Bike to Work and School Day!

Well, folks, it's Bike to Work Day and Bike to School Day today. I hadn't realized it was bike to school day until I got to the West Seattle Water Taxi dock in West Seattle and started chatting with a dad taking the boat with his daughter who was riding to school today. I'm really happy to see so local schools embracing the day for encouraging children cycling to school.

As I was heading out the door today with my bike, my neighbor across the alley was pumping up his tires.  He'd finally purchased the new tires he'd been meaning to buy, just in time to ride in to work and hit a couple commuter stations (I think he mentioned something about a station at Starbucks headquarters).

My bike commute these days is shorter, although where I live and work hasn't changed in a few years. My route to work, if I ride the entire way, goes through some industrial areas that are sketchy at best.  So, I do a real multi-modal commute:  Bike to the Water Taxi, then transfer to a bus for the rest of the trip.  Rather than the 12.5 miles one-way, I'm riding only about 2.5 miles.  It's all good though.  Any time on the bike is good time! 

Anyway, today was a neat trip in.  There were a few of the usual suspects with their bikes on the water taxi this morning.  There were also a few new faces with their bikes.  As I mentioned, we had the father and daughter going to school. We had a gentleman riding an old Trek (we're talking probably late 70s or early 80s vintage, US Made) and a couple others riding riding bikes that looked a bit like they'd not seen much time on the road in quite a while.  I also noticed more folks riding the Alki trail towards the West Seattle Bridge. Once downtown, where I usually see a good flow of cyclists, I saw many more today.

I did make a stop at a couple of commuter stations.  I stopped at the Bicycle Alliance of Washington office where I  said good morning to Barbara Culp (holy cow!  she's retiring?) and picked up a new, hot off the press, 2012 Seattle Bicycle Routes map.  Next stop was at Union Station (right across from my bus transfer to Tukwila) where Sound Transit was giving out patch kits (you can never have too many of them, right?) and Bike Month bandanas.  They were also having a drawing for a new bike.  Hmm...wonder if I'll win ;-)


The one disappointment was the bike cage at work.  Was I disappointed that I didn't get "my spot" at the bike rack?  Hardly.  In fact, I think I'd have been pleased if that were the case.  There were three other bikes there. Sigh...maybe next year I'll have to look for a spot to squeeze my bike in.  ;-)

(Word) Portraits of bus riders

When I get on the bus, I'll often pull out my computer and write while listening to music, or I'll pull out a book and get lost in it.  One morning, though, I didn't feel like pulling out my book.  I read a few pages in Boneshaker and put it away (I want to stretch it out!).  And I wasn't feeling motivated to write (yet).  So I sat back and started just observing the ride.  I watched the people board, and some caught my eye.  Below is a written "portrait" of those who caught my eye in just a glance, or have stood out over time to me.

There's the man across the aisle from me.  He's wearing patent leather square toe oxfords with blue jeans (which have the beginning of some holes above one knee).  His shirt is white with cuff links securing the french cuffs.  He has on a black velvet dinner jacket, trimmed with satin at the collar.  The stubble of his light hair is just slightly longer than the two or three day-old beard on his face.  He sits and taps away at his iPhone. 

There's the woman who boards at the same stop as me.  She frequently wears denim jacket with scarf wrapped multiple times about her neck.  She always seems to be wearing a skirt, often with funky stockings and a pair of Mary Janes or flat soled boots.  Her hair is moderately long and dark, streaked with grey.  It's pulled back and bound with a purple hair band.  She sits with her cup of coffee, pulls out her cell phone and checks something, puts it away and sits and looks ahead for the rest of the ride in.

The  woman in all black.  She is a periodic rider.  What I noticed about her first was her black, knee-high, lace up, lug soled, black leather boots.  Not many women even try to pull that off.  She wears all black: jeans, shirt, jacket and baseball cap.  Today, she has a splash of color (indeterminate dark one) in the form of the scarf she is wearing.   She carries a black canvas handbag with a Tim Burton-esque character on the flap.  It looks like the face of a character from The Nightmare Before Christmas.  She has narrow black rimmed glasses and wears black eye and lip makeup.  Her lip liner making her face look to be in a permanent frown.  It makes her look old, perhaps older than she really is.  She walks to the back of the bus, and disappears among the other riders

A man gets on with dreadlocks and goatee.  His ears are pierced and he wears a do-rag holding his dreads back.  The temple piece of his glasses has kind of a vertical ribbing on it.  He's in dark denim work pants, boots and a dark red fleece jacket.  I can see a dark stiped scarf inside of his jacket.  He carries a messenger bag and a ballistic plastic case.  He'd drinking from a small, insulated plastic Starbucks cup with what looks to be a child's design on it.  He sits quietly drinking from his cup, looking ahead across the aisle to the south.  Is he impressed with the view of Mt. Rainier today?

