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- Category: Transit Blog
Lately I've been spending an increasing amount of time thinking about Seattle Area Transit. The answer to most transit questions is 100 Billion dollars (imagine Dr. Evil saying it). In my interest to find a different answer I've wandered around the Puget Sound area riding the mass transit that we do have with an interest in how we could improve our transit situation without spending the aforementioned 100 Billion dollars. We have many half ass transit solutions - buses that act like trains and fail, trains that go nowhere near where they're needed, light rail that only services airports, light rail that only services businesses within walking distance and monorail that only has two stops - neither of which are very far apart.
Seattle is known for a couple of things - the Space Needle, Grunge Bands, Coffee and the Monorail. There's been many debates about the monorail and we even came very close to expanding it all over the city. It's loved and hated but most of all it's just a tourist attraction for many. People who drive or walk say the monorail is ugly. People who want to use it are frustrated that it goes "nowhere" and they can't transfer to it. Most agree that it's dilapidated and in need of repair. Some think it needs to be torn down. All are probably right. I set out to see if the monorail had any value at all and below is my experience with it.
We wanted to go into the city for the Artisan Food Festival at Pike Place Market. The problem with Pike Place is there's nowhere to park. If you want to park in the parking garage you'll quickly find out that the normal rates don't apply during special events and the "deal" they give you is about 3x more expensive than usual. This means you're looking at between $10 and $15 to park your car for half a day. Ideally we'd have light rail from the suburbs to downtown Seattle but we have to wait another 20 years for that. Being Sunday the Sounder train and all Community Transit buses aren't running so we have no other choice but to drive. It would be nice to park somewhere else and ride transit to Pike Place market and since it's Sunday we could park on the street for free - enter the Monorail. Parking at the Seattle Center is fairly easy on Sunday and the Monorail goes from the Seattle Center to Westlake Center very near Pike Place Market. The cost for a round trip ticket on the Monorail is $4 for an adult. The total cost for the four of us was $12 or roughly what it would have cost to put the car in the parking garage but this way was more interesting and fun.
We parked on the street near the Seattle Center and walked to the Monorail near the Space Needle. Tickets are bought at a booth and boarding is done on an elevated platform. The Monorail is just that, it's a rubber tired train that rides on one tall concrete rail. On leaving the Seattle Center Station it passes through the Experience Music Project and flies through the city at speeds up to 45 mph. The Monorail was built nearly 50 years ago and is showing it's age. The concrete pillars holding it up are massive and ugly, it barely goes anywhere and yet there's something about it that only riding it will reveal - it's by far the best way to see the city. I feel sad now that they didn't expand it years ago. There's an emotional element to the monorail that you just don't have riding a bus, streetcar or light rail - you feel like you're flying.
The Monorail is a success from an economical standpoint. It's run by a private organization for the city of Seattle and is reported to be the only mass transit in the country to make money. The reason it makes money is it's not integrated into any transit system, it's only about 1 mile long and it's mostly tourists riding it. This is all fine and good but is it a solution to ANY transit problem? I think yes, but with reservations. It does go somewhere - Seattle Center to Westlake Plaza. Westlake is the terminus to the Central Link Light Rail and also a major bus station, a Sound Transit stop and the terminus for the South Lake Union Train (S.L.U.T.). Seattle Center on the other end is of course a very popular destination for Seattlites and tourists alike. The Monorail is fun to ride, reasonably comfortable (in a early 60s futuristic sort of way) and definitely fast. The downside is that in typical Seattle form it's not integrated into the transit scene. Because Seattle has so many different transit systems it's hard to figure out who you're supposed to be paying. Downtown alone you could catch the Waterfront Trolley (run by Metro), Metro buses, Sound Transit buses, Link Light Rail (Sound Transit), South Lake Union Trolley (Metro), Pierce County transit buses, Community Transit buses and the Monorail (private). Crazy or what? We now have the ORCA card which is supposed to allow one form of payment for all of these and transfers between systems. The Waterfront Trolley no longer exists, Metro, Sound Transit, Community Transit, Pierce Transit and Link Light Rail all use the ORCA card. But InterCity Transit does not and the 603 bus shared by Pierce and InterCity does not. The Monorail and the South Lake Union Trolley also don't take the ORCA card. Less crazy? Perhaps but it's still a mess. Here's what I think should be done.
