disc brakes -- a birthday present while I was in Jr High. The disc brake worked better than caliper brakes in wet conditions, but was otherwise a gimmick. This was my bike for the next 13 years. In college, with a load of books in both hands and riding no-handed downhill around a curve, I hit a pothole and wiped out. Messed up the bike a bit with some road rash left over for me, the second of my two relatively serious bike accidents. Walked it the rest of the way to my dorm, left it unlocked in the bike rack there -- I was mad at it, knowing that no one would be stupid enough to ride away on a bike in that condition, at least not for long. Bike was stolen by the next morning, of course. After the end of the semester I learned that campus security had recovered it half a block away. Apparently the thief had fallen off and then a car had run over the front wheel, which was bent. Bike stayed in that condition for a couple more years until after graduation, when I had a LBS fix it up, putting caliper brakes on the rear wheel since replacement parts for the Monkey Ward disc brake were no longer available. Bike-commuted in 1985 on side streets between South Pasadena and Pasadena. Also rode alongside the 1984 Olympic marathoners in Los Angeles one memorable time -- I'd hoped too see more of that race, but my roommate and I hadn't reckoned on how fast they were even though we were runners ourselves, so we didn't get to see nearly as much of the race as we'd hoped. Moved to Long Island and then to DC, riding it for recreation both places. Finally gave it to my best friend's landlord (his name was Kelly and he lived in College Park, MD), who needed it a lot more than I did. I did not perceive that suburban Long Island or Northern Virginia were safe places for regular bike-commuting in those days.
1987: My uncle came out of bike-builder retirement to build me a 10-speed for Christmas. It had a big rubber clown horn on the handlebars. After getting it boxed up in San Diego for the flight home, I rode it once in the DC winter. It was an awesome present, a nice bike with an even nicer horn. Left it in my apartment building's locked bike room afterwards, but didn't chain it up there. Never saw it again.
1988: Bought a steel-frame Puch 12-speed at age 26 -- my first self-purchased bike. Rode it for recreation on the W&OD trail in Virginia and, after moving to Sacramento, the American River Trail. Citrus Heights/Roseville wasn't a great place to bike-commute then, either. Moved to North Seattle, bought my first helmet, and bike-commuted downtown and to Bothell. Bought a cushy seat when riding over roots on the BGT started causing electric bolts of pain to shoot from my keel even when I wasn't on the bike. After 10 years in Seattle, mounted an electric motor on it and bike-commuted some more to Bothell, Belltown, and Redmond. A LBS replaced the 6-gear freewheel with a 7-gear equivalent. Once I was in good enough shape for the long ride to/from Redmond, pushing that heavy old steel frame with a second high-resistance chain to the attached 12-pound motor, with or without the 15-pound battery, was more effort than I wanted to expend, so I started borrowing the Trek 720 I bought in Eugene for my wife 10 years earlier, raised the seat way up high, and used that for a couple months. My wife eventually wanted her bike back.
2007: Dropped a K on a Trek 1500. 105 crank, chainrings, and headset, Ultegra rear. The road rocket. Thing can go up hills by itself. Bike-commuted to/from Redmond and later to/from Tukwila. Spilled once while going around a hairpin turn too fast -- I wasn't used to the high center of gravity or the headset integrated shifters/brakes, and didn't brake enough before starting the turn. Started buying accessories for night and wet riding: fender, lights, dayglo vest, tools, small carry bag.
2008: Bought a Novara Buzz V so I could ride Iron Horse State Park over the Cascades between Duvall and Cle Elum with my 11-year-old son. The crossbar-style handlebars necessitated fingerless gel gloves to keep my hands from going numb. Worked nicely enough as a commuter that I switched the cushy seat from the road rocket, which I didn't ride for another 9 months while I used the Buzz commuter exclusively. This year I bought a second cushy seat so I can ride either one of my two new bikes with little prep. I bike/bus commute 1-3 times a week these days. I also pack up the whole family for occasional recreational bike rides around North Seattle: to/from school, baseball practices (my 11-year-old son now sometimes bikes to his practices or games solo), picnics at Gas Works, Costco (!), Pop Mounger pool in Magnolia, SeaFair, even Red Hook in Woodinville and Gene Coulon Park in Renton, really anywhere we want to go. I still have the steel electric Puch, though I don't ride it much anymore.

Family bikes

Kettler tricycle
Winchester bike trailer
16" Novara coaster-brake
16" hand-me-down pink/purple coaster-brake with a little flowered plastic basket on the front
20" Raleigh BMX coaster-brake
20" toy-store 7-speed BMX
24" Giant 21-speed BMX-style
24" Trek 21-speed hardtail
Trek 720

My wife rides the Trek 720. My two oldest sons (11 and 9) use the 24-inchers. My 6-year-old daughter uses the Kent single-speed. My 3-year-old son hasn't quite graduated from the tricycle to training wheels on the 16" Novara -- he mostly rides in the trailer behind me, but he won't stand for that much longer.

We are fortunate in that most of these bikes are hand-me-downs, excepting only the little Novara which we bought for my oldest son when he was 4 years old, my wife's Trek, and the Giant which we bought used from a local meteorologist when her son got too big for it. We had a couple more hand-me-down kids' bikes once, one a Kent that a random kid at the coach-pitch field gave us one day, and which we eventually donated in turn to BikeWorks, the other from a neighbor that we lent to a babysitter who hasn't been heard from since. We're ready to pass on the pink/purple coaster-brake now that my daughter has gotten too big for it. The tricycle has just about fulfilled its purpose, too. Gotta share our good fortune, after all, plus our garage is crammed with bikes! The trailer is still useful for carrying cargo for picnics and shopping trips.

My nine-year-old son is the only one of my kids who's had an accident to date; while riding up 8th Ave NW with his older brother and me last year, he wasn't watching where he was going and rode right into the back of a parked pickup truck, though he wasn't going fast enough to hurt himself or anything else. Really, a little safety education goes a long way -- my sisters and I never had any, and our kid bike accidents (especially my sister's big one) were a lot more serious than anything my kids have experienced. So far. Knock wood.

Thoughts on NY subway transit relevance to smaller cities, Part 1

2009-04-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

My brief adventure with Brooklyn and Manhattan transportation brings into sharp focus the key issues in any transit system's success, which the New York subways are largely successful in addressing, but which many other municipal transit systems struggle to meet:

Convenience
Capacity
Speed
Low cost
Flexibility
Safety
Reliability
Congestion-proof
Few transfers

The New York subways feature huge trains and relatively high frequencies, and the system is capable of moving extremely large numbers of people almost anywhere they want to go in the city. Waits at transfer points complicate matters, but frequencies are high enough (and surface traffic is generally bad enough, with parking tight enough and expensive enough) to make subway travel attractive for most New Yorkers. The only real physical constraint to transit travel there is the system knowledge riders need in order to make timely and direct transfers. This is partially solved through use of a single subway map (helpfully named "The Map"), good signage, necessity, and exercised memories, though it doesn't seem to cover buses or the Long Island Railroad, which might've been a good option for me to get from the Brooklyn Bridge to JFK. Note that this solution doesn't necessarily transfer well to other cities, few of which are served so comprehensively by rail transit. In the past I have also used Port Authority buses between New York and its immediate New Jersey suburbs. Here in Seattle, by contrast, for the remainder of my lifetime there will never be more than a single T-shaped light rail line in the city, intended to be fed in the near future only by a (good) bus network. Its trains will be considerably smaller than New York's, also suffering from somewhat less frequent service.

By the way, on the bus I was riding to Tukwila last this week when I started writing this, a passenger was attempting to get the bus driver to help him locate the driver of the bus he'd been on a few weeks ago when he was assaulted by another passenger; punched in the face several times apparently because that passenger disagreed with some comments made ("out of context", according to the assaulted passenger) in a conversation directed to someone else. He wants that bus driver to act as a witness in case the assaulted passenger takes legal action against the man who attacked him. Obviously passenger safety in public transit won't be guaranteed in Seattle or New York or anywhere else, until such time as passengers get to choose who they ride with.

Another safety-related issue I noticed in driving and walking around New York was that it seemed like there was an NYPD patrol car parked on every other block. I wondered how this could be possible until I considered the high residential density there; of course police will seem so much more visible even when the ratio of police to civilians is the same as it is here in Seattle -- the greater density means that the police will also be closer together, and hence more visible.

All in all, the investment required to bring a medium-sized, medium-density city like Seattle the level of rail transit that serves such a large proportion of New Yorkers so well would be basically impossible with public money, and at some point we have to ask ourselves as taxpayers how much rail is enough, especially when a rail transit spine can be complemented effectively with more cost-effective alternatives. Which brings us back to where we started in this post: finding convenient, high-capacity, fast, cost-effective, flexible, safe, reliable, and congestion-proof public transit that minimizes transfers as well as the time spent waiting for them.

Yes, adding more buses can improve this, making the bus transit network more convenient and higher-capacity at a relatively low cost, but this would not really do anything for all of the other considerations: bus transit will still be slow, prone to getting caught in congestion, not particularly safe, and requiring transfers that might have long waits. Even a fully rail-networked Seattle would not feature very quick urban transit, with safety a continuing concern and transfers required, likely with longish wait times at transfer points, and of course the cost to build a grade-separated rail transit network throughout the Seattle metropolitan area would be astronomical.

So, with the economic and environmental unsustainability of private automobiles becoming increasingly obvious, what other choices do we have? More on that next time.

New York

2009-03-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

I flew to Manhattan for a long weekend with my two sons for my grandmother's funeral. We saw her off in a fashion befitting her long, fruitful life, in which she made many friends and a lasting impression on the big family she raised and the bigger extended family they raised in turn. She was a talented painter as well as a wonderful mother to her six sons and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A certain Irish pub in Brooklyn saw a lot of extra business that weekend from our assembled family; we still love to see each other from our four compass points even in times of sorrow like this year, or tragedy like earlier this decade.

The day after our farewell to Gram, I took my sons and my sister's family over the Brooklyn Bridge and into Manhattan. We walked over the bridge, which was an adventure in itself, then took the subway to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, where we waited for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. The enormously long train came a few minutes later, and we dilly-dallied our way to the ferry terminal, then hustled to the ferry entrance roughly 15 seconds after it honked its horn and set sail. The next ferry would depart half an hour later, and unbeknownst to us at the time, the ferry we'd just missed was the last one of the day that would allow us to get to Liberty Island early enough to actually climb up into the statue.

Yes, the boys were disappointed, but it was still a fantastic day for all of us, including eating hot dogs from a street vendor who was wearing a grungy NY Yankees jacket and who looked just like anyone else's working class Italian-American father. My sons agreed that it was the best hot dog they'd ever eaten, and I thought it was mighty fine, too.

On our way back we took a much more direct subway , which dropped us off within a few blocks of our hotel, then we dashed upstairs for our luggage, caught a cab, and headed to JFK for the long, late flight home.

New York City subways are something to behold. The trains are huge and frequent, and they run practically everywhere in the city. Any place in the city is nominally just a transfer or two away, but in practice usually much less, since from my time in New York I remember that many New Yorkers generally don't have to travel far to get what they need, except perhaps in their commute.

With the freeways jammed on Sunday afternoon, our route back to the airport took us along Atlantic Avenue through Brooklyn, which closely paralleled a subway line that emerged to become an elevated train about halfway there. Under more normal circumstances we might have taken a train like this one, but the concierge at our hotel told us when I asked about it earlier that morning that the A-Train to JFK wasn't running at that time. He offered shuttle buses as an alternative to get halfway there, then a shorter version of the A-train which connected to an airport train, but our time was short and it looked like a cab to the terminal was going to be the only alternative that would get us where we needed to be in time to make our flight. We only arrived at the terminal an hour before flight time, which was cutting it a bit fine, but we didn't have any baggage to check, so except for an incident in the security line that could have been avoided with a little forethought, all was well.

Gram

2009-02-18T21:18:00.000-08:00

My grandmother died this past weekend. That's one near and dear friend or family member passing away each month this year. My family was driving into the mountains for a three-day Presidents Day weekend when I heard. She was 96 and had been ailing for the last several years, so unlike my friend last month, her passing wasn't unexpected, though it remains a sorrowful occasion.

I remember my grandmother first as the formidable woman who owned a sandy summer cottage at Breezy Point in Queens, and by "sandy" I mean the sand was everywhere inside, most especially the bedsheets, though the fact that I was an active boy who played all day every day on the beach may have had something to do with that. Her husband, my grandfather, died when I was five years old, and while I remember him, I don't remember much. My grandmother, on the other hand, I grew up with. She took me on a road trip from New York to Boston one year, just the two of us, when I was 9 or 10 years old. She handed me a map and asked me to navigate, which I'd never really done before, but I was a quick learner. She might've been taking me to visit my cousins in New Hampshire, to be picked up by the rest of my family a couple weeks later. We took the side roads, not Interstate 95. That trip may have been one of the more formative experiences of my life, with me being given active responsibility for the first time, with potentially unpleasant consequences if I didn't execute well.

When we arrived in Boston, she took me to visit the U.S.S. Constitution, which I've only returned to once since then. It must've made an impression, since I've been actively interested in the Age of Sail since, but I don't recall much about the visit itself except the toy cannon she bought me from the gift shop, and how many different sizes of cannons there were to choose from.

There'll be a memorial service in Brooklyn for her in a week or three, where they'll lay her ashes to rest beside her husband, from whom she's been apart for so long.

God Bless you, Gram.

2008 holiday bus adventures, part 2

2009-01-13T23:01:00.000-08:00

On December 30th, the day before New Years Eve, I did another bike/bus commute. Meantime, my wife worked out a date downtown with some college friends and their kids, and she made a day of it there, first with just our kids and then with them as well. She took a #358 bus from our neighborhood to Pine, then walked to an elevator to Alaskan Way and the Seattle Aquarium. After a couple hours she took the elevator back up to the Pike Place Market to meet her friends there. They visited the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton and the Carousel at Westlake Center, they checked out the toy trains in the Macy's window and walked around Pacific Place where they'd heard there would be "indoor snow", which turned out to be bubbles that my wife described as "really kinda weird, it wasn't like snow at all." Ah well, it served its purpose in getting them to visit.