There's the woman in the high-heels.  Every day she wears high-heeled boots (thin heels at that) with either tight-legged pants or a skirt with some sort of funky stockings.  She also always wears a long wool coat over top of everything.  She's traded out her large yellow handbag for something smaller and of a color I can't identify.  Her facial features and long, straight dark hair remind me of an early '80's woman rocker before big hair became the fashion; Joan Jett maybe...or Pat Benetar?  She is often running to catch the bus before it pulls away from the stop.  She sits in the front of the bus plugged into her iPod, nodding to the music and staring blankly off into space ahead as the driver drives.

A man who loads his bike half way up the hill.  He leaves his panniers and trunk on the bike's rack.  He is wearing rain gear, despite the clear skies.  His nylon pants swish as he walks down the aisle of the bus to his seat with a bulky backpack and carrying his sporty yellow helmet.

There is the business woman who boards in front of Starbucks.  She wears a long, black wool coat.  The belt is tied rather than bucked.  Her hair is a moderately short, casual style.  She's wearing ear muffs today with a loose band that won't press down on her hairdo.  She has a large black leather bag, as well as a Nieman Marcus canvas bag.  Under her arm she carries a folded up newspaper.  Once she sits down, she pulls out her paper and starts to read.  She doesn't hold it right up in front of her face like many people do on the bus, hiding from everyone else.  No, she holds it at a fair distance, as if she were sitting in an easy chair at home. 

There is the gentleman who reminds me of a rumpled professor or an attorney who is not in it for the money.  He's probably in his late 40's to early 50's.  He's a little on the heavy side.  He wears cotton casual pants with worn leather shoes.  Usually a green fleece jacket.  He carries a fairly well worn old Eddie Bauer briefcase.  His hair is thinning slightly and he has a mottled gray and brown beard.  A couple of months ago, he was writing a comedy act in preparation for some event he was going to.  He will often sit and jot things in a notebook, or talk with another passenger during the ride.

Community Transit cuts service, raises fares

So, if we wanted to take the bus to see, say my sister and her family on a sunny summer Sunday this year, we'd be out of luck.

Community Transit, the transit system that serves Snohomish County, is implementing service changes that will cut routes and services beginning in June.  Some key points of the plan:

• Increase fares 25 cents across the board
• Suspend Sunday and holiday service on all routes
• Reduce frequency of many routes, including reducing some routes to two round-trips daily!
• Start and end many routes at park & ride lots, rather than on city streets
• Cut routes, including many that have alternative transit options, or duplicate existing service
• Provide $50,000 to local agencies to provide transportation assistance to those in need.

 According to the information that Community Transit has provided (linked above), this is in response to a budgetary shortfall, a pretty common problem across all transit systems these days.  They also state that they have been trying to avoid service cuts such as these for over two years.

To me, the cuts will not help the overall health of the transit system.  It will impact many who can least afford the impact.  There are people out there who use the bus to get to work on the weekends.  In fact, many in service jobs (which are traditionally are not very high paying jobs) work on weekends.  Not all of these people have a car or can afford one. 

They are also forcing more cars onto the roads at a time when our roadways are becoming more and more choked with traffic.  An early morning run to Boeing is being cut.  What are the workers who ride that bus going to do?  They'll have to either form vanpools (not always an easy thing to coordinate) or drive themselves.

A quote from another news item about these changes:

“In my 18 years as an elected official, this is the hardest vote I’ve ever had to take,” said board member and Lynnwood City Council President Ted Hikel. “I don’t know anyone on this board or this staff who likes this, but there are realities out there – there just isn’t any money.”

As much as I dislike this news, and think it will only serve to hurt lower-income users of the system, as well as force more people back into their cars, the Frequently Asked Questions make it clear that the board looked hard at alternatives before settling on this as a means to reduce their operating losses.  With much of the funding for transit coming out of taxes, the options available are limited without legislative action, and in the current economic climate, anything to eek out more funding through taxes and fees is a hard sell.

Car-free weekend out and about

Last weekend, Maurie and I had our first car-free weekend since before we moved to West Seattle that involved more than just staying home and knocking about our neighborhood all weekend.

