Change This Commute
Coming home from work on the bus last night, we got to thinking about how even getting to vote on a light-rail package this year is going to be an uphill fight. The dire prospects for light rail anytime soon pushed us to extrapolate the costs to our psyche of waiting during the ride home.
First we had to run a few blocks in the rain to catch the 8. While admittedly, we should have left the office a few minutes earlier, we know from experience that such runs don't happen in cities with real mass rapid transit. In places like New York City and Portland, people just know the next train will be along in a few minutes.
Walking to our seat, we noticed the guy in the picture as he examined a mint-condition Dokken LP which warmed our fast-beating heart. Seeing him love his new purchases was the only moment of the trip that didn't make us yearn for a train to ride. Mostly, because we figured he'd probably have been on the train too.
After the bus inched down a jam-packed Denny Way, we finally made it to Lower Queen Anne where we were forced to hustle to the 33. We don't think we even need to say this but we will: Real mass rapid transit is separated from all the schlubs driving cars so you always know how long it's going to take to get to get to the next stop and make connections easily. Trains don't deal with gridlock.
We made the 33 though and, just like Seattlest Dan's experience, it was packed. We finally got a seat though and settled in for the remainder of the ride when we had our last understanding about why trains are better than buses.
In Seattle, you might have noticed, it's often dark and wet. When you're new to a line, as we are on the 33, it's really hard to identify what stop you've reached. On trains, each station is well lit, marked and announced by a conductor or a robot voice. At the few stops when the driver grumbled into his microphone, we couldn't tell what he was saying.
"How nice," we thought as we paid our fare, "it would be to sit on one of many speedy, quiet trains making our way home."
As we crossed the street, we looked back and noticed the ad on the side of the bus. It was one of those King County Metro ads encouraging people to use mass transit. "Change the World One Commute at a Time," it said. How we wish this city would try harder to change a lot of commutes all at once.
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