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The Seattle Monorail needs to take the ORCA
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The South Lake Union Trolley needs to be expanded to the U District and take the ORCA
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The Waterfront Trolley needs to be brought back, extended up the hill to Seattle Center and take the ORCA
Let's think about this for a moment. Buses from the eastside and North of Seattle all converge on Westlake Plaza. Buses, Central Link Light rail and Sounder commuter rail converge at the International District. These two areas are connected via Central Link Light rail and the bus tunnel.
Popular destinations for residents AND tourists with the form of transit that would service it under my plan.
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Pioneer Square (Central Link light rail, Waterfront Trolley, Sounder Train)
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International District (Central Link light rail, Waterfront Trolley, Sounder Train)
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Waterfront (Watefront Trolley)
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Westlake Plaza (Central Link light rail, Sound Transit Buses, Monorail, S.L.U.T.)
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Pike Place Market (Central Link light rail, Sound Transit Buses, Monorail, S.L.U.T.)
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Seattle Center (Seattle Monorail, Waterfront Trolley)
Tourists coming from the Seatac airport on Link Light Rail would go to International District or Westlake. Tacoma Residents would ride the Sounder to the International District. Northend residents would ride Sound Transit buses to Westlake or the Sounder to the International District. From these locations all 6 of the popular destinations could be reached.
In order for this to happen the Waterfront Trolley would need to be brought back. I think too that it should have it's tracks lengthened to the Seattle Center. The Monorail needs to accept the ORCA card. Since most of the current 7000 riders a day are tourists this will not impact locals and if anything would increase ridership. This would also allow us to transfer from other forms of transportation. With these changes we'd have Light Rail/Monorail from the International District to Seattle Center through the center of town and Waterfront Trolley from the International District to Seattle Center along the waterfront.
The odd man out is the S.L.U.T.. Outside of having an awesome name it's mostly worthless. It too meets at Westlake Plaza but only goes to South Lake Union and the reason it even exists is still a mystery. It's slow, it goes nowhere and it doesn't take the ORCA. My opinion is that they need to extend it along Fairview Ave to the University District and connect with the University Link Station that's currently under construction. When the extension to the Light Rail to University Station gets completed we'd have a light rail line from Westlake to Capital Hill and then the University of Washington. The S.L.U.T. would provide a link from Westlake to University District by way of South Lake Union. All of these changes are fairly small (in comparison to the billions being spent on Link Light Rail) and would substantially improve on what we have. First Hill and Queen Anne Hill would not be served but there's a plan for a Streetcar on First Hill that would connect Capital Hill Link station to Union Station. I haven't decided whether that's a good idea or not.
Another interesting development is the purchase of the Eastside Rail Corridor by the Port of Seattle which gets us rail lines from Woodenville to Renton along the eastside. If those tracks could be lengthened to Tukwilla they could connect to the Sounder/Amtrak tracks. In combination with the East Link Light Rail we'd have a connection from Renton to Bellevue, Seattle to Bellevue, Bellevue to Redmond and Bellevue to Woodenville.
My main motivation for wanting the Monorail to take the ORCA card is so I can transfer. What are the negatives to the Monorail taking the ORCA card? None really since most of the passengers now are probably tourists. I think taking the ORCA would increase ridership, allow northerners to transfer from the 511 bus to the Monorail and allow southerners to transfer from the Link Light Rail to the Monorail. This I think would be a win/win situation.
What will probably happen is the Monorail will get torn down, the Waterfront Trolley will never run again. the S.L.U.T. will continue to be useless outside of t-shirt sales and the Eastside Rail Corridor will be made into a bike path - sigh.
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- Category: Food Blog
Sometimes things work out and other times you just empty the fridge into a pot and give the old dial a hearty twist. When it comes up to temp you serve it (in solitude). Tonight I looked through the pantry and realized I had nearly everything I needed to make Chili which would save me a trip to the store in the rain. I threw in one slab of hamburger (I fill 1 gallon freezer bags with a 1/2 inch thick square of hamburger and freeze it, they stack like sheets of plywood), two cans of whole tomatoes pulsed in the food processor, onions, bell peppers, tons of chile powder, cumin, coriander, garlic and so on. After having it simmer for an hour I gave it a sip and I was swept back to my childhood memories of navy green kitchen cabinets and brown shag carpet. You might not see the connection quite yet so I'm going to help you out a little (this one's a freebie but you can show your gratitude by sticking a thank-you note to the invoice of a 2010 Mustang GT and send it to the usual address). The thing that both the chili and the my childhood memories have in common is their lack of taste. Oooh! you say. Try and keep up, the clocks a ticking. So it seems my chili powder had turned to chilly powder. After much deliberation I added another quarter of a cup - call it a stimulus package if you will as it yielded the expected results - everything pretty much stayed the same. The cans of tomatoes were 99c grocery outlet random brand which seemed to be getting most of their flavor from the water they were packed in. Remind me to send off a letter to random brand to beef up the tomato flavoring in their water. Long story short - simmering it longer only lessened the cleansing nature of drinking 8 glasses water a day and boiling the hell out of it only resulted in the same amount of hell taking up a smaller amount of space. We have a rule in our house that on certain days we eat monastery style. This means that if anyone opens their big mouth they find themselves without a place to sleep. This was one of those times.