Finally, they took the monorail from Westlake to Seattle Center and stopped in at Zeeks Pizza, where I'd arranged to meet them.

After de-boarding my bus from Tukwila, I biked from the University Street tunnel station to Seattle Center. I had a little trouble finding Zeeks, but a little backtracking with open eyes cleared that up. Zeeks was yummy as usual (we visit their Phinney and Green Lake restaurants on a regular basis) and it was nice to see our friends again. Afterwards, we headed to Seattle Center House to see the model trains there, which, while closed for the night, shared the building that evening with an acrobat troupe and an accompanying band. The kids wanted desserts, caramel apples and the like, which we did our best to accommodate. They ate it up.

Our friends drove home from there while we all crowded onto a northbound 358 bus, my bike on the front. We had to run to catch that bus at its Dexter and Denny stop, but the driver saw us coming and waited half a minute for us to get there.

Have I said lately how much I like bus drivers in Seattle?

Our day downtown, or at least my portion of it, felt a little weird in that we didn't really have a "home" to go back to while we were there. On other trips, such as the one we made a couple weeks earlier, we had a parked car to get back to and to leave purchases in, and even a deadline in getting back to it before the garage was locked up for the night, but this day we had several bus stops to choose from, and while service at that hour was not frequent (one reason we were so thankful to the bus driver for waiting for us), it was at least fairly predictable. Yes, I've done this sort of outing before, and it was as fun as always, but I don't recall feeling this dependent on timely bus service to get home before. Maybe it was that this time I was traveling with young children on a bus route that, late in the evening, often has a higher proportion than usual of drunks, though tonight we found seats towards the front of the bus and everything was fine.

Part 2 will have to wait a bit

2009-01-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

I just learned that one of my best friends died unexpectedly, earlier today.

Mike, we love you.

Holiday bus adventures, 2008 edition (part 1)

2009-01-09T19:19:00.000-08:00

Last month my wife made an appointment for us to go downtown for a studio family portrait. This was two days after the big snowstorm hit, with most people staying home and off the icy streets. As I've spent many years driving back East in worse conditions than this, I felt competent to drive us all downtown for the portrait, and once we'd taken a few dozen pictures we were asked to chill for half an hour while they were processed. We decided to take a little bus adventure for an early dinner instead, and walked from the studio to the Convention Place bus tunnel station, for a quick ride to the International District.

Unfortunately, it was Saturday, and the bus tunnel is closed on the weekends, which I hadn't known before -- I use it often on my weekday commute and know it closes at 7:00 PM on those days, but aside from a few trips to the airport, which I guess have all been on weekdays, or else before the tunnel reopened from its most recent refit for light rail, all my tunnel trips have been weekday commutes. I'd hoped to show the kids and my wife the bus tunnel, as I don't think any of them had even seen it before, and take a holiday ride to see, walk, eat, and enjoy our beautiful snowbound city.

With the tunnel closed, I figured we could still catch a rerouted surface bus, and in fact there was one waiting right on the corner. As soon as we boarded, the driver started up. The windows were thickly coated in dirt to the point that we couldn't really see out, which gave us an unusual closed-in feeling. The kids headed straight to the back, which on a ride-free-zone bus can lead to certain issues when others who're more accustomed to sitting there board, but this day everything was well with the world. The bus filled up quickly and churned its way through the downtown snow. We got off near the ID Station and walked East past it.

We popped into a pet store that had a lot of fish -- our kids have a fish tank and we needed some snails, which I hoped we could pick up on our way back. It turns out that they didn't have any of the sort we wanted, but they did have a recommendation for a nice family restaurant nearby, the Jade Garden. Our day was going along swimmingly.

It was only about three blocks away and a table was ready within a couple minutes. The food was dim sum, served family-style from carts, which my kids thought was really cool. "Faster than fast food" they called it, and they were right. Better, too. We tanked up on a bunch of stuff, and a few minutes later on a second cart with more. The kids got to eat all kinds of things they'd never seen before, and were mostly game, though my 6-year-old daughter took a little convincing, but once she tried it, she dove in, too. I think their favorite was a shrimp wrapped in a thin, transparent crepe-like rice wrapper, which their Dad called a jellyfish, so "shrimp wrapped in jellyfish" it became.

The place was nearly full, with lots of families enjoying an early holiday dinner together, lots of laughter and happy chatter, it was infectious. Afterwards we walked down to the west side of Union Station to catch a bus back through town, and this one took about 10 minutes to arrive, which was more of a bummer for our thoroughly-chilled kids, but we still made it back to the studio in time to get back in the car before the garage was totally locked down, if not to check out the photos first. My wife was able to do that another day, actually cross-country skiing there to do it after a couple more days of snow, but our family trip to the International District was a great trade for not doing it then.

No sooner posted than ...

2008-12-30T22:27:00.000-08:00

In my last entry I praised the overwhelming majority of Seattle drivers for their attention and their general consideration in sharing the road with bicyclists, pedestrians, and each other. There are bad apples, of course, as I acknowledged at the time, just as there are bad apples in every city, but of all the major cities in this country that I've ever bicycled or driven in, Seattle has some of the most attentive and polite drivers, generally speaking.

On the theory that once you make such an unambiguous judgment the sky is sure to fall in on you, I posted that last entry with some trepidation. But I was mostly concerned with my own responsibility as a driver to stay attentive to bicyclists and pedestrians. I hardly gave my behavior as a bicyclist a second thought. So it was with some surprise that two weeks ago, when I made my last bike commute, just before the first big snowstorm hit Seattle (but after a smaller one from which a little ice was still on the roads), and just before I posted my last entry, I had myself a little run-in with one of those bad Seattle apples. Not so bad that someone got hurt, but certainly what I consider an exception that proves the rule.

I was half a block from home, having taken a bus most of the way back from work, complemented by 3.5 miles of bicycling in between. I rode more that morning, but coming home it was dark as well as cold and still a little icy. I turned right onto my (residential) block, noticing as I did that there was a car coming from my left, which I expected would soon catch up. It seemed to be going a little fast for a residential street, but it was also coming into a big intersection planter that would check its immediate speed, so I was safe in turning ahead of him, and as I reached the unsigned intersection a couple seconds ahead of him I clearly had the right of way.

Because I knew there was ice on the street, and also because I would be turning left into my driveway half a block later, I didn't want this driver speeding past on my left, so I rode down the middle of the street, probably going 12-15 mph. A quarter of a block later, the driver starts honking.

I stop in the middle of the street, placing my bike perpendicular to our direction of travel, turn back at the driver, and give him the universal "slow down" signal by pushing my palm downward. He's driving a BMW. Then I give him the "hang loose" sign, waggling my thumb and pinky finger, and turn to continue home. The driver rolls down his window and starts yelling.

He's not profane, but he's really mad. Doubtless he'd been continuing through the neighborhood faster than the speed limit while bypassing traffic lights on the parallel arterial just one block away. This happens a lot on my block.

I'm really angry myself, to the point where it's hard for me to actually talk. I point to the street in front of me. "That's ice!" I manage.

He's quiet for a moment, then says "I take it back."

"Got It?!" I ask, probably unnecessarily.

"Got it," he replies. I continue with him following, and two houses later signal my left turn, then pull over to the left side of the street in front of my house to watch him pass.

He stops, rolling down his window to say "What you're doing is illegal. I talked to a cop about it and he backed me up."

"You're wrong about that," I say, thinking of RCW 46.61.770, "and besides that, this is a residential street," referring to what I expect is his cut-through driving.

He drives off. I can't help but imagine that we'll meet again. I should probably print out a copy of RCW 46.61.770 and put it into my bike backpack in case we do, as I figure he still has no clue about what's legal and what's not, and is probably still feeling aggrieved about being made to slow down for a few seconds that day.

Awright, it's friggin' cold

2008-12-16T19:06:00.000-08:00

I rode downtown from North Seattle in this morning's 25ºF, wearing sweats over my usual shorts for only the third time this year and even wearing a polypro toque under my helmet for the first time ever. I wore double socks with my usual sandals; thermal socks underneath and thick rag SmartWool socks on top. I've already been wearing fleece between my t-shirt and dayglo vest for the past several weeks. But I didn't wear anything more on my hands than my usual fingerless gel gloves. And my fingers got COLD!. They warmed up again when I could put them into my pocket for half a minute, but simple physics was going to defeat anyone's bony little fingers in this freeze, no matter how good their circulation, especially when I was riding downhill into a stiff apparent wind. I admit to riding one-handed for a minute or two on my half-hour ride, maybe not the safest thing to do, but having completely frozen fingers wasn't too happy an alternative.

I did see about a dozen other bicyclists on my way downtown; not as many as usual but still surprisingly many for such a cold day when the bike lane was icy in many places, forcing me into the regular traffic lane to mingle with cars on several occasions.

OK, I gotta say something about Seattle drivers here: no matter what you might see in the media, and no matter what horror stories you hear from pedestrians and bicyclists (including me) about the close calls they've had, if not the injuries they've sustained in collisions caused by inattentive or outright malicious drivers, Seattle drivers are still, by and large, awesome when it comes to sharing the road. Every day I'm reminded of their acceptance of bicyclists in their midst when those bicyclists aren't abusing their privilege to ride on the same roads with other traffic.

Yes, I've seen drivers abuse their own privilege to use our public roadways, including last week at a 4-way stop when one car at right angles to me skipped right through a four-way stop on the bumper of the car ahead of it rather than wait his turn behind me, to say nothing of more egregious abuses such as the driver in Renton last week, just two miles from my office, who turned left into a bicyclist who, like me, was doing everything right. If that bicyclist had been in a car instead, it would have been a fender bender, but as it was a bicyclist died because of a driver's inattention. It could've been me in his place. It could even have been me in the driver's place, though I like to think that I pay more attention to everything going on around me when I'm driving than that driver did. This is at least manslaughter in the second degree ("when, with criminal negligence, [someone] causes the death of another person"). This a class B felony, and it should be enforced in this negligent driver's case, plain and simple.

But I've seen a vastly larger number of drivers who were happy to cede the right of way to me as a bicyclist when they could see me ahead of time, when I signaled my intentions clearly, and when it was safe and reasonable for them to do so. Heck, I've experienced many cases where considerate drivers gave me the right of way through an intersection when it was clearly theirs, which can make me a bit impatient since it slows both of us down, but I appreciate the intent nonetheless. Whenever it's safe to do so I'm also careful to signal my appreciation for a driver's generosity. I do the same when I'm driving and someone allows me to merge ahead of them, which is something I and many others appreciate when others do it for us. Would that more of us did the same.

Like a full moon

2008-12-09T04:45:00.000-08:00

It's getting on toward mid-December, and I'm still bike/bus commuting. A lot of other people are still bike commuting, too, I've noticed. I've waited at stoplights at Mercer & Dexter or at Fremont & Westlake with as many as 10 other bicyclists at a time this past month, and pass or am passed by several bicyclists every day, to say nothing of the bicyclists I see riding in the opposite direction. I saw at least two dozen more bike commuters yesterday, for example, and that wasn't even at peak hour.

I also saw a bicyclist being apparently ticketed by two Seattle police officers, at 3rd Ave right at the entrance to the Pioneer Square bus tunnel station. I have no idea why he was being ticketed, if indeed that's what was happening, though the canary and rose copies of something that one officer was separating and apparently handing to the bicyclist certainly looked like something official and not particularly fun. That bicyclist was young and not wearing a helmet, so that might have been the reason. He wore an expression that told me he thought whatever was happening to him seemed kinda weird.

A couple minutes earlier, while I was waiting at another stoplight further up 3rd Avenue in the left lane behind a line of cars, a bicyclist shot past on my right between the two lanes, followed closely in the right lane by a bus. He promptly blew through the red light. From the direction of the bus driver I heard a woman's voice yelling, apparently at the bicyclist. It might have been the driver. It would've been the first time I ever heard a bus driver yelling at someone, but if anyone deserved it, that bicyclist did.

The two bicyclists might have been one and the same, actually -- I didn't get a particularly good look at either incident.

Exciting morning, nonetheless.

A few minutes before that, I arrived at Westlake Station neatly between two of the buses that I would've liked to ride and a 10-minute wait until the next one, so I decided to ride further downtown and explore other tunnel stations and their entrances for future reference. Which is why I was on 3rd Ave in Pioneer Square to see all this stuff in the first place. I learned a better entrance to the Westlake Station, and also ended up using the Pioneer Square Station for the first time -- it was the last station that I hadn't used yet. Walked myself and my bike right past the two police officers and the kid getting a ticket while I was at it.

Then, on my way home, I missed my return bus in Tukwila. Well, not so much "missed it" as watched it pull up to my bus stop with two bikes already on its rack -- I got waved off. I decided to ride downtown rather than waiting for the next one. A few miles later, while I was riding past a Boeing facility at about 6:30 PM, I passed a woman who was standing beside the trail and having a smoke. The Green River was just on the other side of the trail. She said something in a voice I thought sounded accented as I passed, which I didn't piece together until a few seconds later: "Would you like to date?"

Zowee, I'd been propositioned by a hooker while riding my bike.

I didn't stop, of course, or even respond, but I did start to wonder if maybe there was a full moon. The sky was cloudy, so I couldn't tell. Turns out this month's full moon isn't until Friday.

Two ambulances passed while I was riding the rest of the way home, between downtown and North Seattle. Both changed the light sequence, which combined with the 5-minute wait for the bus that waved me off and the Fremont Bridge being raised just as I approached -- I actually came to a screeching halt as the bells started ringing and the lights started flashing when I was riding up to the gate -- made my 22 mile ride home tonight take quite a bit longer than usual. That said, I don't mind waiting a few extra minutes behind a light changed by an ambulance or two -- I hope they made it in time.

