Lots of stuff going on in Mt. Baker this Saturday:
- Franklin Arts Festival, 11am-3pm, at the High School. Performances, plus crafts and plants for sale.
- From 9am-3pm, the Mount Baker Neighborhood is holding an organized yard sale. Pick up maps at 2811 Mt Rainier Drive S, about a quarter mile from the high school.
- For the kids, the new Fire Station 30 is across the street from Franklin and is having its open house from 11-1.
- If you’re willing to venture a little farther from the train, Orca K-8 school is holding a plant sale the same day from 10-3. (5215 46th Ave S). Take the 7 or bike 2 miles from Mt. Baker.
The idea behind the “excuse of the week” series is that there are a bunch of Seattle-based rail fans out there that would love to use Link for something but don’t have much occasion to go to Seatac or the Rainier Valley. Is this an accurate assessment and a useful service?
Yes and yes.
Ditto
Yes, more light rail excuses, please.
I discovered my own excuses when I went to the Mt Baker meeting last week. The club is a 7-minute walk east of the station. It’s part of a tiny streetcar-suburb commercial district with an interesting-looking pizza place, a dog-toy shop, a yoga-ish something and a couple other businesses. Across the street is an Olmstead boulevard and park. West of the station, the Cheasty greenbelt has a trail going north that I want to try. Somebody earlier mentioned the Thai restaurant just north of the station entrance.
I can’t wait until the space-wasting Wendy’s and Philly cheesesteak buildings (one story in a sea of asphalt) are replaced with something bigger.
Thai Recipe is excellent.
Add a yes for me. Link is near my work but isn’t in my commute path, so I need a specific reason to ride it. Even a good lunch spot might be reason enough (I already take bus or rail to the International District occasionally for lunch – check out MSG150 for recommendations).
Yes, though I feel like this is something the transit agencies should be doing. I think of the great London Underground posters that showed the great variety of activities accessible by Tube.
Which is why you need to pick up “Ride” every quarter. Sound Transit does that on the back page.
Quarterly is a little too long to wait. Vancouver TransLink’s ‘Buzzer’ comes out every month and is easily found on every bus/train/ferry. And they have a blog and very active Twitter account that operates morning to midnight daily.
That said, I do enjoy picking up “Ride” and reading it but it is hard to find (usually get it at Westlake) and I can’t find back issues on the website. My favorite is the “Sounder Saves Salmon” cover. Cute salmon!
+1, Oran. Always thought beautimuous posters highlighting attractions both permanent and passing near each stop would be stellar. Not quite sure the back of a quarterly most folks haven’t heard of quite compares, nice as Ride can be…
Transit marketing needs to improve in general. Until transit ads are as ubiquitous as car ads, there is more room for improvement. Its better for taxpayers to fund full buses than mostly empty buses, so marketing is a legitimate use of transit funding.
I see it at Northgate Transit Center all the time.
Great idea! Especially grateful for word on Franklin- always get a lift out of just seeing the beautiful building from the train window going through Mt. Baker Station. Might expand the idea to include stuff accessible by a LINK ride “paired” with a bus trip, maybe starting with ST Express.
Might be a good lead-in to a campaign to add a day-pass (or daily maximum fare) to ORCA. Everyplace else on Earth has one. Would be good entertainment if somebody with either ST or Metro explained in these pages why we don’t.
Mark Dublin
Yes – but there needs to be a bus equivalent.
http://www.freighthousesquare.com/Events.html
Good thought, Kaleci. How about, for instance:
1. LINK to Sea-Tac for the train ride, then transfer to the 574 to Freighthouse Square, and Tacoma LINK to current Normal Rockwell exhibit at Tacoma Art Museum. And maybe the Glass Museum same trip.
2. Tour of King County libraries including Columbia City and Beacon Hill via LINK, and then 550 to Bellevue- where bus stops right at library.
For LINK’S own sake, ST needs to start taking advantage of the potential ridership that ST’s own express buses, and also every Metro Tunnel route, should already be bringing to the trains.
Remember: every passenger aged five in a lifelong pro-rail voter starting in thirteen years. Sort of a horror movie for interests who deserve to be scared.
Mark Dublin
For the library tour, you could also take 545 to the Redmond library or 554 to the Issaquah library.
