Seattle Transit Tour

Seattle from the I-90 Bus lane.

Glen the Lake Boren Carp (short for carpool) was telling me about the transit system and how you can get everywhere. He said the busses and carpools get to use the diamond lanes. Sounded interesting. So I decided to give it a try.

Years ago, before diamond lanes, I rode the bus to work in Everett. The project I was working on went to mandatory overtime. That bus was a special that got you to work at starting time and left for Bellevue at quitting time. No overtime bus so I had to quit riding. Within a month my knees stopped hurting.

Eastgate Park and Ride in Bellevue.

All those oldies have been replaced due to scientific advancements. Now they use a diesel engine rather than steam. The driver doesn’t have to crank it to start. The wood spoke wheels have been updated.

Busses to Seattle come in two flavors. Express and even slower. The express stops fewer times.
We left the Eastgate Park and Ride and entered the diamond lane on I-90 at the fish ladder. These fish are bronze.

Eastgate Fish Ladder Salmon

It was express and we stopped at Mercer Island. Did you know people live there? I was amazed. They even have a Park and Ride. I thought it was just land fill but apparently some folks built houses on it. Scary.

We got back on I-90 for the white knuckle ride on the floating bridge diamond lane. It’s sandwiched between the east and west lanes of I-90 and reverses every morning and afternoon.
After the open sky of the bridge we dove into the Mt. Baker Tunnel. It’s nowhere near Mt. Baker but people call it that. Makes you think there’s a mountain above. Nobody was fooled.

Once on the Seattle side of Lake Washington (man, people really live on Mercer Island – I can’t get over it) we leave the freeway and use a special bus diamond lane into the downtown transit tunnel. You have to get on the right bus to get the tunnel ride. Selecting the right bus is among the challenges of bus riding. You don’t want to risk accidently going to Renton!

The bus tunnel is a nasty piece of work. When you enter there’s a very tight kink in the roadway that tests the hinge in the middle of the bus. It’s at this same point that the tracks for the Link Light Rail enter the tunnel. All very ceremonial.

Looking out the window you can see all kinds of utility conduits and bare cement, fences, and barricades. They don’t want anybody without a bus in there and they don’t care how it looks.
The first station in the tunnel is all artsy and fixed up. They have fancy tile and big wide walkways with artwork on the walls. Not at all like the entry. This is where some people get off. Maybe those people who live on Mercer Island.

Sign at Entrance to Westlake Center from Bus Tunnel.

This pattern repeats; utility tunnel all dirty and narrow followed by another station all artsy and tiled. Maybe they don’t think anyone looks out the window while the bus is moving.

After several stops the bus reaches Westlake Center and lots of us leftovers get off. About half the people have iPod buds in their ears. I don’t blame them.

Westlake Center is not by a lake. It’s in the midst of the city. When you get out there are several ways to exit the station that usually get you into the lower part of shopping venues. For example you can go into Macy’s or Coldwater Creek. I went to Westlake Center which has many shops.

The first thing you notice is one of the escalators is all torn apart and a couple of guys in work overalls are talking about how many weeks it’ll be before the repair parts arrive. Downtown Seattle requires a good pair of shoes and a willingness to take the stairs.

South Lake Union from Space Needle.

Westlake Center has a food court on level three. Also level three is where you can catch the Monorail. The plaza outside is humming with activity. People want you to give them money, sign petitions, and listen to their conversations with imaginary pals on the other end of the phone. I saw a few who didn’t have a phone or headset but were still managing to have a conversation with some unseen entity.

SLUT Arrives at Downtown Stop.

Outside on 5th Avenue level you can cross a couple streets and find the South Lake Union Streetcar (SLUT) stop. I carefully read the instructions for getting a ticket and then figured out where to stand. I got on and sat down but nobody asked to see a ticket. I think they have a hole in their fare collection system.

This is how you buy a ticket for the trolley. Takes a bit of investigation.

The SLUT runs on the street and uses an overhead wire for power. It’s fairly quiet except when the recorded message announces the stop. It also announces who sponsors the stop. What? The stops have sponsors? Wow.