Training for the holidays

2008-12-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'd been training for Thanksgiving. Bicycling more than usual in November and trying to eat less. This year I was determined that it wouldn't take me half the year to recover from my usual holiday weight gain. So I kept riding through October, and while I gained a few pounds at Halloween, I lost them again by mid-November, and then I went for more, losing another five pounds and, by the day before Thanksgiving, getting to within about 1 pound of the lightest weight I've been all year. I did more bike-commuting in November than in any other month this year except May.

Yes yes, I was very proud of myself (pats own back).

Then Thanksgiving happened. We had more than 20 people at our house, and most everyone who came brought something yummy. Five amazing desserts. My good friend the former chef did the turkey and stuffing, ably assisted by my nine-year-old son. My wife did the ginger-lime yams. I did the potato gatto. There was ham and even Alaskan King salmon, albeit in the Swedish style. There were mashed potatoes and parmesan broccoli. There was homemade cream of mushroom soup. There were cranberries and a traditional (for some) relish tray. We plain forgot to make the green beans, and the carrots never made it out of the fridge. I suspect there were a couple more dishes that I can't even remember right now. There was wine, wine, champagne, beer, everywhere wine. It'll take a month to go through all the leftover libations now that the great day has ended. Way too much of everything, but it was fantastic, possibly the best Thanksgiving dinner I've ever had, and I've had quite a few.

Then, next day, 10 of us drove out to Yakima for a restaurant opening, where there was plenty more good food and drink, and not much opportunity to work it off what with all our kids (and sometimes others, too) to look after. We got back Sunday night, in time for the Gonzaga game, the Old Spice Classic final, but only just. The Zags won. A truly amazing holiday, all around.

Yesterday I weighed myself. I'd gained weight, not surprisingly.

But the good part is, I hadn't really gained all that much, just four pounds. For me, this is a single (large) meal, and I will often lose this much just during the course of a work week. It's where I was two weeks ago.

Now to lose it again in time for Christmas, repeat the cycle for New Years, and then hopefully ditch some of the 50 or so extra pounds I could lose from there.

I biked to work again yesterday, supplementing my ride from North Seattle to downtown with a bus boost to Tukwila on the King County Metro #150, and then, since I stayed late at work, beyond convenient return hours for that bus, biking back to Denny & Dexter on deserted, wet roads and trails before another bus boost on the #358, and then forgetting to have dinner once I got home and got busy helping my oldest son with his writing homework. I might have lost the rest of those four pounds already.

Late in the season

2008-11-17T23:22:00.000-08:00

After two weeks of being unable to do my bike/bus commute because of rain and time commitments, many election-related (result: woohoo!), I was back at it again last Monday. I don't recall that in nearly 25 years of bike commuting, I'd ever bike-commuted past the change from Daylight Savings Time, but in recent years as I've geared up with lights and high-visibility clothing, I've started feeling more confident about riding in the dark and rain, though I still don't like riding in both.

So with the switch from Daylight Savings Time in the rear-view, when the pavement's dry and the forecast not looking too bad, I'm still riding. Some others are, too -- I've seen at least 10 other bikes headed downtown each of the last three days I've ridden since last Monday.

Two weeks ago I noticed that there seemed to be a lot more auto traffic on the roads than I've seen for most of the year -- I suspect that as gas gets cheaper, people are getting back to driving. The resulting congestion has been adding about 10 minutes on the occasions when I must drive on my commute between North Seattle and Tukwila. Heck, one day two weeks ago, as I started down Aurora Ave south to the ship canal, I saw that traffic on that road was completely stopped, so I took to the side streets and on getting down to Leary Way in Fremont, I saw that it was totally jammed in both directions toward the Fremont Bridge and Ballard Bridge. So after 10-15 minutes of fruitless driving, trying to get across the ship canal, with the radio telling me that I-5 was jammed, too, I actually drove back home so that I could switch my car for my bike, even with rain in the afternoon forecast, so that I would be able to get to work without sitting in that much more traffic. 'Course, once I got home I learned that traffic on the freeway wasn't so bad after all, so I got back in the car and drove the rest of my otherwise uneventful commute. I learned later that traffic had been stopped on Aurora Avenue due to a jumper on the bridge. Rest In Peace, fellow traveler.

On my bike ride home from downtown last Monday, a Vespa-like motor scooter rode along on the sidewalk/bike lane ahead of me across the Fremont Bridge and in the bike lane through downtown Fremont, skimming past all of the traffic in the lanes, which were packed because the bridge had just opened. What's up with that? Even stranger, when I politely asked its rider to keep it off the sidewalk, her reply quickly rose to full volume, screaming that "MY [garbled] IS BROKEN!". I was already past by that time and starting up the big Fremont Ave hill, and she didn't seem to be in any distress (other than yelling at me), so I didn't stay for details.

Another funny thing is on 3rd Ave downtown during rush hour, where that street is supposed to be closed to everyone but buses and bicyclists during rush hour. Twice last Friday, both in the morning and evening, I was riding there with cars which totally ignored that law, once even when a police car was present. The second time, Friday evening, it was a pair of motorcyclists. There was a big jam of buses, I think at Pike, which I rode past in the left lane, and when I'd gotten most of the way through I started hearing loud motor noises behind me. When I got all the way past and was looking to merge right again I heard those loud motor sounds get into the right lane and then blow past me. It was a pair of large guys in black leather on large Harleys. One leaned over at the next, inevitable stop light and told me "You're holding up traffic!"

The irony was a bit much. Here he was riding illegally, but going out of his way to tell me that that I was holding him and his buddy up. Friday night, I guess.

"No I'm not," I said back to him, and that was pretty much that. They went tearing away at the next red light, but of course there's lots of traffic on that street so I remained right behind them until several blocks later when I turned right and they went on.

More and more I find that riding as if I'm driving, taking the middle of the lane when there's any doubt about whether it would be dangerous for someone to pass me, is the safest way to go, a few morons on motorbikes notwithstanding, especially when I'm wearing high-visibility gear and lit up like Christmas. And especially when I'm riding downtown, where all anyone is doing is moving to the next red light anyway, so average speeds are very close to bicycling speed.

Proposition 1 (Sound Transit 2.1)

2008-10-30T04:08:00.000-07:00

Proposition 1 is Sound Transit's follow-up to last year's failed measure of the same name. Unlike last year's measure, which I opposed, I have no endorsement on this one. I opposed last year's measure because it had a large roads-expansion component, which this year has been removed, and because it was funded by a regressive sales tax, which unfortunately remains true for this year's measure. However, even though there is less light rail than last year, the cost hasn't been reduced at all, instead most of the light rail expansion is advertised to come online 5 years earlier; in 2022 rather than 2027. This still doesn't exactly live up to the measure's "Mass Transit Now" moniker, alas.

The roughly $20B requested by this measure is an enormous tax increase to be asking of Greater Seattle residents during an economic crisis, and just before a likely Obama administration can be expected to start investing more federal transit dollars than any Republican administration of my adult lifetime. The tax increase is roughly 100 times more than the combined amount asked by the two Seattle Propositions (Prop 1/Pike Place Market and Prop 2/Parks) on the ballot -- a huge tax increase. The reason I don't oppose it outright is that it would at least result in better transit than we have now. The reason I don't support it is that aside from the cost, that $20B could be better spent on more cost-effective transit projects and is funded from a regressive tax. Last year's successful King County Metro Transit Now! measure, for example, provides 50 miles of new Rapid Ride (bus rapid transit) service for less than the cost of a single mile of this year's light rail, and delivers it in less than half the time.

The measure I would like to see on the ballot would be about a third this size (about $6B), would include some funding towards replacing the SR-520 floating bridge and the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and would finish the work promised 12 years ago by Sound Move, which created Sound Transit and Central Link light rail in the first place. That measure promised four things:

1. Regional express and local buses, which it has largely delivered
2. Commuter rail (Sounder), though some promised stations were omitted.
3. Light rail, though behind schedule, significantly over budget, and not as much as had been promised, with some stations omitted
4. A Personal Rapid Transit demonstration, which Sound Transit hasn't even begun to address.

I would enthusiastically endorse a measure delivering all of the neglected promises made by Sound Move in 1996, including more regional express buses and HOV accommodations, light rail to Northgate with more stations between UW and Northgate, more Sounder stations and service, especially the omitted Ballard/Shilshole station, a more extensive commitment to Personal Rapid Transit than was originally made (which was a pittance), with particular focus on providing PRT service in places where Sound Transit's light rail has been abandoned as impractical, such as First Hill, and, yes, some targeted congestion relief on our freeways, in areas where a little will go a long way. I would also love to see a regional commitment to bikeways, and not just a few more painted-on bike lanes and sharrows, but more nearly exclusive-use routes like the nascent "bike boulevard" on Fremont Avenue in North Seattle promises to become, where automobile traffic (and cross-traffic) would be minimized and calmed.

Initiative 985

2008-10-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

Election time is here, and there are two transportation-related issues on this year's ballot in Seattle: Tim Eyman's Initiative 985, and Sound Transit's Proposition 1 (Sound Transit 2.1).

I-985 is Tim Eyman's latest stupid idea. The best argument (which isn't saying much) I've heard for passing this measure is that it would give Olympia "a kick in the shins", which sounds an awful lot like the argument made by past legislative efforts to "send a message", except dumber. Well, I've voted against every one of this guy's stupid initiatives, and of all those "messages", exactly none has been received, 'cause he's still at it -- this measure wouldn't so much give Olympia a kick in the shins as it would throw a spanner into the relatively sane transportation planning process used by actual grown-ups. Beyond that, it's hardly worth discussing, as it has already been done to death in plenty of other places.

Just say No! to Tim Eyman's Initiative I-985.

I'll get to Proposition 1 in a future entry, except to note that as I write this from on board a King County Metro #150 bus on the SoDo busway, two linked 2-vehicle light rail trains just passed my bus, headed in the opposite direction. Sound Transit must be testing longer train configurations. Heck, I saw three 2-vehicle trains linked together on the elevated track in Tukwila one night last week, though they weren't moving at the time.

Meanwhile, I spent yesterday in my home precinct distributing literature in support of Seattle Proposition 2 (Seattle Parks For All), which I regard as a necessity, especially when considering that it will not result in a tax increase (only the extension of part of an expiring Parks levy), and as a counterbalance to Seattle's increasing densification, which has resulted in a shrinking supply of private greenspace.

Vote smart!

Bus drivers and their bicyclist passenger

2008-10-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

I caught my bus to Tukwila at the Westlake station Friday morning. Biked downtown to get there, as usual. Reminded me of a couple conversations I had with bus drivers earlier in the week. One had just come back from vacation and hadn't heard the news that all the bus tunnel stations were open to bikes yet. I went up early just to make sure he knew it, so I would be assured of getting off there. He took my word for it and let me off where I wanted. I didn't argue for it, just told him what was up, and he said 'I didn't know that, but I'll go with it'. Bus drivers are nice people, I find.

I did the same drill the next day, except this time dismounting at the University Street station. As I came up early that time, dressed in my usual day-glo vest, the bus driver remarked that 'I would be getting my Seattle bicyclist membership revoked for dressing in clothes that actually made me easily visible'. Then he started a lecture about how so many bicyclists don't, etc etc. I stopped him before he got far, telling him that I wasn't the guy he needed to be telling this to, and that I agreed with him that there were many "ninja" bicyclists (dressed in black, no helmet, no lights, etc) in Seattle, especially in and around downtown. It was a revealing conversation, probably giving me as much insight into what bus drivers think of their passengers (or at least a subset of us) as any other I've had, even though we didn't talk for long. It makes me wonder how much consultation happens with transit operators (or their union), much less the bicycling community, when transit planning decisions are made. Certainly, it seems clear that the bicycling community wasn't in the loop when the South Lake Union Trolley and its bicyclist-maiming layout was being planned.

A recent Portland example may be a good (if ironic) example of how 'The Seattle Way' should be applied more often in urban planning decisions like these: a busy transit center without bicyclist accommodations was being heavily used by bicyclists anyway. Portland's leadership (including their Department Of Transportation, PDOT) then reached out to the bicycling community, and perhaps belatedly, the transit operators, to come up with a design that would make everyone happy. Not just another lame compromise, you understand, but a solution that would actually serve everyone.

It opened last week. I certainly hope that it'll make for safer and more convenient transportation for all its users, now and for many years to come.

More adventures in the bus tunnel, and in the rain

2008-10-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening, on my bike/bus commute home on the King County Metro #150, I dismounted at University Street station, as I'd hoped to do last week. Unlike the Westlake station, this was as easy as could be, with the station laid out intelligibly and stairways available for guys like me who didn't want to wait for an elevator. The upper stairway was long, but not too long for a bicyclist in decent shape and accustomed to carrying a bike up stairs, even a heavier steel bike like mine.

I biked north the rest of the way through downtown until I reached the bus stop at Dexter & Denny, where I stopped to see when a connecting bus might come by. It was a bit after 6:00 PM, and I'd missed that bus by less than a minute. Then the sky opened up, and everyone scuttled into the bus shelter, including me with my bike. At first there was room enough for everyone, but when it filled up and a man with an umbrella came near, I moved outside the shelter with my bike to give him space. A bigger bus shelter here would be nice.

Once the bus came a few minutes later, a second bicyclist joined me aboard it, thereby filling up the rack. We passed at least one more bicyclist waiting at a stop, who probably would've liked to come aboard, too.

I dismounted the bike a half-mile from home and rode it the rest of the way. It was still raining hard enough that I got soaked, but I was back at it again today, which was thankfully dry, if not exactly warm.

Meanwhile, yesterday the AP wire carried a story about Personal Rapid Transit and its prospects in the United States, which appear quite good as next year's PRT opening at London's Heathrow Airport nears, with several vendors ramping up plans and/or construction for additional systems behind them, and at least a dozen more cities anxious to build them. CNN picked up that AP story, as did the Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, our own Seattle Post-Intelligencer, along with several other major-market news outlets. This may be the most widely distributed PRT story of the past decade, but this is not surprise considering the great coverage PRT got last month from the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, and, of course, much more to come.