Thankfully you can always count on the act of "breaking bread" to save the day. The term breaking bread always reminds me of that time in Paris where I thought I was smarter than the French and tried to buy two baguettes on Saturday so I could eat one on Sunday when my boulangerie was closed. Breaking bread is not entirely accurate as the bread was the one opening a can of whoopass on everything it was whacked against. Our bread had no cause to be broke as it was made of corn and fried nicely in a cast iron skillet heated until the lard (yes I said it - lard) in the bottom was smoking. Piper also broke bread in the form of bagel dough turned mini-loaves. Seems the bagel dough was very wet and difficult to work with (sounds like someone I used to know) so she stuffed it into mini dutch ovens and it cooked up nicely. Someone needs to remind her about greasing and flowering her mini-dutch ovens though as the bread and the vessle in which it was cooked were tighter than Sonny and Cher which could only be separated by using one very hard object and a great deal of energy. I'm still talking about the bread here - try to stay focused.
Overall things worked out as they always do. Tomorrow I will attempt to save the leftovers, no pun intended.
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- Category: Philosophy
I haven't said anything controversial lately and I'm starting to itch. The very popular and free dating site OKCupid is run by a bunch of geeks who like to analyze data. Sometimes that analysis is insightful and other times it's just plain silly. Who says iPhone users get laid more than droid users? Of course a mindless drone will end up on their back more than someone who wants to discuss the meaning of life. So recently the folks over there at OKCupid decided to start pouring over the self-submitted data to see what "stuff white people want". Yes, that is the real working title. Now keep in mind that this data is not their opinion, it's just analysis of what people put on their own profiles. So if the words "Fried chicken" shows up on the profiles of people who identify themselves of a certain race then it's noted. Not saying there's anything wrong with fried chicken or that a certain type of person eats it more than others - It's just an example. Their research is somewhat interesting as it commonly is but what caught my eye is a bit controversial. It also factors into something I read in Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". He said that 90% of all Nobel prize winners are atheist. Ninety percent of the intellectually elite don't believe in a higher power! I'd written it off as a side effect of them being scientists and people who try to base their opinions on fact don't believe in the flying spaghetti monster either. Anyway curious. OKCupid made me think of that book by running 250,000 profiles through the Coleman-Liau Index reading test to gauge the reading (really writing) level of people and cross reference it with their self-associated race and religion. You might as well get out the torches now because you know it's going to be bad.
To the right is an image from their study showing who speaks and writes English the best in their profiles. East India is the largest English speaking country on earth by population. The next time I mention that I can't understand Dell tech support maybe it's they that can't understand my poor English. The "Asian" category was next. China is the second largest English speaking country on earth according to population so maybe that factors in. Followed by Middle Easterners and Pacific Islanders which means the guy driving your taxi and selling you roasted bananas may speak English better than you. There we are third from last place only beating out Latinos and blacks. You might think "white" wouldn't be a very good category for race because Germans are white and they don't speak English but the majority of the patrons to this website are largely North American thus white means native English speaking Americans and Canadians. It gets worse.
They then ran the test on the same 250,000 profiles and charted based on self-associated religious beliefs. Atheists took top honors followed by Buddhists, Jews and Agnostics. Hindu and Muslims took the next spots which is also hinted to in the previous chart. It's curious how poor the Christian religions did though. Do Christians really have the lowest reading level of any major religions? Again maybe the atheists put their faith in science and as a result are better educated. It's anybody's guess really as I'm sure more data would have to be collected.
The third and last chart that I'll show breaks down religion one step further. On OKCupid you have a choice of religion to identify with and how serious you are about it. You'll see people say Catholic and Serious about it or Hindu and laughing about it. OKCupid took these numbers and again cross referenced them with the results of the aforementioned Coleman-Liau Index and created yet another chart. This one showing the reading/writing levels along with how serious people were about their religion.
