Baseball season is back upon us, and with that the return of Sounder service to Sunday afternoon Mariners games.
The home opener is on Monday afternoon (April 6), against the Angels, with first pitch at 1:10. The full Mariners schedule for the 2015 season is here.
The full schedule of Sounder service to 2015 Mariners games is here, beginning with the first Sunday home game on April 19, against the Rangers. First pitch is at 1:10 for all games served by Sounder.
South Sounder trains to Sunday Mariners games depart Lakewood Station at 10:45 am and arrive at King Street Station at 11:58. North Sounder trains to Sunday Mariners games depart Everett Station at 11:15 and arrive at King Street Station at 12:14. Return trains depart King Street Station 35 minutes after the final out.
For the tourists, Sounder is probably not the train you are looking for, unless you want to ride it for the scenery. Your train is Link Light Rail from Seatac Airport Station, at the northeast corner of the airport parking garage. The station next to Safeco Field is conveniently named “Stadium Station”. Be sure to buy a ticket, day pass, or ORCA card at one of the vending machines in SeaTac Airport Station, as Sound Transit has fare enforcement officers roving around. Choose Westlake Station as your destination station, so your ticket or day pass will be good for the whole line, for the same $3 or $6 you would have paid if you had selected Stadium Station as your destination. Link Light Rail continues into downtown Seattle, where you can take in a lot of our tourist-trappy stuff, including beautiful ferry rides from downtown across Puget Sound, with majestic views in all directions.
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Question about Link fares. If I purchase ticket from SeaTac to Stadium, I assume it’s technically valid for a trip to Westlake and tourists would not be fined or kicked off the train if checked. Is this true? It makes sense since it’s basically a zone fare, but as we all know, common sense is not a core component of Puget Sound transit fares!
I assume it’s technically valid to Stadium.
I doubt fare enforcement would kick you off but it might confuse them. Best to chose Westlake.
It’s not zone-based. It’s distance-based.
ST could theoretically set the TVMs to automatically upgrade tickets to the station farthest from that one that is valid for the value purchased, but that might also cause confusion. Or it could make all full-fare tickets $3 and all paper day passes $6, and thereby get the lines at the Airport Station TVMs to move a little faster. (The other categories of payers have flat Link fares: $1.50 youth, $1.00 RRFP, and $1.50 LIFT.)
Of course, there would be no need for paper tickets if the ORCA card itself were free.
Unrelated to Sounder, but didn’t Metro Route 70 used to have one northern terminus on Saturday, and a different one Sunday-Friday. Just looking at the website, and that no longer seems to be the case. When did this change?
The printed folder schedule still shows that on Saturdays route 70 terminates at 12th Ave NE at NE 47th because of the University District Farmers Market.. The online schedule does not.
Route 49 has the same route and terminal change for Saturdays.
I went to see many Sunday Mariner games last year specifically because of this Sounder service, and I loved it.
I wish they would add a couple of Night Game runs.
Route 180 runs half-hourly pretty late to get you back to Kent Station from SeaTac/Airport Station.
At that point I’m making a trip in excess of an hour, and that’s after going to an exhausting ballgame, and I still have to drive from Kent Station or wait and take 168/169 if they haven’t petered out by then.
A single 30 minute Sounder ride (with the wait time at departure) and having to get to my car and drive home (10 minutes) is what I expect I should have to bear.
It’s a darn shame the 169 doesn’t reach Rainier Beach Station.
How about a Sounding Board for South King County?
A off the top idea would be to combine the 106 and 169 into a new Rapid Ride (G) route, operating between Rainier Valley Station and Kent Station via the 106 and 169 routing (with a slight modification in Renton). Rt. 169 really needs more frequent and larger buses (106 already has larger buses as a virtue of being a tunnel route). The Rt, 106 between Rainier Beach and Downtown via Georgetown would be replaced by some new route.