This being the first ever Seattle Tweed Ride, and the weather was looking promising, we decided that we'd join in the fun on Sunday. After exploding our closet all over the bedroom, and several plastic storage bins as well, we discovered we had little appropriate for the event. Time to visit some thrift & second hand stores. We'd decided that we really didn't want to get in the car this weekend at all, so we caught a bus into town. We spent Saturday busing and walkning through town, hitting thrift shops, and a second hand shop on Capitol Hill (ironically, a couple blocks away from where we'd meet for the ride on Sunday).

After a fairly exhausting day "off the island", as we tend to view our trips into downtown, we returned home and more or less crashed. Shortening my pants to knickers length will have to wait until morning, as will pulling together food and making the rest of the preparations for the ride.

Sunday morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed shortly before the alarm and began preparations for the ride. I brought the bikes out of the basement, got the picknick blanket and basket. We prepared food and Maurie shortened my pants. We got into costume and wheeled our bikes to the bus stop, arriving with less than five minutes to spare before the bus arrived. We had a good transfer downtown (less than five minutes to wait) and arrived at Cal Anderson Park for the ride half an hour early. People finally started to arrive right around noon, and continued to gather, drinking tea (and other libations), eating snacks and playing games.  Among those who showed up were Julian from Totcycle, Tim & Anne from CarFree Days, and Eric from Tubulocity.

Me, "tweeded-up" testing my stability with that huge picnic basket on my rear rack

 My dapper bride, posing with her bike

Shortly after 1 when we headed out for the ride itself. North up the length of Capitol Hill and across the University Bridge, then on to Gasworks park where we took a break.

We left the ride here, opting out of the pub stop, to make our way home, via the Seattle waterfront. We made a quick stop at the Fremont PCC to refill water and get some iced tea. While waiting outside, I was noticed by two gals who I worked with in at the state legislature. I must have been quite the sight!

We made our way by bike along Lake Union, and then up through Belltown to the Olympic Sculpture Park, where we rested for a bit looking out across the Puget Sound at the boats and the Olympic Mountains beyond. A deisre for coffee finally rousted us from our chairs and we made our way down the crowded waterfront to a Starbucks. So we didn't have to undo the half mile (hey, it seemed like that) of rope securing the picknick basket to my rear rack, we went in singly to get our drinks. The barista (technically, in this case since we're talking about a make here, shouldn't it be baristo?) had been at the ride until he had to go to work.

We made our way to the bus stop, only to discover that we had a 40 minute wait until the next bus home (really, one hour headways on Sundays for a route that goes to Alki, Metro? What's up with that!). Since it was getting chilly out, we decided to ride home. It was a pleasant ride home, mostly on milti-use path. As we rode along the Elliott Bay shoreline, we really were reminded why we love living here in Seattle so much. The Seattle skyline, the sunset over the Olympics with the ferries crossing the sound in the foreground, the smell of beach fires.

 Seattle evening skyline from West Seattle

Seven and a half hours, and a nineteen mile bike ride later, we were home...and ready to crash!

You can read Maurie's writeup on the Tweed Ride here.

Mark's Wish List for Northwest Transportation

After a break longer than intended, I'm returning to the blog with my wish list for transportation in the Northwest. In the holiday spirit (and for a little fun), I'm writng this as a "letter to Santa Clause."

Dear Santa Clause,

We've been pretty good here in the Northwest. There seem to be more people riding the bus to work and just get around in general. We finally opened our light rail line in King County this year. Passenger rail has improved with the opening of an Amtrak station in Leavenworth, as well as the addition of another run to Vancouver, BC. We also have passed additional plans for light rail going to the Eastside and at least one more streetcar line in Seattle.

All that said, I want to present you with my wish list for Northwest transit. I realize time is short for this Christmas (and let's be honest, some things take time anyway). But if you can see what you can do to get some of these rolling, I think we'd all appreciate it here.

• Expand light rail throughout the region by adding new inter-city lines, as well as intra-city lines
• In-fill stations to fill the gaps in the existing Central Link line (one somewhere near the Boeing access road would be really appreciated)
• Increase feeder lines to the light rail stations
• Implement working, grade separated Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) where light rail is not feasible and ridership potential warrants the investment
• Consolidate the major metropolitan transit agencies in the Puget Sound into one agency with operations specialists in each former agency's service area to improve efficiencies and coordination between agencies, while still maintaining the existing knowledge of local needs.
• Develop infrastructure to support transportation alternatives to the automobile (a network of bike lanes/paths, footpaths and multi-use paths)
• Improve and increase the safe bike storage capacity at transit centers and park & rides
• More bike parking throughout the region
• Frequent, high speed passenger & commuter rail on dedicated right-of-ways
• Pass a vulnerable users law in Washington similar to that in Oregon

Thank you, Santa, and have a happy holiday season!