Not real crowded on the SLUT.

Paul Allen and the gang are making a real impact on the area with several square blocks under construction. It was impressive. Mostly digging at this point. Someday the area will be very nice (according to the information graciously provided by the same people who are paying for all the work).

The SLUT makes its final stop at the Fred Hutchinson Medical Center. The “Hutch,” as it’s called, is by Lake Union near where the old Ford plant is. They used to build Model T’s, or was it Model A’s? I don’t know. The building is still there and it’s been used for many things over the years but they still call it the old Ford plant.

The SLUT returns to Westlake Center. Some people on board seem to be transit and train buffs. I talked to a retired transit person from Bellingham.


The Blue Monorail arrives at Westlake Center.

Back at Westlake I found my way to level three and boarded the Monorail. It’s a museum train from 1962 when Seattle had the World’s Fair. It’s still the same route and still the same trainsets as back then. Several years before I was born. Umm, well anyway a long time ago.

The Blue Monorail arrives at Seattle Center emerging from EMP.

The site of the Fair is now called Seattle Center. It’s not in the “center” of Seattle, kind of like Westlake is not by a lake. The Space Needle sits there along with the Pacific Science Center and the Experience Music Project. Lots of places in Seattle get the name “Center.” And they don’t seem to care if it’s the center of anything.

Base of the Space Needle.

Since this was a transportation day I took the elevator to the top of the Space Needle. The elevator is open on one side and as you ride to the top seagulls and crows fly up and beg for handouts.

Space Needle from ground level.

The observation deck provides views of many mountains, including Mt. Baker of tunnel fame. Today the Olympics and Mt. Rainier were shining in the distance. Many days in Seattle you can barely see across the street so this was good.

Experience Music Project from above.

Amazingly you can see Mercer Island from there. It’s huge. Maybe it really is big enough for people to live on. Hard to imagine.

After that I rode the Monorail back to Westlake Center – it runs Center to Center (?). The escalator was still broken so I took the stairs back down to the bus tunnel. I wonder if they’ve named it yet. “The West Lake Boren Transit Tunnel Center” seems like a good name.

The diamond lane return trip to the Eastgate Park and Ride took longer because of that “getting on the wrong bus” thing. Gotta be careful. I ended up in downtown Bellevue and had to find a bus heading for Eastgate. It took some back streets and at one point it looked like Renton might be in the plan. But we avoided that disaster and made it to Eastgate OK. I’ve never seen the gate its east of but at least it’s not called Eastgate Center.

Al

Newspapers – Going, Going, Gone!:

Our Seattle Post-Intelligencer is for sale and if nobody buys it they say it will just simply close up shop. They gave the sale 60 days (from last month) so it’s a little longer than eBay. Interested?

In an earlier post I reviewed the reasons newspapers are not hitting on all cylinders. Basically the business model is lopsided away from the purpose. The word “newspaper” says it’s a paper whose purpose is to deliver news. And they have an army of delivery minions fanning out across the land delivering papers to homes and businesses.

Well that’s one of the problems. We have around 4 million people in the Greater Newcastle Puget Sound Area but circulation barely tops 100,000. So delivery minions travel a great deal while passing up non-customers.

The business model derives revenue from ads, not news. Papers are filled with ads that essentially pay the bills and provide salaries for the newsroom employees. What they can charge for ads depends on how many “subscribers” they have. Each subscriber is worth so much to an advertiser.

What are some reasons papers lose customers? Lack of news and no interest in the ads are a couple of biggies. In the old days of Seattle the papers used to publish the names of boats coming and going. If you wanted fresh fish you checked the paper to see if a fishing boat was in port. Then you went to market, bought a fish, wrapped it in newspaper, and took it home to the cat.

That’s just one example of things you used to find in Seattle papers. Now you’re lucky if they mention Seattle in any context besides describing the guy police are looking for in connection with something or other.

Then there are the ads. My question is how many people really search the ads for what they want to buy? I don’t. Am I unusual? Of course, but I wonder if that includes how I read a newspaper.