This is very interesting to me because a lot of people will associate with the religion they were raised with. A Catholic that hasn't been in a church in 30 years may still say he's Catholic. With this extra bit of information we might get closer to seeing who's really religious and cross referencing that with their reading/writing level. If you're fuming yet you can stop. This is all mostly for fun and to create conversation. The data is real but it's probably not a good idea to read into it too much. Besides when you put your profile together you have to keep your intended audience in mind. If you're looking for a blond bimbo to stand in for your blow up doll with a slow leak you're probably not going to fill your profile with big words and abstract thought. Hey!... Is that a torch in your hand?
So here we are. Buddhists who are not serious about their religion scored the highest where as serious Buddhists fell behind Agnostics and Atheists. Actually the people of each religion who are the most serious about their beliefs consistently scored lower than those who were not that serious. That's the most interesting thing. The more religious someone is the lower their reading/writing level. Maybe it's the other way around and those who can't read and write as well are as a result more religious. I'm sure you could twist this any way you want but it's interesting none the less. What's also interesting is if you observe the non-faith based belief systems you see something different. With Agnostics and Atheists their reading level goes up if they're serious over their not so serious counterparts. What does this mean? Maybe serious Atheists and Agnostics hit the books harder than those holding doubts? It's also interesting to notice that as the reading level goes down the variation between serious and not serious is greater and as the reading level goes up the variation is smaller. In the cast of the Atheists there's very little difference between the reading level of a serious Atheist and one not so serious.
Overall though the non-faith based belief systems scored higher than their faith based counterparts bringing me back to the statistic of the Nobel prize winners being predominantly Atheist.
Without making this more controversial than it already is I wonder if the difference is not intelligence (that would be way to disruptive) but rather those who believe in a higher power also put the burden of improving their corner of the universe on that higher power. For example, if people believe they are going to heaven then maybe they'd not spend as much time with education here on earth. If you don't believe there's anything more then maybe you'd maximize your time on earth. It's only a guess though but sort of makes sense. I used to associate with a religion that discouraged getting higher education because their main purpose was to go door to door to spread the word of God. What good is that master's degree but to make more money which buys nothing but earthly pleasures? This also brings up another question, are Atheists and Agnostics more greedy then since there's no heaven waiting for them? This data doesn't cover any of that but reading The God Delusion may be of interest to you.
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- Category: Food Blog
You may be wondering about the title of today's article. You may also be wondering if I'm nuts but just hear me out. I've always loved bread and when I was a kid I'd visit my grandmother who made bread every other day. I can remember the amount of work involved but loved putting real butter on a slice as soon as it came out of the oven. I make most of my flat bread at home because I just can't get myself to choke down the store bought stuff. I also make all of my sweet breads for the same reason. Over the years I've dabbled with baking artisan breads and have had decent luck with them.
In case nobody has noticed the States (and maybe the world) is currently in a bit of a recession so for a lot of folks money is a bit tight. We're also having a food epidemic in that we keep eating more and more crap and the country as a whole has become unhealthy and obese. This is a more complex problem then what I'm going to discuss right now but you can watch Jamie Oliver's TED speech if you doubt how bad this problem has become. So whenever I run across a solution to more than one problem with little to no drawbacks I get excited about it. In my tiny corner of the universe I'd like to save a bit of money and eat better. This isn't so hard to do but you usually have to sacrifice a great deal of time to do so until now. On good advice I've been playing around with Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François' book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. The idea is if you make a bunch of dough, keep it in the fridge and just cut off a chunk every day to bake then you're only spending 5 minutes per day making homemade bread. The reality is you're spending 5 minutes of your time but start to finish it takes about 90 minutes to 2 hrs a day to have bread but you're not doing anything during that time. You could be watching a movie. Not any dough can be used in this manner so they came up with a super saturated dough that will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks.
The process goes something like this. Throw a bunch of stuff in a mixer, turn it on for a couple of minutes just until it's mixed (but don't knead it) and cover it to let it rise for about an hour. Then take the dough, put it in the fridge and then the next day you can start baking. Because there's so much water in the dough it's much nicer to work with when it's cold. Whenever you want bread you just cut off a grapefruit sized portion, fold the corners under so it makes a nice ball and drop it on a cornmeal covered pizza peel. Forty minutes later after it's warmed up you pop it in the oven and cook it for half an hour and you have fresh bread in 5 minutes a day.