The vastly greater capacity of PRT to carry bikes would've been nice, too, as well as the short wait time for a vehicle -- less than a minute in most cases.

Expanded bike access to Seattle's downtown bus tunnel

2008-10-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

The bus tunnel opened up to bikes on September 22nd. Before, the only places one could board transit with a bike were at the first and last tunnel stations, at Convention Place and at the International District station, respectively. With this new announcement, which I understand is provisional, people can mount or dismount buses with their bikes at any station in the tunnel. Today I decided to try.

I rode my usual bike route from North Seattle to downtown, coming south on Dexter/7th Ave, this time to Westlake Ave, then to 5th Ave, and then to Pine St. I have to say that Westlake has gotten to be a terrible way to travel, perhaps excepting the South Lake Union Trolley; because Westlake is diagonal to the grid, it has nearly twice as many cross streets as a grid street would, it has a signal light at every intersection, and every time I've traveled this section of Westlake, I've had to stop for every light. I don't notice a lot of cars driving this part of Westlake, either. The South Lake Union Trolley gets priority signaling, I understand, so travel times might be quicker on that trolley or in its immediate vicinity. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Anyway, When I arrived at Westlake Center, I saw on an information kiosk that the tunnel station was right across the street (underground, of course), but I didn't see a way to get down to it. I still didn't see a way after investigating a couple of building entrances right above where the kiosk said the station was. Meanwhile, a disturbed fellow was yelling at some other people who were looking at that same kiosk that he was going to (paraphrasing) 'forcefully insert a camera into their nether regions'. I think the subjects of his tirade were tourists. I hope they take better remembrances of Seattle with them than being loudly threatened by a crazy person.

A King County Sheriff's car was across the street with a pair of officers inside. Maybe they were keeping an eye on the menacing loud guy. I asked them where the tunnel entrance was and they told me it was underneath Westlake Center, which was going to be the next place I investigated. There were no stairs that I could find, only escalators on which wheeled vehicles were prohibited. So I found an elevator and went down a level, followed a few signs and went through a few doors, then found the southbound lane and went down a staircase to it. My bus pulled up while I was at the top of the stairs, so I hustled. Once I got to the stairs, everything was fine, but I don't think I'll try using Westlake with my bike again -- it's a pain to get to, and who needs waiting for an elevator (which might be full) when you shouldn't have to? If I catch another King County Metro #150 home this evening, I'll try dismounting at another station, probably University Street, and see how that goes.

Postscript: I took the Sounder home instead, as my wife had lined up a babysitting gig that I had to be home earlier to facilitate, so no more tunnel exploration for me today. Ironically, the train was late, so I missed my connection, only getting home at the last minute.

Some downsides to bus riding and bicycling in Seattle

2008-09-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I caught a King County Metro #150 downtown at the Convention Place station, at the north terminus of the bus tunnel. One or two stops later, a scruffy looking man got on wearing nothing but a very dirty hospital johnny. No underwear. Yes, he put his worst side backwards in full view of everyone on the bus, including the very young girl sitting with her Dad across from me. He got off a couple stops later, I think at the International District station at the south end of the bus tunnel, showing everything to everyone again, this time for longer. Wow. And yuck. But whattaya gonna do? It's downtown. Sometimes stuff just happens there. Right?

Last week I got passed by a bus driver while riding my bike fast downhill, a Sound Transit #511 driver going south from Jefferson on 5th Ave, towards that same ID Station. The driver really didn't need to do that, as I was going plenty fast, but in his haste he wobbled into my lane as he passed me while we were both going around a curve. Then he pulled into my lane just ahead of me, in time to hit the brakes for the stoplight at the bottom of the hill. I had to brake harder behind him, of course. This is really not something a sensible, law-abiding bicyclist should have to deal with: unlike the subjects of this video, this driver definitely knew I was there.

As a partial compensation, on my way home yesterday afternoon I biked past a bus with a full advertising wrapper around it, the wrapper composed of many many progressive bumper stickers. Two said "I share the road with bicyclists". I was a little nonplussed.

It would have been nice if the moron in a huge pickup that drove right behind me while I was zooming down another hill last Friday followed the advice on those bumper stickers. This was on N 80th Street, coming east from Greenwood Ave N. I couldn't see him, as I didn't want to turn around at speed with him on my butt, but I could sure see that the top of his pickup's shadow was taller than my own as I flew down the hill. And I'm a tall guy. I was also following at a quite reasonable distance behind another truck, at very nearly the same speed it was going. Fortunately for all concerned. I had a turn to make two blocks later, and when I signaled my intent to do so, the driver behind me backed off.

Meanwhile, Sound Transit just bought a $250K repair truck that it's going to have to turn right around and sell, doubtless at a loss, because it's too big for the bus tunnel they bought it to maintain. Argh. I wish they'd get around to building the demonstration PRT project they promised when we voted for Sound Move back in 1996.

A bus to the Snoqualmie Valley. Three, actually.

2008-08-14T00:09:00.000-07:00

I took a bus ride with my son to the Snoqualmie Valley last weekend. We brought bikes. He'd just turned 11 years old and I wanted to take him on a big summer adventure, far beyond the usual in-city activities. So I sold him on the idea of a two-day bike ride over the Cascades and through the fabled 2-mile-long Snoqualmie Tunnel.

This would be a long ride for an 11-year-old boy, with the worst hills on the route somewhat paradoxically close to Seattle, just beyond the Sammamish River Trail in Woodinville. So I decided to skip past them by busing to the flat Snoqualmie Valley.

It turns out that very few buses go that way in the morning, and the ones that do have relatively complex connections.

The bus that gets to the Snoqualmie Valley is the King County Metro #929, which is the size of a large van. Only three run per day, only one of them in the morning. They start in downtown Redmond.

Not too many buses go from Seattle to downtown Redmond, either, just the Sound Transit #545, which I rode quite often last year. The 545 crosses Lake Washington on the SR-520 floating bridge, and has the luxury of a three-bike rack, but this still isn't nearly enough for the demand, so if we wanted some assurance of getting a spot together, we would have to catch it earlier on its route, from downtown. This necessitated using a third bus to get downtown, the King County Metro #358, one of the most heavily used routes in Metro's entire system, though little-used by bicyclists.

We left early, to compensate for any missed connections we might experience due to wave-offs. I woke up to Christy McWilson and Dave Alvin's cover of Moby Grape's classic "8:05" playing in my head, I figure 'cause that's the time I wanted to get on the road. We didn't quite make that, meaning that we would miss our first bus, but we still had plenty of wiggle room left. We rode up the sidewalk on Aurora Avenue another quarter mile to catch the next bus earlier on its route, then caught it, no problem. There were no other bikes on its rack.

Downtown, we got off at 5th & Wall, then biked over to 8th & Olive, where we would catch the 545. We arrived at the same time as that bus, which had no bikes on its rack, but unfortunately its driver didn't see us waving at him from across the street and left without us. We caught up three blocks later at a stop light, a place where no stop existed, and he told us he would wait for us at his Bellevue Avenue stop a few blocks ahead, God bless him. I don't think English was his first language, as he neglected to tell us that his bus turned right onto Bellevue Avenue and so I churned up the hill, actually beating him to the intersection, and sailed on through. He turned right behind me, where I couldn't see him. By the time I turned around to look, he was gone. I imagine he saw me go through the intersection, waited a few seconds at the stop anyway, shook his head sadly, and went on.

So, we rode back down the Olive Way hill to our original stop to wait for the next bus. By that time, another bicyclist was already there, and when that next bus came along a few minutes later, there were already two bikes on its rack. He got the third one, and we got to wait for our third 545 of the morning. We were actually still in good shape, as I'd allowed plenty of extra time, but I was starting to get concerned.

The next bus came along maybe two minutes later; the two earlier buses must have been late. And huzzah, there were no bikes on its rack, so we mounted up and headed for deepest Redmond. As usual, the bus was pretty well full by the time we got to Overlake where all the Microsofties exited. It was virtually empty by the time we got to downtown Redmond. We were still 20 minutes early for the 929, thank goodness. My son rode around in the skate park next to the transit center while we waited.

The 929 is one of the few buses in the King County Metro system that doesn't require an official stop for people to get off; all you have to do is tell the driver where you'd like to go, and he'll get as close as he can to that spot on his route. I'd planned to get off at the intersection of Novelty Hill Road and the West Snoqualmie Valley Road, but when I told the driver our final destination, he suggested that we might want to get off 1/4 mile later, as that stretch of the West Snoqualmie Valley Road is curvy and narrow. Bus drivers rock! We took him up on it and held up traffic briefly at the light while we took our bikes off the rack, then headed over the 124th Street bridge across the river and picked up the Snoqualmie Valley Trail on the other side. The rest of that ride is another story entirely, and a lot more of an adventure than getting to it in the first place, but at least with a little extra time we were able to get there safely; it took us two hours to bus those 25 miles, of which almost 45 minutes was spent waiting for buses in one place or another, much of which would've been avoidable if the buses' capacity to carry bikes wasn't so limited, but we got there safe, sound, and ready for an adventure.

Buses, bikes, and a hard summer rain

2008-08-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

Last month, Seattle got some rain. Not terribly much, you understand, but more than is normal for Seattle in late July. I was oblivious to the forecast one day when I was doing a bus/biike commute; I had no problem getting to work, but about halfway through the day it started to rain. Pretty hard, too. For Seattle. The roads were good and wet by the time I left work and biked the mile to the nearest bus stop, and it didn't take long for me to reach that same soggy state.

I wasn't the only bicyclist caught by surprise by the summer rain; another was waiting at my bus stop even though I arrived 10 minutes before my bus was due. He said he'd been waved off by the previous bus. When the next bus finally arrived, it had one open slot on its bike rack, which the other bicyclist got, so it was my turn to get waved off for the next bus 15 minutes later. I saw many more bikes than usual on bus bike racks that day, I think because those other bicyclists weren't having any more fun than I was bicycling into a horizontal rain.

When the next bus arrived, it was jammed, but at least it had an open spot on its bike rack. This kind of crowd is unusual for an afternoon #150 into Seattle, in my experience, but it happened again in nicer weather a few days later with me wedged standing into the front of the bus next to a pair of attractive young blonde women in snug white tops, which appear to be in fashion lately. I figured maybe it was because of a big Mariners crowd, but those days only a couple people got off at the ballpark. Lots more got off at Westlake that nicer day, some carrying Nordstrom bags, including the two women I was next to. Maybe there was a big sale?

I miss King County Metro Transit's 3-bike racks.

Seafair By Bike

2008-08-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

I took the family to Seafair last weekend. After 18 years in Seattle I'd never been, but I thought our kids needed some exposure to a little of Seattle's older, more unique traditions. We got a good deal on tickets at a school auction, so we went. I figured traffic would be horrible, so I looked for an alternative to driving there.

Shuttle buses cost $5 for every rider, including kids, which would have added up to more than the admission. A regular bus running right through our neighborhood could have taken us to within a mile of the park entrance, and it looked like it would be no problem catching a ride on that bus since we would get on early on its route, but coming back looked like it could be ugly: everyone getting onto the bus at the same time, and buses only running twice per hour.

So we biked. It would have been a little far for the younger kids, so for the only time all weekend, I used a car, though only for part of the route. We had a good weekend all around, running what errands we need to on foot or by bike. One errand had me wheeling my bike into an auto parts store for a quart of oil. The clerk asked if it was for the bike.

(I don't think he sees a lot of bicyclists there, but some of us bike or use transit when we can, and drive when we have no other choice.)

Five bikes hung or stood on various bits of our minivan to Denny Blaine Park, which I figure was about four miles north of Genesee Park, the main entrance to Seafair. It was far enough away that I guessed hardly anyone else would be doing what we were and I guessed right; there was plenty of parking there even though parking lot was small. Most of the route from there to Genesee Park was on Lake Washington Blvd, which is pretty highly frequented by bicyclists during the summertime, so I figured drivers there would be more careful of us, and especially our kids who don't always move in a predictable line. The plan worked beautifully. There was a little bit of hill climbing to get from Lake Washington Blvd to the main park entrance, but we were in for a big surprise when we arrived: REI was sponsoring a valet bike parking tent. Maybe 40 other people used it, which seemed like a disappointing turnout, but for us it was unbelievably convenient. Sure, other people might have had VIP entrances, and tickets to lakeside tents that required special passes, but we got in and out a lot more easily than almost any of them did. The REI tent even had a free-spin wheel where they gave away yet more swag, and from which we were lucky enough to come away with a pair of bike water bottles plus a few things the kids thought more highly of.

I love REI!

The rest of the way down to the lake was a sea of military recruiters with 18-wheel simulators. I have no idea what went on inside those, and fortunately my kids are all too young to be either interested in them, or of interest to the recruiters staffing them.

Seafair itself was about what we expected. The Blue Angels drew the most interest, but people grooved on the hydros, too. My kids have seen the hydro challenge on the SAFECO Field scoreboard enough times, plus a few races on TV, but this was the first time they got to see them in person. It was a nice way to see part of an old Seattle tradition, before Seattle became just another dot on the increasingly homogenous U.S. map.

Coming back, my wife flatted and I didn't have all the tools I needed to fix it, which was a good reminder to get my supplies together before our big weekend trip, so my sons and I went on while my wife and daughter got a treat at Starbucks. Then we drove back and picked everyone up. She got her tire fixed the next day, and I should now have everything I need to fix a bike this weekend.

If we ever go back to Seafair again, which may depend a lot on what our kids think of that idea next summer, we'll probably do the same thing we did this year: park at Denny Blaine and bike the rest of the way; no traffic to speak of with free valet bike parking. Nice!

When you miss a bus

2008-08-05T02:48:00.000-07:00

This morning, I was late for my bus to downtown. The next one would be 20 minutes later, so I decided to bike there instead. Downtown, I barely missed my connection to Tukwila. I decided to bike there, too.