Mostly when I see one of those 20 page color inserts for “Nevan’s Discount Boot Barn” I just wonder if it’s a chain or a single store and promptly forget about it. Nevan used to sell garter belts but things weren’t too good and models are expensive so he changed to boots. Who needs models? Boots stand alone.

And, of course, there is the paper itself. The newsprint life cycle is expensive and smelly. Every week big blue trucks come around neighborhoods and collect bins of old newspaper that eventually gets back to the paper factory where hundreds of workers sit around all day and erase the “news” so the PI can buy it back and print the next edition.

My original suggestion was that Microsoft or Apple (or anyone else who can deliver snazzy devices) could make electronic readers that can deliver news for a small subscription fee. Amazon has sold around half a million Kindles that do that except it’s kind of awkward. The black on grey print is very readable, but hardly any pictures, page turners too big, and so on. You can subscribe to newspapers, magazines, and blogs. There are over 230,000 books available and it’s growing.

They come electronically and you can use the Kindle itself to browse Amazon and order books which arrive on the device in seconds. Periodicals arrive at the time of publication as long as you have the receiver on.

Now some more folks are producing these gizmos. One is called a “Plastic Logic” made of all plastic. Another is from Pixel Qi and is based on an inexpensive laptop design. Adobe has an application called “AIR” which they say can be used for downloading and reading on mobile devices. I’m sure more will be coming out as well. We’ve not heard from Apple yet. Microsoft is still tied to the full computer platform but I bet they too are looking at readers.

The point here is that today we are starting to see devices that are working toward elimination of the paper format for delivering news. And one of the most important keys is users will be paying small subscription fees for “news” rather than token fees for piles of paper.

Another key element is high speed internet availability. America is behind in delivering it to all households. The shopping and advertisement function would be separated from news delivery by keeping it on the internet.

A key prospect for informed consumers is that we can subscribe to a blog on our readers that tells about all the neat new stuff on the market. Then we get on our high speed internet and find out where it’s being sold locally. But that sounds like a “pull” system where the shopper has to research the source. A pile of ads on the doorstep is a “push” system where they just show up.

The readers of the future could do that just as well. The user could enter preferences, such as groceries in Newcastle, and receive full store ads with sale prices, specials, and electronic coupons. The device should be able to somehow link so you could make a list. Maybe it would be capable of sending info to the store so that when you check out the coupons are deducted from your items right there in line. If you decide not to get a coupon item it just ignores it.

Too much information? Probably. I’m sure the big data milking outfits would keep track of you and focus beams of ads into your head in hopes of getting you to buy more than you want, etc. In any case I still think the news industry should divorce itself from the advertising industry.

News and reporting are very important to a democracy and Americans need to stay informed. Sure, it’ll take many years to convert over to electronic news delivery and there will be a lot of shakeout in the process. But we really need to unhook from so much paper.

Cities with only one newspaper don’t really exist. When the PI goes away we’ll still have the Times. But we also have hundreds of focused rags everywhere. We have a business journal that tells about commerce, real estate mags, lots of local neighborhood papers, school papers, and it goes on and on. In Seattle we can also get the Wall Street Journal and New York Times (if we’re made of money).

The point is the Times doesn’t have to report on business, like commercial boat traffic, because another paper does that. They don’t have to deal with local items because other papers can do that. However, these are widely disbursed and you have to make an effort to find a publication that covers what you want. Besides very few actually report very well, but they could if “news” was their real business.

If you can get real news electronically on an easy to use reader you should be able to select news categories from a menu. There are a lot of categories I don’t care about. However, I’m interested in construction. I want to know who’s building what. I also want to know what’s going on with public construction, such as transportation and utilities. That’s my job now that I’m retired. But newspapers only cover those things superficially. The Business journal is too expensive. And even if you can find a source it’s almost always PR announcements rather than what’s really going on.

I’m looking for the future of news delivery today. I’m ready for my news to come from reporters who are not beholden to advertisers or employed by people making the news. I want to get back to an independent “press” that gives me information about what’s going on. Today.

So my message is: “Hey PI, when you leave town take the Times with you.”

Al