So far I've been very impressed because all of the work involved in traditional bread is just not there. You don't knead the bread ever, you don't have to start 4 hrs before dinner making the dough, you don't have to watch it's rise and punch it down half way through or anything. The only real issue is that since it's so wet it can be quite sticky. I'm trying various things to combat that. Cornmeal on the peel helps but doesn't solve the problem. Tonight I put down flour and then cornmeal and it still stuck but an oiled spatula was able to break it free and onto the clay tiles in my oven.
To summarize you can make good bread in 5 minutes a day for about 35 cents a loaf and you don't need any special equipment outside of a baking stone. Poor lazy people eat better.
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- Category: Travel Blog
I've always wanted to just mess with the TSA since they're completely asinine half the time but I'm always in a hurry it seems. This tote bag would be good fuel for the fire though. I'm sure they wouldn't think it's very funny and would insist on going through all of my bags just to express their opinion but I think I might try it anyway..
Even funnier (and more disruptive to my travel plans) would be to tape on tin foil shaped scissors etc... I'm not sure what they'd look like in the X-ray machine but it might be fun to find out.
TSA isn't that careful anyway so they might not notice. I did an article quite some time ago about a third party company testing airport security. On average they were able to get fake bomb parts through security 25% of the time. That means that every four terrorists through security could blow up a plane.
There was a time where we had bottles of liquid in our bag and they pulled us aside and hand searched the bag. Once they found two they threw them away and sent us on our way. When we got to the hotel we opened our bag and took out the rest. Another time they swore they saw sissors in a friends bag so they took everything out until there was nothing left and still said they saw scissors but since they couldn't find them they let us through anyway. What if they saw a gun but couldn't find it, would they let us through?
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- Category: Food Blog
This was on Craigslist today. I started chuckling at how well taken care of this "smooker" is but the text is funny too. I'm not sure what a charcole smooker is but it sure looks like they've taken great care of it. It's not rusted ALL THE WAY through like the others.
smoker/charcole grill - $75 (olympia)
Date: 2010-09-04, 3:11PM PDT
well taken care of char-griller smooker if interested call me at [number deleted] obo thanks
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- Category: Transit Blog
My mother travels across four transit systems to go from her house to mine and in an effort to improve her quality of life we took a day trip to try out some new alternatives. Her trip usually ends up including getting on 5 buses in 5 cities and taking 4 hours. I started thinking about a way to make this trip easier and possibly faster and that usually means using rail. Buses are good for wandering through neighborhoods picking up people who want to go to the mall but not so good at carrying large numbers of people from one city to another. The Seattle area has been very weak in the mass transit area for many years. I remember watching a movie that took place in the 70s where the main characters job was to solve the transit issues in Seattle – in the 1970s! Since then not much has been done.
If you have tried riding the bus in your area you've probably become very frustrated with the bus schedules. Most buses are not consistent and run more often at one time of day then the other times making it hard to remember when to catch it. If you want some perspective just check out ITA's 603 bus that goes from Olympia to Tacoma. It happens to be the only bus that spans Fort Lewis so if you live on one side of Fort Lewis and have to get to the other side you're at complete mercy of the 603 bus schedule. This schedule makes all other buses look sane. Sometimes it stops in Lacey, sometimes it stops at the Tacoma Dome. It NEVER does both (except for that one time in the morning). It has 12 stops and it never stops at more than 7, it all depends on when you ride it which stops it stops at. It's insane, it really is.
So this brings me to Tacoma. From Tacoma to the North Seattle area things get better. A little after 4 in the afternoon there is a Sounder heavy rail train that goes from Tacoma to Seattle. Fifteen minutes after it arrives (98.8% on time) another Sounder heavy rail train leaves for Everett. This is the only time in the day that this happens. The only time you can go all the way through the other way is to leave Everett at 5:45 am and you only have a 6 minute layover in Seattle. If you miss that second train you're there for 7 hrs or continuing on the bus. To see if this was a viable way to get from Tacoma to Mukilteo we set out on a little journey riding both the rail systems in the region that we've not yet ridden – the Sounder and Tacoma Link.