My commute ended up taking almost twice as long as it would have if I'd caught my buses, and more than three times as long as it would have if I'd driven. I'll tell you what, though ... there were a ton of other people bicycling this morning, the most I've ever seen on a day that wasn't a Bike To Work Day.

I must've missed my return bus from Tukwila to downtown, too, as I waited more than 10 minutes for it to arrive. I decided to wait for the next bus this time, as I'd been a little tired after 20+ miles of biking this morning, and I knew I would almost certainly have 7-8 more miles to bike between downtown and my house later. I also have a big ride coming up this weekend that I don't want to go into tired.

Next month there'll be a transportation conference in Ithaca, NY, home of Cornell University. It'll be all about Podcars (Personal Rapid Transit). I look forward to a time when U.S. policymakers start following the lead of their European counterparts and begin building truly sustainable public transit that you won't have to wait for, much less wait 15, 20, or even 30 minutes for. And it'll carry many many more bikes than buses or trains can on longer trips like my bike commute!

Two interesting encounters with motor vehicles to report on the way home. Coming northbound across the Fremont Bridge while I was in the right lane (the one with the sharrows) some [person] in a black Jetta came squirting past as we neared N 34th Street and cut me off so he could turn right in front of me. His girlfriend (I assume they weren't married) looked over at me as he did so, I figure because she was concerned that maybe he wasn't doing such a smart thing. I frowned and shook my head, which is about as demonstrative as I get on a bike. Then, further north on Greenwood Avenue, a bus driver did something I've never seen before: I find that on slight/moderate uphills I sometimes travel at roughly the same average speed as local buses. The buses hop from one stop to another while I slog away at a constant pace, but if we start at the same time the bus and I will leapfrog each other. Well, this afternoon I passed a bus that was pulled over at N 73rd Street, but instead of racing past and pulling over in front of me, which is what every other bus driver has done in a similar situation, in my experience, the driver slowed down as s/he approached the next stop and let me continue through it ahead of him/her. I gave a little wave to acknowledge the courtesy, as I try to do every time I see a driver do something nice for a bicyclist, and of course as this was on a level stretch of road where I generally average a higher speed than local buses, I didn't see that bus again. Regardless, northbound #5 driver at about 7:00 PM on August 4th, you rock.

A bus to SAFECO Field

2008-08-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

For my son's birthday, he wanted to take in a Mariners game at SAFECO Field, just him and his Dad. My wife was bummed, 'cause she likes baseball, too, and we both cherish one-on-one time with our kids, which we don't get enough of anymore. They're growing up fast.

I got some good seats for the occasion, 5th-row on the Field level, close to where the ballgirls sit; I thought it would make a special remembrance if he could bring home a foul ball to go with the Felix Hernandez bobbleheads we both got for arriving early (I'm saving the other for my second son's birthday in a few more weeks). He brought his mitt, too, in case we got something hit more directly our way. I was glad because he's a pretty good young ballplayer and might just save someone in our area a nasty little bump. I also bought him a birthday package, which included some nice swag for a good price, plus an individualized birthday wish on the big scoreboard.

Then came the complication: how would we get there? I would be coming from my office in Tukwila while he would be coming with my wife from North Seattle.

The solution was easy: my wife had some errands to run downtown and could bring him to King Street Station in plenty of time for the game, while I would bus/bike to work and back to the same place. But then it became not so easy: as I was pulling into my bus stop in Tukwila for the return ride, the bus came up from behind and roared past; the driver didn't know I wanted to climb on board, and no one else was waiting there. This would make me 15 minutes late, and probably make my wife grouchy and my son anxious -- I didn't have a cell phone that day.

While I was waiting for the next bus, about a dozen people walked to the stop, many wearing Mariners-branded clothing. I think some were out-of-towners being brought to the ballpark by their local hosts. None had ridden this bus to the ballpark before, and were concerned about whether it was the right bus and whether it would get them there on time. I let them know which bus to get on and reassured them that they would get there in plenty of time. I can see how it would be intimidating for someone who isn't accustomed to buses to make the leap to riding one to the ballpark: you have to do a fair amount of research to figure out the right place and time to arrive for a bus going in the direction you want, and you have to remember the number of the bus you want to ride in case there are several different buses that stop there. King County Metro's Trip Planner is an invaluable resource for this, but for some trips I still find myself having to spend 10-30 minutes figuring out the best connection.

The bus came, there was room for all of us and a lot more, plus my bike, and we did indeed arrive in plenty of time. It turns out that traffic and the nature of her errands made my wife even later than I was; but only by 3-4 minutes, so meeting turned out to be no trouble. I put my bike on our minivan's bike rack, then my son and I walked to the ballpark from King Street Station. My wife could've brought my son's bike along, too, as there's now plenty of bike parking in the SAFECO Field parking structure, but I didn't want us riding 8 miles home in the dark; it would have been my son's first nighttime ride, and downtown isn't the best place for an introduction to night riding.

We stopped for a sausage and a hot dog outside the ballpark and arrived in plenty of time for the game. I had him introduce himself to the ballgirl and let her know that it was his birthday. He was reluctant until he saw someone else do it first.

It was a beautiful evening, my son loved the bobblehead and the nice surprise of the birthday package. But until the 9th inning only two foul balls were hit our way, with the first going to the first boy who'd introduced himself to the ballgirl (the second wasn't hit anywhere close to us, and the ballgirl handed it to someone who was a lot closer to where she got it). By the bottom of the 5th, the ballgirls switched places and my son introduced himself to the new ballgirl all over again. And we waited. Two foul balls were hit in the air to within a few seats of ours, but not close enough.

With one out in the top of the ninth of what looked to be a blowout Mariners win, the second-to-last Cleveland batter hit a foul ball close to our ballgirl. She made a very nice grab (these ballgirls were obviously capable players in their own right), and then, while at least a dozen kids clamored for the ball nearby, she carried it to my son, who was waiting patiently at the end of our aisle about 30' away from where she caught it, and handed it to him. He was practically glowing. Thanks, Seattle Mariners, for hiring such thoughtful and capable people! Best of all, my son thought to compliment the ballgirl on her excellent play, making his Dad one very proud papa. I think the same batter (or maybe it was the next one, as my memory got a little hazy right about then) promptly hit into a double play to end the game with an all-too-rare-this-season Mariners W.

My son and I walked a mile to 3rd Avenue afterwards, waited 10 minutes for a bus that would bring us to within 1/4 mile of home, and got home late but safe and happy. My wife told me later that my son thanked her profusely for the experience, saying he had a really great time. I did too, if it came to that, but I'm especially glad that he went out of his way to tell her so, as I know she wanted to be there with us.

Bus transit in California's Sierra Nevada

2008-07-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

They say that buses are only practical in higher-density urban areas, right? Well, maybe not; over the past few weeks I've seen a lot of buses in action far from any urban area, in California's Eastern and Central Sierra. I've also seen areas in Idaho that were even more remote, and where no transit went at all, but some discussion of lower-density areas where current transit technology is (relatively) viable is still in order.

I just returned from a 17-day family vacation. We did whitewater rafting, swimming, biking, hiking, volcanic crater exploration, miscellaneous environmental consciousness raising for the kids, and many other mountain activities for young and old. The weather was generally cooler than here in the flatlands, especially at night, though we did get a few hot days, but we could always escape the heat one way or another.

Our longest stop on this two-thousand mile odyssey was in Mammoth Lakes, CA, in the Eastern Sierra. Mammoth has a population of about 7,000, though it fluctuates depending on season, as it's a resort town. We weren't there during the peak ski season, of course, but Mammoth Lakes has been developing summer activities in recent years, with fishing and mountain biking the chief draw.

Mammoth Lakes is served by the Eastern Sierra Transit Authority, both in town and to/from nearby towns (which are at least 30 miles away). Nearly everyone arrives in Mammoth Lakes by SUV, as it's a high-dollar destination for mostly Southern Californians despite being a five-hour drive from Los Angeles. My wife has been visiting Mammoth Lakes since she was a girl, when it wasn't so expensive as it is now. Nonetheless, its in-town bus service is used by many during the summer on four regular routes, two of which terminate at destinations higher up the mountain and several miles out of town, one at the ski lodge. Most Mammoth Lakes buses have a nostalgic-looking trolley appearance, and bicyclists going to the ski lodge are the only people who get charged a fare. One route ran right past our condo.

I'd really hoped to use one of these buses during my week in Mammoth Lakes, but the schedule never quite worked out, as the bus past our condo only ran once an hour, and since we'd brought bikes on our trip, all my 1-2 mile trips into town (and many of those outside it) were more conveniently served by bicycling than by waiting for a scheduled bus. My wife managed one short bus ride, however, from the in-town route that ran every 15 minutes to its terminus 1 mile away from our condo. She biked the rest of the way.

One of the chief attractions of these buses was that the ones going to the ski lodge pulled a trailer that looked as though it could carry about 20 bikes. The ski lodge was the center of mountain biking activity, with a connection to the gondola ferrying passengers to the top of Mammoth Mountain (11,053'). Bike paths honeycomb the slopes, plus one alongside the road between the ski lodge and the town below that I took my two sons on: I biked up 800' to the ski lodge (at 8900') while the rest of my family piled into our minivan to meet me there. We then rode the gondola to the top of the mountain for lunch, then the kids played in some leftover snow at the summit. Later, we rode the gondola back down to the ski lodge, and my sons and I took the mountain bike trail back into town while my wife and younger daughter drove back. We might've used the bus, but the cost of three day permits for that big bike trailer was significantly higher than driving one round trip.

I also saw a few buses heading from Mammoth Lakes to Yosemite, operated by the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS). These were fairly expensive, especially for the kids, so rather than use one to get to Yosemite we made Yosemite an extended stop on our way back to Seattle instead. Yosemite has its own network of buses, which operate in some areas of Yosemite Valley where cars are prohibited. Again, I got close to using one, but the kids were having way too much fun on their bike adventures to substitute the paler experience of a bus ride. There were also open-air tour buses in Yosemite Valley, complete with guides, which looked like a great way to see the jaw-dropping sights there, but I've probably seen/heard most of what those guides had to say 20 years ago when I used to haunt this place on skipacking trips. Maybe when the kids are older.

As a regular bus rider user in a major urban area I hear a lot of media talk about how some sorts of transit are suitable in some areas and not in others, and that at least a medium urban density is required for economic operation of a transit network, but as shown by my experience in Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite this month, that ain't necessarily so. Public transit is subsidized to a greater or lesser extent everywhere in the United States, but some systems are closer to paying their own way than others. King County Metro only gets about 20% of its operating costs from fares with the rest subsidized, but some networks, particularly in areas frequented by tourists, can charge more for fares and still be close to a profitable operating margin. The Seattle Center Monorail operated profitably for many years by mostly catering to a tourist ridership, and I must assume that YARTS does the same now, but these are privately run, with relatively high fares. The Morgantown PRT (Personal Rapid Transit), serving the campus of West Virginia University, may be one of the best examples of a public (or at least semi-public) transportation system that operates at close to profitability: its system manager told me two years ago in a phone conversation that his system recovers more than 50% of its operating costs from fares alone, with the fare just 50¢. And this despite construction debt for that system that is far higher than it should have been due to Nixonian bungling while that system was being designed in the early 1970s.

I'm really looking forward to the opening of the PRT system at London's Heathrow Airport next year ... it might just herald a revolution in how people and goods move, all around the globe, promising far more cost-effective and energy-efficient transportation than any currently operating alternative.

Increasing transit ridership

2008-06-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

Nice article in today's P-I for first-time bus riders: Gas prices killing your budget? Why not hop on the bus instead? Covers the basics. Includes a pic of the ID station where I get on my bus southbound to Tukwila, mornings. My favorite quote: "Most of all, be prepared for an adventure at times."

And why not indeed?

A couple thoughts on this reported increase in transit ridership in Seattle: first, I've definitely noticed that some of the buses I ride are more crowded than they were a few months ago. Not that they're exactly crowded yet; the 355 used to rarely have a standee a few months ago, and now it seems to have half a dozen, at times. But there's probably room for a couple dozen more before that bus gets what I would consider to be "packed". The 150, going opposite the direction of the commute (Seattle to Tukwila, mornings), still has less than half its seats full. Same situation in the afternoon. Most of the time these days, my bike is the only one on the rack on either of these buses (or the 101, also opposite the direction of the commute). Second, all things considered, the P-I's reported 6% increase since last year really isn't that much, sad to say, though of course any increase in public transit use is to be applauded.

Meanwhile, I drove to Olympia for a Memorial Day get-together with some good friends. The freeways seemed practically deserted. This was amazing ... can that many fewer people really be making elective car trips? It's a very hopeful development.

Finally, after all my griping about the Sounder over the past few months, I've actually managed to catch it a few more times in recent weeks. I am appalled at its minuscule ridership north to Seattle in the afternoon: in four trips on the Sounder over the past few months, I've never counted more than 10 people in my train car, which is what I saw on my first trip. In what, 95 seats per car? The last two trips, I counted just 6 people in my train car, and no more than 60 people (and probably somewhat less) on a train with a seating capacity of nearly 600. There are somewhat more people waiting for the train to go south again, however ... I figure there were something like 100-150 the last time I rode past them to King Street Station.

Light rail construction impacts on the Rainier Valley

2008-04-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

Last month my wife and I were invited to attend a party in Columbia City, sort of a restaurant opening. The timing worked out, we got child care for the kids, and we attended, just the two of us, for a nice date. The food was good, the company was good, and the music was good, but it was nonetheless a fairly unique experience for us, as everyone else at the party was African-American, and we're not.