Mark

New digs and up-coming commute change

I've grumped a bit about my current commute. Well, it's not going to get much better as far as timing. However, there will the possibility for more variety. Come November, Maurie and I will bid farewell to downtown living and move to West Seattle. We'll be very close to Alki beach, with it's wonderful activity and bike path. I'll still need to get into downtown to catch the shuttle to the office, but I can bike to downtown, take the bus, or get to the water taxi and take that across the bay!

Another nice thing, we'll have the kayaks at home again, and with a set of wheels for the boats, we can just roll them down to the beach and shove off! How nice is that?!

Well, that's all for now!

My new job...an adventure in transit

I started a new job yesterday. I'm now working the help desk for a health care organization. When I was called to come in for an interview, I was excited. I mean, the organization has the naming rights to a velodrome, they sponsor a women's cycling team for women on staff, and they have been sponsors of Bike to Work day here in Seattle. What better place for a cycling nut?

For all that, cycling access to the administrative campus is pretty lacking. Sure, there's the Green River Trail, which lets out onto Interurban Ave about a mile away. But that mile from the trail to the office, is along a narrow, winding road, that just happens to lose any sidewalks for about half a mile, and all shoulder for about 200-300 yards...around a curve. I watched several tractor-trailer combos rubmle down this road yesterday. So, that's out...

So, if I don't want to drive myself, that leaves transit or carpool/vanpool. Metro has an agreement with my employer to allow use of buses bound for South Base as a shuttle. These run quite frequently, until just before 8 am. My shift starts at 9, so taking a shuttle puts me there 30-45 minutes early! That's the most reasonable transit option, timing wise. Since my shift ends at 6, coming home looks to be worse. The last shuttle to Seattle leaves at 5:30. I can walk 1.3 miles to a Park & Ride and catch the 150 to downtown. I did that yesterday and got home at 7:15 (after leaving the office at 6:02). Or, I could wait 25+ minutes for a bus to the Rainier Beach Link station, and take the train. This will get me home, oh, about 7:15.

What's aggrivating to me, is when the Link was put in, it was routed along the south end of Boeing Field, and then south to Tukwila International Blvd., along an industrial corridor with scattered office complexes. From Rainier Beach to Tukwilia International, there are no stops. None to service Boeing (I mean come on, one of the region's major employers, and Sound Transit couldn't have put a station in for them?); not further down East Marginal Way for other businesses!

So, now I'm left with adventures in transit to get home

First ride on the Link

**No pictures yet. I'll add some once I've uploaded them from the camera**

Saturday brought a surprise for Maurie and me. Our first ride on the new Central Link light rail line. We'd gone down to Pike Place to look for something, but after being in the crowds for a bit, we didn't really want to go back into a hot apartment with all the noise from the Seafair Torchlight Parade going on that evening.

We ended up going down into the transit tunnel (feels weird not calling the bus tunnel any more!) I was hoping to get a look at a Link train. But none were at the platform. Maurie says I was a bit crestfallen at that. While we were on the mezzanine, one did pull in. We looked down on it, and Maurie suggested taking the train for a ride. So, off to figure out how to do the payment and ride.

One of the Sount Transit folks told us I could just tap my ORCA card to the reader, and Maurie just needed to show her Puget Pass if asked. So, we boarded and headed south to Tukwila station.

The ride was very nice. Quite quick to get down through Seattle. We left Westlake station at about 6, I think, and the southbound train was full. No vacant seats, and a lot of people standing. As we went south, nuturally, it thinned out some. But by the time we reached Tukwila station, there were still plenty of riders.

We de-boarded at Tukwila, thinking we'd have to move over to the other track for the northbound train. There was no indication that the train we just arrived on would just reverse direction from its place in the station. So, after looking for a bathroom (and finding one open porta-potty that badly needed service), we got on what we thought was the next northbound train.

We rode back north to Columbia City where we got off the train to see a movie. The first thing we noticed when we got off the train was that in the small park next to the station was a sign listing what was nearby...restaurants, cinema, shops, a market, etc. Maurie had been commenting on the ride north that something like this would be very helpful for riders.