My trip to Tacoma was as you would expect – my bus came 5 minutes early and had I not been trying to cross the street in the middle of the rain with a rolling bag and a bright red umbrella the driver wouldn't have stopped and I would have missed all my connections. He drove like a crazy person to the Lynnwood transit station and got there 10 minutes before scheduled arrival. This means all of those people trying to catch that bus are still standing out in the rain. Buses can't be early! I was supposed to have a 10 minute layover but an ST511 commuter bus pulled up as I arrived and I boarded and it pulled away. So either it was 20 minutes early or 10 minutes late. I'm not sure but I can tell you that it wasn't on time either. Sound Transit buses have an 88% on-time record. The 511 commuter at 8 in the morning was about half full and about as comfortable as a bus can be. In Seattle I walked about 4 blocks and stood under an overhang for the ST 594 which then almost empty took me to Tacoma Dome station. Total transit time – 2 hr 38 minutes. Total cost - $3.
The Tacoma Dome station looks massive on the map but in reality it's just a large parking garage for the Tacoma Dome with Pierce Transit, Intercity Transit, Sound Transit and Greyhound bus stops one side and a Tacoma Link Light Rail stop on the south side between the parking garage and the Freighthouse Square (more later). On the opposite side of the Freighthouse Square the Sounder heavy rail commuter train boards. To make things complete about a block down the street is the Amtrak station. They've done a pretty good job of having one central location for everything. It would be nice if the Amtrak station was a bit closer though just so people don't have to ask as you won't see it just by looking around.
My next leg was to board the Tacoma Link light rail for the grand fee of nothing. Yes it's free which I was to find out later was liberating. According to Sound Transit it costs about $3 a person to run Tacoma Link so they're losing $3 a rider. This compares favorably with the Sound Transit buses which cost $7 a person to run and they charge $2.50 resulting in a $4.50 loss. The interesting thing is they're losing $3 per rider all the while having a Sound Transit driver, attendent and Security person on board. How cheap would it be to run if there was only a driver? The Tacoma Link reminds me a great deal of Portland's MAX light rail as it runs in the street and the cars even feel familiar. I was really critical of Tacoma Link because it seemingly doesn't go anywhere and it's basically a street car that can get stuck in traffic. I'd compared it to the SLUT in downtown Seattle which also gets stuck in traffic and doesn't go anywhere (South Lake Union?). However, upon riding it I realized it goes everywhere you would want to go in Tacoma (sorry Tacoma), does so every 10 minutes, is comfortable and stress free. And it beats the buses because it gets priority it seems. The free aspect is more than just saving money. It means that you can step out of any shop, hop the Light Rail and get off at any other shop without thinking about it. They also come often enough that you don't have to think about it. There's a sort of freedom here that I like a lot.
My initial ride on the Tacoma Link took me to the Theater district to pick up my mother and daughter who'd ridden the dreadful 603 bus across the great Fort Lewis divide. For the next 4 hrs we wandered Tacoma, the Theater district, it's many antique shops, took pictures of various live performing theaters, old buildings etc... We visited the old Union Station which is now a Federal Court House, ate cupcakes at Hello Cupcake, walked the bridge of glass and generally had a great time. Freighthouse Square at the Tacoma Dome station is a pretty decent experience as well. There are many local shops housing art, crafts and even legos. There are also many vacant stores that I think in time would be filled considering the Freighthouse Square's location. Freighthouse Square also has a small food court that reminds me of Crossroads Mall in Bellevue. We ate Indian for $7 a plate which was surprisingly much better than the real Indian restaurants in Lynnwood (which to be honest is not a high bar).
Getting the Sounder back to Seattle was a very easy task. Inside Freighthouse Square there is an area where you can swipe your ORCA card if you have one or buy a ticket at in the wall kiosks. Boarding is as easy as swiping the card and walking on the train. These trains are Bombardier double decker cars that lean into the turns much like a French high speed TGV car. The Sounder is not a high speed train in the same regard as the 200 mph TGV but it could if the tracks were solid and straight enough achieve 110 mph if allowed. Currently all trains in America are limited to 79 mph because of a lack of automatic safety stop functionality. The seats in the Sounder aren't particularly comfortable nor are they large (but the aisle is huge) but they still trump the bus because you can get up and move around if you wish. Leg room is better, some groups of seats have a table between them and supposedly there's free wifi (although I couldn't get it to work). There were about 4 stops between Tacoma and Seattle including Puyallup, Auburn and Tukwila. I looked up the Tukwila stop and found it to be about a 1 mile walk to the Southcenter Mall which is closer than you'll get on the Central Link Light Rail.