No, this wasn't uncomfortable, and we both enjoyed ourselves quite a bit, even getting up to dance despite not recognizing a single song the DJ was playing, I have always enjoyed such rare and precious exposure to the warm generosity of other, parallel cultures, but in the past I've usually had to travel to get it. My wife and I got to sit and talk at our table like we would have on any other date, and which we have so few opportunities to do now as busy parents, but we also talked with others and got a little bit of the story behind why the restaurant had opened there. You see, the restaurant used to have another location in the Rainier Valley, which had its business destroyed by the light rail construction there. Yes, some money was made available to help mitigate some of these construction impacts on existing businesses there, and some may have been applied to this particular business, but not enough to save it. So they opened a second location and eventually closed the first one.

Last weekend an article came out in the Seattle Times titled "New light rail clears way for an MLK makeover", which related that all the expected new development spurred by this new light rail line's real estate boom would be "forcing out some businesses", much as has been discussed in many similar previous articles on the same subject.

Well, this has obviously occurred, but I wonder at the scale of business closures that have occurred, which do not seem to have been fully reported.

There is certainly some closure to the light rail system being developed to run through the Rainier Valley, which last weekend's Seattle Times article on the subject seems to explicitly address: its main beneficiaries seem to be developers, some of whom were interviewed explicitly on that account. Likewise, the Interurban line on which construction was begun in 1891 (and which ran through 1937) was also built largely to facilitate development in the Rainier Valley, though of course in those days the number of people displaced by construction was rather smaller. One hopes that Central Link light rail will provide somewhat safer, faster, and more reliable service than the old Interurban did, but I don't think anyone is under any illusions that operating such a transportation link will be any more profitable now than it was then, raising the question of which group will benefit from the construction of this new transportation link most. "Developers" seems to be the answer, though of course the benefit to future residents will be tangible, as it will be to some local businesses that are able adapt to change by spending enough to cater to the new and more gentrified clientele, and of course to anyone who owns property in that area.

Sounder, redux

2008-04-09T07:34:00.000-07:00

OK, last week I'm buying my ticket for the Sounder at the Tukwila station for my second trip on the Sounder to Seattle. I've ridden to the station from my office on my bike and am looking forward to a speedy trip home. Not as fast as driving, but pretty good nonetheless. The ticket dispenser is under the platform. I put my first dollar in and start hearing bells from up above. Yes, that's the train arriving, on it's only afternoon trip in this direction for the entire day. I hurry up with inserting bills and coins, and my ticket comes out, dated 7:22 PM (I believe this is a transfer expiration time) The train is due to arrive at 5:24 PM. I start up the ramp to the platform, and as the train comes into my line of sight, it has already started moving. The engineer looks over at me and keeps going.

Well, there goes my $3.25 fare down the drain -- the back of the ticket states that it will be honored as "a one-zone fare on King County Metro bus services" but the one time I'd tried using it for that purpose in February, the bus driver would not honor it.

I mount the bike and head to the nearest bus stop half a mile away -- the next bus to downtown Seattle leaves in 8 minutes. I could bike the whole way, but it's about a 16-mile ride and I want to get home to my family. On my birthday. The bus comes on time and I speed downtown, then ride home the 6 miles uphill from there.

My recommendation to Sound Transit: put the ticket vending machine on the platform itself rather than under it, so passengers don't have to go out of their way to buy tickets and risk missing the train, especially when it arrives and departs early, as it did last week.

Bike/bus wave-offs

2008-03-25T05:21:00.000-07:00

OK, there's at least one issue that hasn't been working perfectly on my bike/bus commute to Tukwila: wave-offs.

That's right, even in March I'm already experiencing wave-offs, where a bus I hope to take from Seattle's bus tunnel already has two bikes in its bike rack and I get waved off to wait for the next available bus. I've already been waved off once from the International District Station, and nearly got waved off a second time there.

The actual wave-off occurred all the way back in February from a southbound King County Metro #150, which drove up with two bikes filling up its bike rack. The bus driver shrugged his shoulders and said the next bus would be along in 15 minutes, then closed the door and went on. Fortunately for me, a King County Metro #101 came along just one minute later and I'd done enough research beforehand to know that even though it took me down a different route and would require a 3-mile bike ride to my office rather than the 1-mile ride after getting off the #150, I could still do it. So this didn't cost me much, though it would have been a lot more difficult for someone who hadn't done their homework ahead of time.

The near-wave-off also occurred with a King County Metro #150 bus, which this time was preceded by a #101 bus, and so I would indeed have had to wait for 15 minutes for the next bus. Three buses came through the tunnel one after the other. The first was a #101 with no bikes on board. The third was a #150 with one bike on board. All three buses stopped in a line, with the first two opening their doors. I had my bike clearly visible to all three drivers close to the actual stop, where I'd been waiting for about five minutes. Another bicyclist came down the stairs and immediately moved toward the #150 bus, but the driver waved him forward to the actual stop. As the other bicyclist moved forward, the two lead buses moved out and the #150 bus came to the actual bus stop, where I mounted my bike into its rack and boarded, so the other bicyclist probably had to wait that 15 minutes instead of me.

I have been very fortunate in my bike-commuting in not getting waved off often, other than when I was attempting to board eastbound buses from the Montlake Freeway Station last year, when this started taking me 20-30 minutes of waiting even in March and April, and so I eventually quit trying to do so entirely, bicycling all the way around the north end of Lake Washington instead. Two (or three) bikes per bus really isn't enough, especially with wave-offs already occurring fairly frequently, with Seattle attempting to increase its number of bike trips by a factor of 3 over the next 9 years, and with even Central Link light rail unable to accommodate very many more bicycles per train (I understand from a presentation I attended last year promoting Sound Transit's failed East Link proposal that each light rail vehicle will be able to accommodate only 2 bicycles). One thing I like so much about Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is that each vehicle can carry a bicycle, and system capacities are expected to be in the neighborhood of 30 vehicles per minute, meaning up to 30 bicyclists and their riders can be carried every minute (= 1800 bikes per hour) by each PRT line. Compare that to 3 bikes per bus every 6 minutes (= 30 bikes per hour, maximum), or even 2 bikes times a maximum of 4 LRT vehicles per train every 5 minutes minimum (= 96 bikes per hour at a theoretical maximum) for Central Link light rail, and PRT looks like a huge boon to enabling human-powered transportation, especially when you consider that PRT vehicle headways are expected to eventually drop to just a half-second, quadrupling the number of bicycles that could be accommodated from the two-second PRT headways mentioned above.

Bike/bus commute conversations

2008-03-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

I'm bike-commuting twice a week these days, except during weeks with lots of rain like last week. I haven't ridden the bike for an entire 45-mile round-trip yet, but I'm working up to it. Yesterday was typical, where my bike ride on the morning leg was minimal -- I piggybacked on two express buses, only bicycling 1-2 miles at the beginning, end, and between the transfer bus stops, but I rode the bulk of the way home (16-17 miles), only catching a bus for 5 of the last 6 miles on the uphill finish.

I really don't have many complaints about the express bus/bike piggybacks except of course that they continue to take roughly twice as long as driving -- it's really quite remarkable that they work as well as they do: for all its imperfections King County Metro seems like a remarkably competent organization.

My one-sided conversation with another bus passenger yesterday afternoon reminds me that I've been having similar interactions on most of my last few bus trips with people who are either in trouble or who have some sort of disability. Whether it's my bicycling garb (wearing shorts in the winter?!) which makes me seem more approachable than the usual bus commuter is something I may never know.Yesterday after bicycling from Tukwila to the north extent of the downtown ride-free zone to catch my express bus home, I made my way back through the bus towards the back when a young man started chattering at me. He had an empty seat next to him (unusually, there were still quite a few empty seats, even though this is one of the busiest routes in Seattle) and looked harmless, so I sat down with him. This seemed to rev him up even more, and he started nattering on about some of his bodily functions and speculating on his own interspecies genetics, dropping the occasional f-bomb. He did notice that I was sniffly and sneezy (spring is hay fever time for me, which bicycling exacerbates), and so asked a few questions that allowed me a few words to contribute to the interaction, but it was mostly a nonstop stream of words from him that I (and the people around me) didn't really need to hear, though friendly enough.

Two weeks ago I got lectured by a man with Down Syndrome (for the second time) about nutrition and proper health maintenance. I let him augment my conscience on health issues, about which he is frankly rather well informed, now substituting fruit for a scone upon my arrival at work most days. I enjoy talking with him, actually, and I'm sure I'll do so again.

Also two weeks ago I sat across from two men who were discussing their rehab, love lives, and some of their near-term dreams, like buying a bed or a TV. One may have been advising the other as part of an AA-type group. The other discussed his girlfriend's jail time and the possibility that he might have some soon, too, if he ended up having to 'do something crazy' in order to pay his bills. There but for the grace of God, I suppose.

Between all these interactions, I can see how riding public transit could be an off-putting experience for some, certainly. I am large enough that I generally don't feel unsafe in these situations, but others might not, especially after dark. I keep in mind at times like this the experience a similarly large friend of mine had 15 years ago when he moved to Seattle and tried taking one of these same buses to his job downtown: when he got home he said he wouldn't be doing that again, I presume because he encountered some similar people on his trip and felt more deterred than I do.

Some years ago I read that the last time in modern America when all the classes mingle is high school. Well, as more people start riding public transit again, that may change. For the better, I sincerely hope.

A first winter bike-commute

2008-02-22T06:25:00.000-08:00

I started a new job last month in Tukwila. I drove alone for the first two weeks, but as the weather improves and the daylight stretches further into the evening, I expect to spend more and more time bicycling to and from work. Last Friday was my first non-SOV commute to my new job.

There are some complications. Most noteworthy is that it's a 45-mile round trip, and part of the route has no good bike options, but I'm working up to it. I did some research ahead of time, not quite enough but still a fair amount, and learned that the best I could expect to do on my way to work was a 55-minute multimodal ride, which compares to 35 minutes by car including finding a parking space and then walking the usual 1/4 mile from that parking space to my office; I work in a really big building, for a really big employer. Today it took me 70 minutes, or twice as long as it would have if I'd driven. This seems pretty typical for transit: there can be many benefits to using transit, but in just about any West Coast city, getting where you want to go quickly is not one of them.

I took an express bus from North Seattle to the south end of downtown, the King County Metro #355. Nearly all the seats were taken but there were no standees, which is pretty typical in my experience for most of the peak-hour King County Metro bus routes I've ridden as well as the Sound Transit #545, but excluding the backbone King County Metro routes like the #358 on which it was rare for me to get a seat when I was regularly riding it as recently as a year ago.

After three stops in the U-District and a zing down the express lanes to downtown, I got off the 355 and hopped on my bike to search for the International District bus tunnel station. It only took a few extra minutes to find, but by then I'd already missed my next bus, which could have been either the King County Metro #101 or the #150.

On my way through the train station, after getting off the escalator, I got asked (nicely) by a couple burly guys in transit jackets to get off my bike ... I wasn't pedaling and was proceeding at barely more than walking speed, but rules are rules. I didn't know that rule at the time, but live and learn. It wouldn't be the last time I learned something today, and my next trip will go more smoothly. The next useful bus for me came along 10 minutes after I arrived.

My next bus, the #150, was another express that took me down the busway from downtown (where I passed a two-car Sound Transit light rail train moving north on what must have been a test through the graffiti-afflicted section on both sides of the busway and rail route near the stadiums), hopped onto I-5 at Spokane Street, and got off 10 miles later on Interurban Ave. The ride from downtown was wide open, which is as expected for a reverse commute at that hour. I rode the #150 to Ft. Dent Way, got off, and turned left on my bike at that intersection with traffic close on my tail, entered the Interurban Trail as it began just South of there, and crossed the Green River on a new bike/ped bridge.

The trail then took a big bend around the Fun Center at the intersection of Interurban and Grady Way, and halfway through that bend I came upon the railroad crossing I'd hoped to find there but hadn't seen on any of the (outdated) online maps I'd tried using. Best of all, there was no sign there saying "Do Not Enter" or "No Trespassing" or anything of that ilk, so I looked both ways (I grew up around midwestern railroad tracks, and so was comfortable in crossing when I was sure it was safe) and crossed. When I reached the other side I looked back and did indeed see a sign indicating that entry was prohibited, so I imagine this crossing will be the last of its kind for me, especially since I saw a news story later that day that someone was killed by a train in Carkeek Park two days before. About 1000 people are killed in the U.S. by trains every year -- entirely too many. Note to Burlington Northern: Please put up a "Do Not Enter" sign on the west side of this crossing!

This quick hop across the railroad crossing saved me a mile of bicycling, and of course I was able to save myself the trouble of parking and of walking the 1/4 mile from my parking space, but it still took me quite a while longer to take this pair of express buses in getting to work than it takes me to drive. Note to the city of Seattle and King County: Finish the Duwamish and Green River Trails, though I congratulate you for doing as much as you already have on these routes over the last several years.

And finally, a note to my new employer, which will charge me money to use the showers at its facility: charging people extra to commute via bicycle is bad policy!

On the return trip I tried something different: the Sounder commuter train, which I'd never ridden before. There is only one afternoon train per day going northbound to Seattle, but its timing is actually pretty good for me, and with a timely connection to a downtown express bus that would take me the rest of the way home, the return trip promised something that transit has never been able to deliver on for me in 20+ years of commuting: a trip time roughly comparable to driving. It isn't just the Sounder to credit for this unusual competitiveness: the Sounder actually takes just one minute less from the vicinity of my office to downtown than a bus that leaves several minutes earlier, but the combination of its speed on the southern leg of my return trip with the quick connection to an express bus downtown and that express bus' use of express lanes for most of its ride home means there is little time spent waiting at a transfer point, which I maintain can be a deal-killer for too many prospective transit users.

