Looking for a transit adventure this Saturday? The Seattle Transit Hikers are organizing a cheap, fun 8 AM — 6 PM loop around Whidbey Island, starting and ending in Seattle, and stopping at the pleasant and scenic Deception Pass State Park. Our own Zach Shaner wrote up a similar transit trip a couple of years ago, although note that his itinerary and direction are different (and might be out of date!). RSVP on the meetup page by 8 PM tonight.
The group has done some great-looking trips recently, and has more coming up. To name a few:
- Multi-Modal Camping in South Whidbey State Park, on June 14th.
- Hiking East Tiger and Chuckanut Mountain on May 11th and 18th respectively.
- Earlier this month, urban rambles around West Seattle, Carkeek Park, and Madrona and the Arboretum.
Seattle Transit Hikers is a lot of fun. Thanks for bringing everyone to new places Eric! (I can’t make this one.)
Thanks for advertising the Seattle Transit Hikers group! As a fan of the outdoors *and* of mass transit, this is ideal. I joined the group, thanks to this article, and look forward to future meetups!
I am very, very sorry I will be working very late in a basement bunker on Skagit projects up here in Skagitonia today, tomorrow and Sunday.
One of those projects I suspect will be a thank you note to a certain transit blog…
Y’all should ask Martha Rose if she’d be interested in participating.
Cool! Thanks for featuring this on the island. Deception rocks.
As for Martha Rose, I have a bone to pick with her. Our new buses out here(the small ones) are total crap. I have never had the displeasure of riding in something with such bad suspension, and I have criss-crossed Mexico many times.
We completed our trip to Deception Pass, and it was a blast. We learned a lot during this trip about various transit systems in our region. Here’s a summary of our transit experience, segment by segment:
1) Seattle -> Ash Way P&R (ST 511).
– Quick, smooth ride. I called the cab company from the bus to arrange rides for the next segment in the trip.
2) Ash Way P&R -> Mukilteo (taxi).
– This is surprisingly cheap when you have enough people to fill up all the seats and everyone chips in to help pay for it. At 9.3 miles, the average cost per person was around $5. We needed two cabs to fit the entire group.
3) Mukilteo -> Clinton (ferry).
– Gorgeous views of Puget Sounds, the Olympics, and the Cascades. Mt. Baker was clearly visible off to the north.
4) Clinton -> Oak Harbor (IT #1).
– This bus took a grand tour of Whidbey Island, stopping by Langley, Freeland, Keystone, and Coupville, along the way to Oak Harbor. There were a lot of people on the bus, especially pulling into Oak Harbor. Nearly all of the passengers in our group were not connecting with the ferry from the mainland, but just traveling locally on Whidbey Island from one town to the next. We had a couple of people flag the bus down between bus stops (Island Transit allows this) and made one deviation to provide door-to-door service for an elderly person along the way (including taking the bus up the gravel driveway to the person’s house!). The bus also had a 3-bike rack on it, which was well used throughout the trip. This segment finished at a transit center in Oak Harbor, next to a city park down by the water, where we had lunch.
5) Oak Harbor -> Deception Pass (IT 411W).
– Very quick ride, straight shot down highway 20. The bus was right on schedule. One quirk about this bus is that it only stops at the campground to Deception Pass, with no stop next to the bridge itself.
6) Deception Pass -> Mt. Vernon (IT 411W)
– Pretty much the direct route, highway 20 almost all the way. One stop at March Point P&R to connect with a Skagit Transit bus to Anacortes. From the looks of things, the schedules were well coordinated up there, to allow changing buses with minimal waits.
7) Mt. Vernon -> Everett (Amtrak bus)
– Minor hiccups getting the QuikTrak machine to dispense our tickets, but once that was taken care of, the bus was very smooth. It was similar to a luxury charter bus and ran right on time. Most of the seats were empty.
8) Everett -> Seattle (ST 510)
– Great, smooth ride. I got off at I-5/45th St. right before traffic on I-5 started to get really bad.