As we walked through Columbia City, we noticed that the business district was still fairly lively. Several folks walking the street, a few businesses still open, lots of restaurants and bars open. In nearly every window was a poster welcoming Link riders. Most every business had a special for people who show their ride ticket or ORCA card. For example, the Columbia City Cinema offers $2 off adult tickets in the evening (I can't remember what they were for matinee showings).

We dropped into the Columbia City Alehouse for an appetizer and beer and then walked the neighborhood until our 9:40 movie.

After the movie, we caught a 12:30 train back to Westlake. This train had a handful of other riders. The south-bound trains out of Seattle were more full with people leaving the city.

We really enjoyed the ride. It will make it so much easier to get to points south of downtown. A couple of observations:

1. Bathrooms at the stations need to be better maintained (only porta-potties at one? what's with that?)
2. Fare/payment system is confusing. Require every rider to obtain a ticket from the ticket vending machine. And fit them to read Puget Passes!
3. The art work at the stops is awesome! It really makes the stops more inviting.

All in all, I'm glad we had the unplanned evening out on the train, especially since I turn in my ORCA pass on Friday at the end of my current contract.

Successful Link Opening Weekend

Well, I've still not ridden the new Link light rail in Seattle, so I don't have much I can say about it. However, on Sunday as we headed to the coast for day relaxing on the beach, we did see a couple of trains running along I5 (one north-bound, one south-bound) and both looked packed to standing room only. It may have been a weekend of free rides, but it looked promising. Reports are 92,000 riders over the weekend. I've still not seen ridership reports for Monday, but I'm confident that while reports are that they were low, that they'll grow as we get used to having light rail, and development happens around the lines, we'll see those numbers go up.

Seattle Tranit Blog has been all over opening weekend, and is following the latest on it.

Ecotopia

I first read Callenbach's book Ecotopia for my Basic Inquiry class at Lewis & Clark College my freshman year. At the time, I was 18 and fresh out of the suburbs. I was ideallistic, when it was convenient (which wasn't too often). Not much of the book stuck out to me, except that most of us (all freshman from predominantly suburban backgrounds) thought it was a cool idea, but wholly unworkable. I read it again in 2001, only to find myself seeing a little more "hey, that's cool" in it, but it didn't strike me as much.

Now, nearly 20 years after reading it for the first time, I just finished reading it for the third time. Having spent the last year really thinking sustainability, a lot more stood out to me.

The transporation system put forth by Callenbach in Ecotopia really stands out. In the book, the country has virually banned internal combustion engines and private car ownership. Intercity tranportation is facilitated by a widespread Mag-Lev rail network. Small city groupings spring up around major rail hubs, branching out like spokes on a wheel (or so I envision it). Tanporation within cities is predominantly foot, bike, and public tranport via electric minibuses.

I think the first two times I read the book, I was still in a car-centric frame of mind. When I read the chapter on trasportation, I realized that this is close to a reality I'd really love to see. I'm not in favor of outright banning cars. They are useful, and even necessary for some people. However, I'd like to see more options and infrastructure to make not taking a care a whole lot more convenient and accessible.

What can you do on your commute?

Just looking up from the computer as the bus wisks me to work this morning, I noticed the following happening:

• Woman across the aisle from me knitting
• Several people reading books & magazines
• Friends holding conversations
• One or two people taking a nap
• People working on their laptops (doing stuff for work? Blogging? Reading web comics?)
• People reading books & magazines
• Some just staring out the window at the traffic, water, birds, mountians, etc

What do you do on your commute? Today I'm blogging and listening to music.

Opening Weekend for Link

In case you've missed it (and if you live in or around Seattle, I'm not sure how you could have), The Link light rail line from downtown to the airport will open on Saturday. Sound Transit has details on the opening here. The folks over at Seattle Transit Blog have been counting the days to this, and I have to say that Ben and company really seem ready to party as a result of the long-awaited opening.

There will be free rides all weekend. Be prepared for long lines and crowded platforms and trains all weekend. Also, there are no round-trip rides. To give everyone a chance to ride, once you get to one end, you have to get off the train and get back in line. There will also be shuttles running the route if you don't want to wait in line again.

Personally, I think I'll be waiting to take my ride on Link until after the festivities

Something to get you excited for Link!

I found the video below on Streetfilms last week. It adds to my excitement for the opening of the new Link line running from downtown to the airport.




The Seattle Transit Blog also covered the opening of this line in January and February.

I've been excited for Link to come to Seattle for some time. Tacoma's had their line up and running for a few years now, but the community that could really use a ton of help with transit options, has been without a large-scale light rail option. Now, in less than a month, it will be a reality here. Don't get me wrong I like both the monorail and the South Lake Union Street Car, but their service is really limited in scope.