Anyway, I arrived at the Sounder station in the afternoon several minutes early, which turned out to be a good thing because I went straight to the platform hoping to buy a ticket, and then learned that the ticket-vending machines are actually down in the parking lot. So I went back down the ramp to buy a ticket and then hurried up to the platform to catch the train, which was just then pulling in. The cost of the ticket from Tukwila to Seattle was $3.25, about 60% more than the comparable bus ride would have cost, which was disappointing, but even more disappointing was the number of people on board: on the car I boarded there were roughly 95 seats, exactly ten of which were taken. It's no wonder the Sounder costs so much to operate, with that $3.25 fare paying only a tiny fraction of those operating costs! I was heartened to see that 3 of those 10 riders (including me) were bike riders: this car had six slots for bikes, all inside the car itself (unlike most buses which carry bikes on the front of the bus, exposed to the elements), though those spaces are shared with wheelchair users, with wheelchair users having priority. The train had five more cars like this one, too, which I imagine had even fewer people on board.

The train accelerated to about 60 mph for the first few miles of its trip, then slowed down to about 40 at the south end of Boeing Field, stopping entirely to let an Amtrak train pass by in the other direction in the SoDo area, and crawling the last mile or two at 15-20 mph to King Street Station. I counted four at-grade crossings in that area, each one stopping all cross traffic, and now I know why broadcasts of Mariners games feature such frequent train whistles!

I carried my bike to the entrance to King Street station and hustled north to the connection with the express bus that would take me the rest of the way home. It was drizzling by this time. It was only a five-block ride, with a dismount to climb the steep block on wet pavement between 4th and 5th Avenues on James Street, and I beat the bus to the transfer point by about half a minute. I can easily see how this transfer might not work as well in the future as it did on my inaugural ride -- my bus may have been as much as two minutes late -- but I wouldn't have made it in any case if I hadn't been using a bike. There were 20 people on board, with about 25 more empty seats, plus additional room for standees. The bus got onto the freeway a block later and flew up the express lanes to the U-District, made three stops there before getting back into the general purpose lanes for a somewhat slower and more congested two miles to its final exit, and dropped me off a block from my home.

All in all, I felt great about my first winter bike-commute, and I expect to build up to doing this several times a week by summer, with more bicycling and less transit-riding as my level of fitness catches up to where it was last fall. I hope to build up to bicycling the entire 45-mile round trip, but of course a bike trip at a consistent 15-20 mph will take a bit longer than the 60 mph assist I got on board this trip's express buses and/or train. It's still interesting to note the utility of a bike to make the timely connection on this initial commute possible at all. I'm also fortunate that comparatively few people are bike-commuting at this time of year -- I didn't have to compete with other bicyclists for any of the bus bike racks I used.

A bus to Hollywood

2008-02-14T23:32:00.000-08:00

I was in Southern California for Christmas week. I flew into Burbank rather than LAX mostly because that's the best fare I could get, but also because LAX is such a zoo, and the last thing I needed was to get hung up on Christmas Eve at friggin' LAX.

Burbank was good. L.A. was good, as least as long as I wasn't driving there. I did meet the usual rich lunatic driver quota in the vicinity of Sunset Boulevard near Santa Monica, but at least this time the lunatic was only impatient, and not to the point of being either homicidal or suicidal, like last trip. Christmas with my wife's family was good, too.

One of the events my wife's family planned was a trip to the El Capitan theater in Hollywood to see the latest Disney film: "Enchanted". I decided to up the ante on the trip a little, announcing that I would be taking the bus with anyone else who wanted to come.

There was no response.

I asked around. "Would you?" I asked my wife's cousin. "The bus?" she asked incredulously.

Several similar responses followed. So I asked my kids, who usually enjoy taking the bus in Seattle. It's kind of an adventure for them, and one I actively encourage, though not on every route, and only during hours when I'm pretty sure they'll have a safe and positive experience. No dice. My two boys wanted to drive with their older cousins, one of whom has been on TV.

Only my five-year-old daughter was game, but by the time we got going it was too late to walk the mile to the bus stop, so my wife dropped us off there on her way. We hoped to be in time to catch the express bus from Santa Monica, but something didn't work out since the first bus we saw five minutes after arriving at the bus stop was a local "2" bus. This could have been unfortunate, as the "302" express was estimated to take 30-60 minutes to go the ~10 miles to Hollywood, and I hadn't scouted the "2" at all, other than to know it was heading the same way.

The people waiting at the bus stop were all Hispanic. The people on the "2" bus were all Hispanic, too. Every one. Note that I'm not saying this in any negative way whatsoever, nor did I feel any different about riding this bus with or without my daughter than I would have in Seattle with a different demographic. Truth is, these were very nice people, one of whom got up and changed seats, unbidden, just so my daughter and I could sit together. The woman in the seat in front of us thought my daughter was sweet, too, though she was very shy about expressing it. She smiled in a delighted way at us every so often, though, so I could tell.

A white man on a bike boarded about the time we were going past UCLA, getting off again several stops later. While he was still aboard, a black man on another bike also got on. The bike racks are just like those in Seattle (the older ones that still function, that is): two bikes fit on each metal rack.

Two things about these buses were different -- and better -- than Seattle's: scrolling monitors naming the next two stops, and TVs. The two TVs were similar to the ones on airline flights, including repackaged regular TV programming, albeit with many programs in Spanish, but also including snippets of a live map showing the bus' current position. This made it much more obvious to me when our stop was nearing, and as a stranger in town I really appreciated it.

Our total time on the bus had been about 45 minutes, with no significant traffic. We had a two-block walk from our stop to the theater. My wife called via cell phone as we walked -- she'd just arrived in line and was hoping and praying that we wouldn't be too late. Apparently, some of her relatives had been laying side bets on how late we would be. The consensus was that we had no chance to get there by showtime. We got there 10 minutes early. Ha!

Even better, we didn't have to hassle with parking, at least not on the way there. My wife parked across the street under the Kodak Theater, where the Oscars usually get awarded these days, and the whole process of finding a parking place and then coming out again is a big part of the reason that she only beat me to the theater by a few minutes.

After the show, we wandered around the Kodak Theater mall, then to the nearby Grauman's Chinese Theater, where a family member's footprints are in the concrete. It's kind of a zoo in that neighborhood, with lots of tourists and a few random people dressed up as celebrities like Michael Jackson for reasons that I might still not fully understand (I didn't ask), but previous listening to songs like Rodney Crowell's "I Wish It Would Rain" may have at least partially cleared up for me. The upshot was that I really didn't want to take my daughter walking through the side streets of this neighborhood after dark, even for just the two long blocks from Hollywood Blvd to Sunset, so we drove home with the rest of the family. I was fortunate in this respect in that I had this option readily available. I suspect that many people who'd been riding the bus with us earlier in the day did not have this option, bringing me back to the central problem of transit for its ridership everywhere: its safety, convenience, and extended transit time compared to personal transportation options like private automobiles. Yes, I very much enjoyed taking my daughter on the bus to Hollywood, just as I enjoy taking my kids on the bus at home in Seattle, and just as they enjoy in their turn. Every trip can be an adventure!

But, of course, when you have no other transportation options, the potential for every trip to be an adventure can also be a drawback. I've had buses break down while I was riding them, or on which someone had a medical emergency, not often but still more frequently than any car I've ever driven, including some real beaters shortly after I graduated from college. I've also driven past somewhat more buses that had either broken down, or were surrounded by police cruisers with lights flashing, or which got stuck on slippery roads, and I've been on several buses so full that they drove right on past waiting groups that wanted to board. And, of course, transit almost invariably takes longer than driving, at least in the major cities of the western U.S., including Seattle and Los Angeles, though some of that time can be reclaimed by doing other work on the bus, or reading or writing, assuming a seat is available, which is another significant uncertainty at peak travel times.

All of these sorts of uncertainties and inconveniences work together to discourage many people from using public transit who might do so otherwise. If public transit ridership is to significantly increase during these times of skyrocketing energy costs and global warming, one thing needed is public transit that is faster, safer, more convenient, more immune to congestion, and capable of carrying volumes of passengers that are at least as high as the options we have available to us now, as well as being at least as energy-efficient as the transit options being used now, and not costing so much that they break the regional bank. This is one reason I'm so supportive of emerging public transit technology like Personal Rapid Transit, which is being built in London and outside Stockholm right now, with the first system scheduled to come online in Spring, 2009, with many more cities in the world anxious to implement it once they're convinced that it's viable, which it certainly appears to be.

The South Lake Union Streetcar, and shopping downtown

2008-01-09T23:16:00.000-08:00

I took my family to ride the South Lake Union Trolley on the weekend before Christmas. My wife wanted to shop downtown, and we both wanted to bring the kids to see the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton. We ran some errands along the way and then drove to a parking lot in front of the Bluwater -- the trolley would add a bit of free family fun for the holidays (they started charging for the ride this month).

As we got out of the car, the trolley reached the end of the line nearby, so we all took off running after it, with me carrying my two-year-old son. The streetcar only stopped for a few seconds at the terminus, so we had to run quite a bit further than we'd anticipated, and arrived somewhat more red-cheeked than the December weather alone would've accounted for. It turns out that the north end of the line isn't actually a stop; the stop is actually several dozen yards up the line, but the streetcar doesn't move particularly fast (the driver might've seen us and waited the extra half-minute for us to catch up, too), so we were able to climb on. It started up the line as soon as we were aboard.

The first thing we noticed was the noticeable jolt the streetcar started up with. This turned out to be typical -- pretty much every time the streetcar started up, it did so with a more pronounced jerk than most buses I've ever ridden. The ride was otherwise very smooth, however. Not long after we started, my eight-year-old son turned to me and made the first of that day's out-of-the-mouths-of-babes pronouncements: he asked "how is this different from a bus?" I had to laugh, because of course the streetcar isn't really much different from a hugely expensive, too-infrequent bus (which also presents an undue hazard to bicyclists, several of whom have been injured while trying to negotiate its tracks already), though the infrequency wouldn't become fully clear until the return trip. I also noticed that the shelters at the stops are too small, especially in the rain: there isn't enough room for everyone to stand under them, even if they are nice to look at.

The ride to Westlake took about 12-13 minutes and the seats filled up to standing-room-only quickly, though it never got packed. The Westlake terminus is right under the monorail line, and the blue train passed overhead just as we disembarked, which I thought was charming. I asked the kids to count the number of different forms of transportation they saw, and they reached 10 within a couple minutes: streetcar, monorail, bus, walking, taxi, stroller, wheelchair, bicycle, a Segway(!), a horse-drawn carriage, plus several more in the toy train window at Macy's.

We stopped inside Nordstrom or Macy's or someplace, then went on to the Sheraton before making our way back to Westlake Center for lunch. We hung out at the monorail station on its third floor for several minutes in hopes of seeing a train pull in while waiting for elevator space to bring our stroller downstairs (there is far too little elevator space for that monorail!), but missed out. Returning on the streetcar required a longer wait than we expected: it didn't start up until about five minutes after we got on. My older son asked "when's it going to start?" -- another of those from-the-mouths-of-babes moments I mentioned -- while hanging from an overhead bar, as he wanted to experience that startup jerk while suspended from that bar. Eventually, it did start up, and I discovered that one of its drivers was in the car with us. It was running with all sorts of glitches, apparently, including one this trip where stops were being indicated in a confusing manner: apparently there was an operator error using the onboard software (which sounded really poor), so each stop it announced was actually one further stop down the line. I didn't find the onboard displays particularly helpful even before this issue cropped up, by the way. That driver told me that the startup jerk is normal, actually, saying that the drivers can't really feel it, even if the passengers clearly do. He also gave me the lowdown on why the onboard status board wasn't working right.

Turns out the status board (and the lack of a stop at the north terminus) fooled us, too -- we stayed on board (along with several other people) at the last stop, then once the change in direction let us know, we told the extra driver that we'd missed our stop. But the trolley didn't stop there again, as we'd neglected to hit the "stop requested" signal, so we ended up getting off at the next stop and having to walk about four times as far as we should have. We weren't in a hurry and were in adventure mode anyway, but I can see how this arrangement could be a major annoyance to some. Hopefully they get the operators trained to configure the onboard information system better, and do a better job of indicating when the streetcar has reached the north end of the line.

Bottom line, I hope the streetcar finds a larger ridership than a bus in the same alignment would: so much more was spent on it than would have been spent on buses doing the same thing (even more frequently!) that if streetcar systems are to have a future in the Puget Sound region, they'd better be able to justify that additional cost with higher ridership, and I would hate to think that so much money was just wasted on this system for nothing.

When your bus breaks down, 11-8-2006

2007-12-20T08:31:00.000-08:00

I wrote most of this on the bus more than a year ago, but had not previously published it anywhere.

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My bus was late again today. Not just a few minutes late, as is often the case, but more than fifteen minutes late. Under normal circumstances, when I can't see a bus coming, or when I know I have extra time, I will often walk up the bus line to the next stop, opposite to my direction of travel, to get a little extra exercise and also to increase the chance that I'll get a seat. Today I walked 3/4 of a mile where I found my bus, stranded, with a crowd milling around outside it. A motorized scooter and its operator were sitting on the bus' wheelchair lift, which had broken down partway up. The bus driver had called for assistance. Several more minutes passed. The next bus came along, and though it was already full, it accepted a dozen more passengers, to the point where it was so overfull that a woman at the back door screamed to prevent a man from boarding behind her.

A Metro supervisor arrived in a maintenance van, opened up a panel on the side of the bus, and began working on the lift. The hydraulics remained locked up, but a manual crank was available, and after a few minutes the supervisor was able to flip down the barrier behind the scooter, so that it could be backed off the lift. Then he stowed the ramp and the remaining 30 passengers boarded, including a large group of students traveling together. The next bus would be along any minute, half an hour after the ailing bus should have left this stop, but I boarded it anyway. It would be unable to attempt to pick up any more wheelchair passengers, of course.