We (Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad) will be arriving in Tacoma around 7pm, Friday evening, roughly the same time as the last Sounder if you want to see the train and the steam engine without the crowds. The 1956 Northern Pacific F9 will be on the “downhill” end of the train (pointed northward) and the steam engine will be on the “uphill” end of the train (pointed southward)
Look forward to seeing people there!
Clarification, Brian: Am I right that the Mt. Rainier Scenic consist will be at the AMTRAK station, and not the Sounder station at Freighthouse Square?
Mark Dublin
[I hope this shows up below Mark’s question]
I will go ahead and answer for Brian – Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad will be leaving from Freighthouse Square, and NOT from the Amtrak station.
Many thanks, Andy. It’d be worth taking Sounder down there to see it. Or, since this posting is about familiarizing LINK as means of seeing all these great things, getting to Freighthouse Square via LINK and the 574. Fun trip either way.
Just wish somebody would pass a reg making it illegal to “wrap” bus windows with advertising. Current laws against tinting car windows re: police considerations should certainly apply to ads on buses. Can anybody knowledgeable tell me how much more my monthly pass would have to cost to be able to see Mt. Rainier from the 574 or the 594 on a beautiful spring evening without having to look through the inside of a billboard?
Maybe I’ll hire the law firm that currently buys the ad that presently spoils the best views, and sue. Court victory on this one would bring them more public goodwill than the ads.
Mark Dublin
Yeah, I appreciate these posts. Haven’t yet made it to any highlighted events, but I have gone back to skim the posts before heading down to the Valley at a later date.
How pathetic — and telling — that most people on this blog need an “excuse” to ride Central Link light rail. In other words, Central Link is basically useless to most of the people on this blog, just as it is useless to the vast majority of people in the Sound Transit taxing area.
Yes, you are accurate that most “Seattle-based rail fans” (and most Seattle-based people of all stripes) have no reason to ever ride Central Link light rail.
What happened to the hordes of people who were going to ride Central Link “to explore Columbia City”? lol
It’s amusing that you’d choose to lecture others about being pathetic.
Well, y’know, everyone DID point out that North Link should be built first. Central Link was the extension.
U-Link is probably going to be ridiculously overcrowded very quickly.
If we thought Link’s coverage was adequate we wouldn’t need to build more.
Ha! Train-hating man (who repeatedly swore he would never set foot on “boondoggle” train) rides train back-and-forth hundreds of times attempting to conduct manual ridership counts; calls people pathetic for discussing fun activities along train route. Our dear Norman or the basis for a brilliant Onion piece? Can there be sketch comedy at the next meetup?
Not right on the line but in the area:
Japanese Maple Festival at Kubota Garden this Saturday, 10-2. One mile walk from Rainier Beach Station.
Bicycle Sunday, Lake Washington Boulevard from Genesee Park to Mt Baker Park. Bike from Mt Baker Station.
I meant Mt Baker Park to Seward Park.
First, to get to the Orca Garden sale,go to the Columbia City Station and walk straight up Edmunds to 46th S. It’s about 20 minutes. Or bike! Or catch eith the #39 bus and get off at PCC, or the #7 and get off at the south end of Columbia City.
Second, what will it take to get Sound Transit to put a station at Graham! There’s a 2 1/2 mile gap between Othello and Columbia City, and Graham is a busy retail and dining area. Ridership will go up if there’s one more station in the Rainier Valley.
I’m piecing together a guest post on that very subject.
Graham can be put into ST3. It won’t happen before then. But it depends on what else will be in ST3 and how much it costs. If we build a Brooklyn-Ballard-downtown-West-Seattle-Burien-Renton line for instance, Graham may have to be bumped if we can’t afford it and it’s lower priority.
It’s useful to present ideas for weekend/non-commute adventures. We live in Beacon Hill and take the train to work, but sometimes forget to look for fun things or explore outside our usual stops. I take the baby to Columbia City for ice cream at the farmer’s market & a stop at Sweet Pea’s consignment store. We grab produce on the way back to the train.
The series is also a boost to the small businesses near stations. The Ethiopian place near Mt Baker is great.
Another recent outing: Othello Public Market, walk to Othello Park for swings & slides, then lunch at Cajun Crawfish.