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June 1, 2008
Ride The Lunch Bus
Last year, I blogged about the Sound Transit Lunch Bus - a free tour of the light rail construction project with a bite at a local restaurant along the way. I'd hoped to make it on June 29, but travel (and the job change) conspired against me.
Well, Elaine and I managed to catch the tour on Friday, accompanied by my friend Guido.
I highly recommend it, and, if you're a transit geek, this is a must-do.
- The "lunch bus" is, quite literally, a standard tour bus (seats 40 or so) that you board next to the International Station of the downtown bus tunnel. We arrived about a quarter after 11, and were underway by 11:34.
- When you board, you're given a thick packet of information about Sound Transit - routes, schedules, ongoing activities - as well as a quick form to fill out with your lunch preference. Sound Transit picks a lunch spot for the day from different local businesses along MLK; you simply circle the menu option you want. Lunch is $10, cash, and covers food, beverage, and tax.
- Our tour started by heading south of downtown, driving along the light rail tracks near Qwest and Safeco fields. We saw the maintenance base near the old Rainier Beer plant, and then headed south to the mostly-finished Tukwila station, the under-construction SeaTac station, and finally headed north to drive along MLK, and the Beacon Hill stations. With lunch, we were back in the International District by 2 PM.
- Fun fact: Sound Transit reclaimed the "R" from the old "Rainier" sign and has put it in the "Rail" sign on the side of the maintenance building.
- (Personally, I think that's unbelievably cool.)
- Not counting the driver, we had three Sound Transit folks along to help us out and answer questions. Generally, one person was narrating the tour (and constantly taking questions from the riders); folks would switch off when one person knew more about an area than the other.
- The questions people were asking were all over the map, from the frequency of trains (6 minutes at peak), to their maximum speed (55 mph), to whether they have air-conditioning (they do). People also wanted to know about the earthquake-readiness of the system (very), the boring machine cutting the tunnels in Beacon Hill, handicapped and bike access to the trains, you name it. I was pretty impressed with how well-versed the Sound Transit folks were with the minutia of their project; they were asked a lot of random, random, random questions, and handled them all with ease.
- I was particularly curious about how the SeaTac station was going to be built - it's a late addition to the system, and, the last few times I'd been to the airport, it seemed to be, well, sitting out in the middle of nowhere. Turns out that's exactly where the station is going to be -- it will connect to the airport through the parking structure by way of skybridge, and will also connect over to the city of SeaTac through a footbridge. The idea is to have a "kiss and ride" lot in SeaTac where people can be dropped off or picked up. As I drove around and saw the site in question, it made a lot of sense to me. The SeaTac station will be well-integrated into the city of SeaTac itself, rather than just serving the airport. Smart.
- Light rail will run between 18 and 20 hours per day.
- Opening day is tentatively slated for July, 2009 - with the final airport station opening in December of next year. Can't wait.
If you can take the time off work (and, judging by the number of folks on the bus, a good number of us can), I'd strongly recommend the tour. You can learn more about it from the Sound Transit site.
And, if you're curious, my Flickr photostream is available.)
Posted by Gavin Shearer at June 1, 2008 1:48 PM. Posted to Transit.
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Posted by: Richard Barrett at June 8, 2008 11:02 PM
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