What equipment or procedures could have been in place to prevent an occurrence like this one? For starters, the likelihood of a lift breakdown would have been greatly reduced in a low-floor bus, which King County Metro has been already been phasing in (though not on my route, yet). In a low-floor bus, a ramp is all that's needed to bridge the several inches in height difference between the curb and the bus floor -- the wheelchair lift is almost unnecessary. This hastens boarding under all conditions as well as reducing the chance for a breakdown like this one. Some other transit technologies like light rail and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) have an even better solution: a vehicle floor at the same level as the station platform, though a raised curb at every bus stop -- a boarding platform of sorts -- would accomplish the same thing. However, on buses a ramp or lift would still be necessary, since buses cannot reliably stop close enough to the curb to ensure that the ramp wouldn't be needed. PRT would have the additional benefit of being able to carry a larger number of wheelchairs and scooters (and bicycles) -- one per vehicle, with a vehicle going by every few seconds -- than trains or buses could, as space is limited on buses and trains for wheelchairs, bicycles, or motorized scooters -- buses are generally limited to two or three per vehicle.

A PRT network would have the additional benefit for all passengers of not requiring transfers, and of nonstop travel, but these benefits would be particularly great for disabled passengers, for whom every transfer -- and every delay -- has a disproportionate impact.

The European Commission has now committed major funding to PRT development, with systems being built in London and planned in Rome, with test tracks being built all over the world. When the mobility benefits of PRT are considered alongside its tremendous energy efficiency (2-4 times more energy efficient than buses, trains, or cars), it's a wonder that PRT systems aren't being more carefully considered in the Puget Sound region, or in all but a few other locations in the United States.

An early transportation-related Christmas gift

2007-12-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

Sometime over the past few months, my lovely wife must've overheard me saying how cool it would be to get a "Share The Road" license plate for my car, and last week she got me one, bringing home the temporary plate that day, with the permanent plates scheduled to arrive in the mail within three weeks. They got here three days later.

So now, in between part-time bike commuting, human-powered errand running, and riding the bus, on those trips when only a car will do, I still have a nice way of advocating for human-powered transportation and bicyclist safety without having to resort to a bumper sticker.

If you're a WA resident like me, you can get a "Share The Road" license plate just like my new one here, and it'll probably still arrive before the holidays.

Taking a bus to the airport, 12-23-2006

2007-12-06T14:50:00.000-08:00

I wrote most of this on the bus 11+ months ago, but had not previously published it anywhere.

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I took a bus to SeaTac airport this morning. From North Seattle. It took an hour and five minutes, door to door, about twice as long as it would have taken to drive, but it saved me as much as $200.

I learned a couple things on the trip. First, I had no idea that there was a dedicated bus right-of-way in SoDo, nestled snug between railroad tracks and immediately next to the coming light rail line. In fact, I wasn't even aware that I was on such a dedicated right of way until I looked up to notice what looked exactly like finished light rail station. "Seattle already has a functioning light rail station?" I asked myself. Then I passed a sign informing me that this line would open in 2009, same as the rest of Sound Transit's Central Link line. My bus zipped down the line next to the new light rail tracks for another mile or so before one last stop at Spokane Street, then zigzagged onto Interstate 5, where I rode at freeway speed the rest of the way to the airport without a single additional stop. The bus was mostly full, which I hadn't been expecting on a Saturday morning, but most of the passengers were pulling a suitcase on wheels like I was, and in fact almost every one of them got off at the airport with me. I had no idea it would be this easy. There was some congestion at the airport exit, ironically caused by construction of that same light rail line, which I believe is intended to replace this very bus. Then I realized that this enormously expensive new light rail line would actually be slower than this bus.

My planning for this trip started on very short notice. I checked the King County Metro website's trip planner in the morning, entering the nearest bus stop to my house with the airport as my destination, then fiddled with departure times until I found one that would work pretty well. Until now I had expected to drive to the airport and park at a remote lot, then catch a shuttle bus to the airport. If I was running late, I would park at the airport itself, but that can get expensive for a 9-day trip. Heck, even remote parking can add up. I was not expecting that a bus ride would be roughly competitive time-wise with a remote-parking option, and frankly it wasn't, but it wasn't far off. It looked like the bus ride would take an hour with one transfer, while a drive straight to the airport would take about half that, with remote parking adding another 10-20 minutes. Taking the bus would add about that much more, but it would basically be a free ride. I had to try it.

I'd taken the bus to the airport twice before, a decade ago straight from my downtown office. I'd never tried it all the way from home, which would necessitate a transfer and take what I'd thought would be an hour and a half, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the bus would take a half-hour less than I'd thought, even including a 10 minute wait for that transfer plus a one-block walk between downtown bus stops.

The bus to downtown was far less than half full, which I supposed was normal for non-rush-hour travel. A woman got on a few stops after me, pulling a suitcase much like mine. She got off at the same downtown stop I did, with the bus driver telling her to turn right and walk a block to the transfer stop, which I'd already known from the trip planner. The wait turned out to be about 10 minutes, as advertised, and when I got on (with that same woman plus another man from my first bus) it was mostly empty, but it filled up quickly as we zipped through downtown and into SoDo, where I started writing this.

In light of this trip, what did I think of riding light rail instead? Well, for this trip it would probably be worse than this bus, and hardly a bargain at its multi-billion dollar price tag. For others the trade-off might be more positive, but not for me. The light rail line would usually be about 10 minutes slower, for one thing, as its route would include several stops in the Rainier Valley, whereas this bus was nonstop from Spokane Street. I say "usually" because freeway traffic was flowing freely this morning, while it might not at other times.

This led me to a thought on capacity: buses and light rail that share a roadway with cars basically increase the capacity of that roadway unless their lanes are exclusive. When they have their own grade-separated route, they can increase capacity when they don't do so at the expense of a preexisting roadway. Sound Transit's Central Link adds capacity on its new and mostly elevated route from SoDo to the airport, while buses like the one I took only do so on their short dedicated busway, though of course if buses were on the train's elevated guideway instead, there would be little difference.

For the sake of that enormous initial investment in light rail, I sincerely hope that Central Link will eventually be extended to Northgate, at least as long as much of the funding for it is coming from federal dollars. Extending it further north, much less across Lake Washington, would likely entail dumping billions more dollars down the same sinkhole, and as with the initial route between downtown and the airport, doing so might have very little benefit, especially considering that its operating cost will be a ball and chain to our region's prosperity for decades.

Light rail and buses, along with emerging technologies being implemented in Europe like Personal Rapid Transit (which will be several times more energy efficient than trains or buses), should all be carefully considered when we talk of further extensions to our existing transit infrastructure. Improved transit can increase the mobility and employment prospects of our region's low-income and disabled communitites while improving the quality of life for everyone by speeding us to our destinations while reducing congestion, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions. By those criteria, Sound Transit's Central Link may be judged a success. But wise investments in transit can also reduce our cost of living by making automobile trips and their related fuel costs and eventual automobile replacement less necessary while not raising our costs in subsidizing transit. And by that measure, Sound Transit's Central Link must be judged a failure, since it may only be a marginal improvement over our existing bus options while costing billions of dollars, with the prospect of more to come.

Morning in Mordor

2007-11-29T23:10:00.000-08:00

I wrote this in 1994. It has not previously been published.

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The freeway traffic starts to slow long before the road starts climbing into the mountains. On good days you can see the line of peaks above the smog before you reach them, and on great days there's just enough haze that you can distinguish the foothills from the taller peaks behind them and see the range's great depth, but great days come once in a decade. Good days are rare enough.

If only I lived close by the rail lines, and if my schedule was anything like predictable, I would take the train to work. Just imagining a 200 mph ride all the way from the hill country through Udûn makes my chest ache.

"Traffic will be slow from the Upper Ithil Plain to the Narrows," the traffic reporter says over the radio, his voice tired. "There's a stalled vehicle near the Central Dagor off-ramp and it's slow going for about 10 miles." Another 15 miles and I'll have to slow to 50 mph. Ten minutes added to the commute. Great. The air conditioner starts to make some headway against the smell of the rice fields I left behind in the Anduin floodplain.

I wonder sometimes why I ever wanted to move south. The roads used to be wonderful here, and the plains north of the hill country were sun-drenched and undiscovered. Sure there was a long drive to work, but the roads were uncrowded, there was no speed limit, and I could afford a comfortable car fast enough to get me to work at 140 miles an hour. We had a ranch house in the country and I could still get to work in 60 minutes.

"An injury accident blocking lanes 1 and 2 of northbound M1 is causing further slowdowns to southbound commuters in South Dagor," the tired radio voice says. "The highway patrol is working to clear the blocking vehicles to the shoulder." I bang the steering wheel. My commute further undone by rubberneckers.

"Visit Central Dagor’s auto row for a test drive in a brand new Nurnen V12i at Dagor Nurnen,” another voice says. “You’ll be happy you did." I click the radio off. Up ahead, brake lights are flashing. A brown cloud spurts from the exhaust of a rusted pickup truck as it accelerates onto the median and veers around a full-size van with its flashers on. I peer in at the van’s driver as I pass and he's signalling frantically for drivers to let him coast to the shoulder, but no one will make room. It looks like he’ll end up blocking lane 1 and perhaps lane 2 as well, but I’m past the poor irresponsible schmuck now and his problem is no longer my problem.

I tap a pen on my dashboard as I remember a song I used to sing, then click the radio back on to a music station.

"Orodruin has been rockin' and rollin' all week, and if the Geological Survey prog-NOS-ticators are right, we may see an eruption within the next few days," a younger, hipper voice says from my radio while "Fire on the Mountain" plays behind him. "Stay tuned to Corsair radio for the latest on this and other stories. Now get ready for a 30 minute nonstop rock block from the Corsair radio morning team at 108.1 FM." The background music dies away and the opening chords to "You Ain't Never Been Loved 'Til You Been Loved By Me" thunder. I click the radio off. 30 minutes of music like that is enough to make your hair fall out. Ahead, I can already see dark clouds spreading high above, like the edges of a pungent and unimaginably large shiitake mushroom.

Bobby has been unusually sullen for the last few weeks. Between that and Tricia's increasingly vociferous demands for us to leave her the hell alone and her sudden switches to demanding that we pay more attention to her, it’s been really tough for Marcie and me this year. Tricia will be heading off to college in Halifirien next year, she’ll need a car of her own, and though we have money saved up for her tuition, we haven’t got much for a car, and nothing at all for Bobby when he graduates high school just two years later. To say nothing of replacing my old Nurnen when the time finally comes. It’s already got 110,000 miles on it and it shouldn’t be good for that many more. Whatever happened to the days when I could just take Bobby to the ballpark and all he hoped for was a foul ball?

More brake lights ahead. I switch the radio back on to the news and traffic station. A gigantic billboard on the right tells me that if I lived in Ithilview Estates I would be at work already. "… and it's stop-and-go on M1 for about 25 miles all the way to the Narrows," the tired voice on the radio says. "Now for our weather, the Air Quality Monitoring Service tells us to expect second-stage smog warnings from this morning until Friday evening. Please encourage children to play indoors and Senior Citizens to limit their activities throughout Gorgoroth and Udûn, north beyond Dagor, and throughout the Anduin valley north to the Falls. No relief is expected until a cool front passes through late Friday night." I flick on the air conditioner’s recirculate button.

Flashers ahead now. I press down hard on the brakes and come to a stop 40 feet short of the pickup truck still ahead of me. Half a minute later the truck crawls forward a few more feet, then stops again. I’ve got to move somewhere closer to a train station. Overhead the smog has mingled with smoke and sulfur from Orodruin’s shiitake canopy to completely block out the sun. It reminds me of the dark just before a heavy rainstorm. More than half the cars on the freeway have their headlights on. The air conditioner is starting to lose its battle with the smog.

I should have known when I moved to the hill country that it would eventually be overrun. The roads should have been my best clue, those and a smooth, 10-lane freeway all the way to the hills. Tract housing developers went berserk. They built more than 100,000 new homes on the plains between my hills and the mountains in less than 10 years. 130,000 homes. Half a million people. 4 major malls and 150 strip malls. 200 new car dealerships. Three million gallons of water diverted from the Anduin every day, and another million pumped up from the water table. It seemed as if the whole planet was transformed.

The construction boom on the other side of the mountains was every bit as phenomenal. Its appetite for aerospace engineers, financiers, insurance agents, corporate attorneys, secretaries and receptionists, manufacturing and maintenance workers, accountants, and especially construction workers was insatiable. There had never been such a boom before, anywhere. The quaint towns and decaying old cities of the north drew down to bare skeletons. Even the teeming, sordid cities south of the Anduin delta shrank.

An hour later, the traffic has moved barely 15 miles. I’ve passed four separate multiple-car collisions, three of them blocking freeway lanes, the drivers out of their cars and gesticulating furiously at each other. Past endless Dagor and into Morannon Meadows, traffic lightens up and flows smoothly for two blissful miles to the Ithil interchange, then snarls even more heavily for another mile as the Ithil commuters merge onto M1. I despair of ever seeing my wife and children alive again. The interchange itself is adjacent to the grey wasteland of an abandoned gravel quarry with a huge brewery for bitter, watery beer in its center. Three enormous beer bottles, 150' tall, stand between the freeway and the brewery as advertisements for its product: lite, regular, and premium beer. They all taste the same to me.

3/4 of a mile and 40 frustrating minutes later, traffic begins moving again, slowly at first. The radio's traffic reporters finished their morning shift half an hour ago, and any updates still being broadcast between inane talk show segments are out-of-date. The road begins climbing its parched valley funnel to the Morannon Narrows. The upward-flowing river of cars is still moving steadily, even speeding up. I feel an unexpected frisson of relief, though I am already nearly two hours late for work. A radio talk show host returns from a break and announces "This hour, we talk with a New Age spirit channeller from Lorien who claims that an ancient warlock named Gandalf told her that if 120,000 people fill Ranger Stadium and chant for peace, our society can cure its appetite for violence and strengthen family values. Stay tuned."

Once past the Narrows, the road widens again for the 30 miles to the Isenmouthe grade, and traffic should flow freely. If the infernal pickup truck will let me pass I might even be able to make up a few minutes I lost in the Dagor traffic. It’s now hardly lighter than a moonlit night, and it smells dreadful.

Another sign on the right, white with black letters, announces "Welcome to Mordor." I want to go home.