At this moment, the Link line ends with two stations that are surrounded by and relate to completely different urban environments. The University of Washington Station is the final stop in the north; Angle Lake Station is the final stop in the south. The former is defined by an elegant pedestrian and bike bridge that flows smoothly into a section of Burke-Gilman Trail that was recently improved by UW Transportation. (Unlike anything coming out of SDOT, this improvement is world-class and understands the mode of those who use their bodies, and not the bodies of things that died in the land before time, to get from one place to the next).

The University station, with its cave-like art, its compact design, its bridge, and the intelligently designed landscapes on either side of that bridge, and the future big trees that were arranged by Swift Company to bury this part of the Montlake Boulevard under thick leaves, is completely different to what you find at the other end of the line—Angle Lake Station.

This stop, which opened this past weekend with lots of Mexican horns and African drumming, has on the west side a view of the dull-looking waters of Puget Sound, and the white bulk of a prison, the Federal Detention Center, which once held the failed terrorist Ahmed Ressam and whose top floors must provide many of its current inmates with an excellent view of the Sound-surrounded Vashon Island. Angle Lake is also connected to a monster of a parking building. The thing has seven floors, dwarfs the station, and is expected to feed the line with drivers from an area that is clearly not made for pedestrians or bikes. From the platform on the east side of the station, all you can see are miles upon miles of aging parking lots and giant-wide streets. It looks like no one lives here but cars.

In the near future, I will have more to say about Angle Lake, which, unlike Queen Anne, is now a part of my world.