We arrived at Seattle's historic King Street station and had to tap our ORCA a second time to let it know we'd ended our journey. Total cost for me was $4.75. We had 15 minutes or so to tap our ORCA cards again to get on the northbound Seattle to Everett train. The Tacoma to Seattle train was a great experience. It covered decent amount of ground in the one hour it took to get to Seattle. The train outran the cars part of the time and barely took longer than driving. Driving is only faster because the route is more direct. There are plans to improve this line with an additional 4 trains per day and an extension to Lakewood Transit Center which would be an improvement. I wish for my own selfish reasons that at least 2 of those 4 trains are during reverse commute times so I can go to Tacoma in the morning and return in the evening.
The Northbound journey from Seattle to Everett was a bit of a mixed bag. In relation to the Tacoma – Seattle link it's slow and doesn't really stop at enough places. It's a pretty ride and still more comfortable than taking the bus but there's only 4 trips a day (as opposed to the current 9 to Tacoma which will increase to 12) and they're not really scheduled very well because they leave from Everett *very early in the morning. Return trains aren't bad. To help matters Sound Transit has partnered with Amtrak to allow passengers to go into Seattle on the two Cascades trains at 10am and then again late at night. Problem is this is only for monthly pass holders so people like me that only ride Sound Transit on occasion can't take the Amtrak trains and also they don't stop at Mukilteo making them again not very useful to me. I think the north Sounder could be improved a bit by adding a couple of stations and more trains. Both of these things are in the works but this track is very busy so there's not much else they can do. They really need to run rails down the middle of I-5 and fly the Sounder down them. I think the 45 minute trip from Everett to Seattle would be halved. That's just fantasy though. It takes Seattle years just to run trains on tracks that already exist. Another blunder by people who make transit decisions that don't ride transit is to put the parking lot between the Sounder platform in Mukilteo and the Ferry terminal. I'm sure the Sound Transit engineers didn't think much of it but people who are transferring between buses, ferries and rail have to walk between them. By putting the platform on the far end of the parking lot people need to walk across the parking lot to make the transfer adding valuable minutes onto their transfer. The reason I see this as important is because we missed our Community Transit bus. We got as far as pounding on the sides of the bus as it was pulling away. The connection time is 13 minutes if the train is on time. I've already said they have about a 99% on-time record but ours was 3 minutes late which made us miss our bus. The alternative was to catch an Everett Transit bus to Rucker and then the Swift back to Lynnwood and our local bus home adding 40 minutes to our journey. The other other solution was to wait for the next Community Transit bus which wasn't coming for another hour.
Outside of the Community Transit being incompetent (who pulls away while people are pounding on your bus?) the experiment was enlightening and positive. My suggestions to Sound Transit follow.
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Add more trains to the Seattle to Everett line.
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Add more stops to the Seattle to Everett line.
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Move the platform to the near side of the parking lot in Mukilteo
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Add trains to the schedule to allow people to travel through Seattle both directions, not just to it.
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Add more trains to the Seattle to Tacoma line – again see number 4.
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Lengthen the Seattle to Tacoma line to Lacey
Numbers 1, 2 and 4 they're working on. Number 3 will probably never happen because moving a platform to save 2 minutes doesn't make sense to someone making decisions who doesn't have to make that transfer. An alternative would be to adjust the schedule so it arrives a 5 minutes earlier. This would relieve the stress for both bus and ferry. Sound Transit is extending the Tacoma line to Lakewood which is a start. What we really need is an alternative way to get across the Fort Lewis divide thus my recommendations to go to Lacey. With a feeder bus to Olympia I think we'd be in good shape.
Conclusion:
If you live in Tacoma or Everett use the Sounder, it's a much better experience than riding the bus. If you want to go from Tacoma to Everett that 4:25 train works really well. If you want to go back to Tacoma you're out of luck so take the bus. This whole trip was fun in that we got to try out some new forms of transportation, got to run around Tacoma and get to know it better and we're planning a future trip where we to Tacoma to see the Glass Museum, the Washington State history museum and the Tacoma Art Museum. They have a deal on Wednesdays where you get access to all three museums for $22. Add that to lunch and the Sounder trip and you're looking at $40 for a day of fun and culture.
As for satisfying my original objective I realized that including the Sounder in my mother's journey to my house isn't any faster but the experience is a great deal nicer. The would cost her about $2 more but she says that it's worth it.