A couple of things stood out to me about the Phoenix system:

• From its beginning it links three cities (including two university campuses)
• Ridership exceeded expectations from the beginning
• The line has become a magnet for urban development

I'm hoping that Seattle will embrace Link the way that Phoenix has. I've been in the Puget Sound area for 30 years now. In that time, I've seen our traffic get worse, and relief slow in coming. The creation of Sound Transit helped start us on the way to fixing that. Now I look forward to expansion of Sound Transit's service through light rail to really help change the way we look at our mobility and our cars.

I'm confident that once Link goes to the U-district and finally to the Eastside we will see a real transformation of the way we travel through our region.

Thank you for not driving!

We saw this sign in the window at Free Range Cycles in Fremont today while we were visiting the Fremont Fair and Solstice Parade. I wanted to shout out "Your Welcome!" when I saw it.

The Fremont Fair always makes trying to drive through Fremont even more of a mess than usual. To help people get to and from the fair, not only did Metro have the usual bus routes running through Fremont (well, at least they did when the parade wasn't going), but they added a shuttle service (PDF link) to the event today. Cascade Bicycle Club even got on the "don't drive to the Fair" bandwagon and had two rides going to the see the parade.

We caught a shuttle this morning at Dexter & Denney. It was the second shuttle to depart the stop after we arrived. The one we didn't get on, as well as the one we did, were filled to standing room only. It reminded me of playing "sardines" in middle school!

We were dropped off at the south side of the Fremont bridge and walked across into Fremont. We'd opted not to ride our bikes becuase we knew that it would be wall-to-wall bikes, with them locked to anything and everything reasonably solid. We were right. It seemed like every railing, street sign and fence had a number of bikes locked to them (sorry no picture, when we thought of taking one, we weren't near a good spot, and when we were, well, I forgot). Unfortunately for most of the cyclists, I believe Hal Ruzal would have given them pretty poor marks on thier bicycle locking (see here, here, and here to see why).

The highlight of the day was definitely the community-organized, human powered Solstice Parade, complete with its contingent of cyclists. Hmm...I wonder if any of them joined the Cascade ride to the parade...

Opening day for the Water Taxi

Travelling to West Seattle from the waterfront is about to get easier again. The Water Taxi will start its season on Sunday, April 5.

All day on Sunday, you can ride for free between downtown and West Seattle. There will be music and events at Seacrest Park from noon until 2:00 pm, give aways, a drawing for an Argosy cruise, and an opportunity to meet the King County Ferry District board (as well as neighbors and local business owners).

The service is being re-branded as the King County Water Taxi, instead of keeping the Elliot Bay Water Taxi name.

More information can be found at: http://metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/water-taxi/kcwt.html.

Don't miss the boat on Sunday!

Surfin' while I'm ridin'

On Tuesday morning as I boarded the 545 to go to work I noticed a logo next to the door. Apparently, my bus had WiFi access.

In five trips since I noticed the logo, only once has there not been WiFi access (twice the bus hasn't had the logo, once it did have wireless, once it didn't.

Sound Transit has started a pilot project to provide WiFi on select express routes and on the Sounder. According to the web page about the pilot, the most common routes to find WiFi are the 545, 522, and 577.

I've got to say, it's a nice addition to the commute. I'm sure many of my fellow riders appreciate it too, given the number of laptops I often see open each ride!

Community Transit in Snohomish county has been offering the service since Autumn 2005 (see the press release here)

Back on the bus again!

Now that I'm working on a contract for the next few months, it's back to commuting. Today marks day three that I've been riding Sound Transit from downtown Seattle to the Eastside for work. I've got a 10-15 minute (depends on how much energy I have at the time) walk to and from bus stops, but it's a good commute. Yesteday I sat on the bus while we were stopping and going and not having to worry about anything but what I wanted to.

Nice...now if I could just find a cup of coffee before leaving the apartment!

Metro Transit expands bike loading downtown

Maurie saw this rider alert yesterday while on the bus. Starting February 7 (hey, that's today!), cyclists can load and unload their bikes at any bus stop in the downtown area, during off-peak hours only. Metro is also allowing bike load and unload at any stop in the transit tunnel, whenever it's open. During peak commute hours, however, cyclists will still be limited to loading and unloading their bikes at the first and last stops in the ride free area. I'd love to see this change so we can load and unload anywhere in the downtown area, at any time, but baby steps, you know...