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- Category: Food Blog
I often hear people talk about Le Terroir when used to denote the special characteristics that geography bestows upon particular varieties of wine, coffee and tea. People wanting to grow grapes in less idealistic locations (not France or Italy) dispute this claim. I'm here to say that I believe in Le Terroir - at least in part. Every year I make Blackberry Syrup and Blackberry jam. I have along the east and north sides of my house Blackberry bushes the size of trees. The bushes in the north produce amazing, knock it out of the park, rocket to the moon, get the big O, fabulous fruit that in turn makes the most amazing syrup you've ever had. Those of you who know me know that I love exclamation food and this syrup is all I've said it is. The most common response to a spoonful is Oh My God! Really, I get that more than anything.
The berries on the east side of the house produce roughly the same thing short a few explicatives. The syrup they produce is for the record still better than anything you'll ever get in a bottle from the store and that includes so called "gourmet" products. The reason that both syrups made from berries on the side and back are great is that I only pick the absolute ripest berries which are very low in pectin and very high in natural sugar. I combine these with a bit more cane sugar and a tad of water and then only boil them just long enough for the fruit to break down and give me their juice. In this case the longer you cook the fruit the more you break down the flavor. However, the two locations give me different qualities of fruit. Even the birds will pick the bushes in the back clean before moving to those in the side of the house. What's the difference? I don't know to be honest. The ones in the back are at the bottom of a slope so maybe they get more water, they're further from the street so maybe less pollution, they get sun all day instead of half day, they're let run wild as opposed to me having to hack away on the side bushes on occasion... It's my opinion though that my fireplace has something to do with it. I have a gas fireplace on the east side and the pilot light is on, that means it's burning gas which then exits the right side of the building. I wonder if there's just enough gas in the air that the plants aren't as healthy.. Plants are funny that way.
No matter, this syrup might as well be crack (and should be illegal). I've taken to making homemade ice cream every other night just so I have an excuse to put syrup on it. I have to confess that I've gone down to the fridge in the middle of the night just to get a spoonful of syrup by itself. ;-) This morning I got out my Waring Pro 300 Belgian Waffle maker (father's day present) and made perfectly light and crispy waffles using Carbon's Golden Malted waffle mix just like what you get at many popular business hotels. And of course, I drizzled them with Blackberry Syrup. This syrup resembles liquid rubies is so beautiful that you hardly want to eat it until you get a whiff then a taste and you're all done.
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- Category: Transit Blog
I spend enough time on Seattle Transit blogs yammering on about transit so I decided I should probably start posting something in my own transit blog. Since a blog cannot be a blog without a log.
Part of my frustration with local transit (local as in the U.S.) is that it takes forever to do anything. In the amount of time that it will take the U.S. to build it's first real high speed rail Mexico will be done with theirs. Mexico? We're competing against Mexico and losing. The reason is that Mexico decides to do something and then does it. Here in the land of the free we decide to do something then sit in commitree meetings for the next 20 years trying to address every single person's objections. The last time we had any guts we built an amazing freeway system - that was 50 years ago.
China is another one. Yes I understand the issues with human rights and all of that but we're talking about transit. in 2005 China decided to build a metro system in Shanghai. Now they have the largest metro system in the world having just passed London. By 2020 they plan on adding extensions to it that by themselves equal the size of the New York City subway!
There's argument over how the size of metro systems are measured but no matter as this is a very large and they've done it in record time.
What keeps us from doing this? We have to take into consideration everything before pushing one shovel into the ground. How much will it cost? How much noise will it make? How will it effect the environment? These projects are expensive but so are the alternatives. How much co2 is dumped into the air now and how much wear and tear is put on the highways in addition to the cost of expanding/widening them? How much longer would our cars last if we had a faster, more reliable way of getting to work? I'd like to see a REAL cost analysis on transportation. We have had transit projects shelved because of environmental impact. Environmental Impact of million sof drivers driving to work every day? According to the U.S. Census Bureau 77.3% of all commuters drive to work and are alone in the car. What's the environmental impact of building cars that wear out in 7 years from high mileage, producing trillions of gallons of gas a year, paving roads, repaving roads and repairing roads in addition to the impact of exhaust being dumped into the atmosphere? I'd like to see these numbers but I think that digging a trench in the ground and filling it with tracks is less than the above mentioned items. Not to mention that Paris, London and Budapest are still using their 100 year old metro systems. Cost? Spread it over the next century.
There will be more posts on China, they're also in the process of building the largest high speed rail network in the world.
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- Category: Philosophy