Economic segregation is good as long as we provide mass transit options to get the hot boys up on the hill for the weekend. (And then get them out of there during the day: don't want poor people in our very white neighborhood you you know!!)

Goddamnit, Dan, when are you going to settle down and run for city council or mayor?

A good argument against spending a ton of money on a stupid streetcar.

As I learned my first week in Chicago, people who actually live here call it "the train". Saying "Let's take the 'L'!!" would mark you as a tourist.
Interesting post, though!

Now we can have races: someone can take the light rail, someone else can take the streetcar and see who gets to the I-D first.

... maybe even re-create the great crosstown transit race once they're all open.

I'm particularly pleased about the Broadway to ID line - it will make getting to Salon of Shame fun rather than awful.

A wholly inappropriate comparison of Seattle and Los Angeles: https://twitter.com/boygobong/status/709…

I'm going the opposite direction. I miss the U District a lot despite not going to college at UW.

You know what has made going to the ID from Capitol Hill easy peasy for many years? The 9X. Except it doesn't run on weekends or evenings. Even more important, it connects Capitol Hill to Columbia City far more efficiently than light rail (which meanders and drops riders off in a residential neighborhood, not the CC core).

I agree with Dan's overall point, honest. But there have long been ways for people to get from Capitol Hill to the International District (and the U-District) without much issue. It's when you start looking beyond the immediately-adjacent neighborhoods that these larger transit connections become valuable. Or, in the case of the streetcar, not.

Anyway: what's a girl gotta do to get Metro to expand the 9X operating hours?

"Urbanity means locating all significant stops right in the heart of the action, not a block away and, God forbid, not across a parking lot," Speck writes. "This is the 'problem of the last one hundred yards' that haunts so many a bus or train station. Riders should be able to fall into the [train] from a stool at a coffee shop.... [Without] true walkability on both ends of the line, your system is a non-starter."

Good point... and Seattle falls short of Portland here. Especially the airport light rail stop. Portland's is literally right outside baggage claim & a one-minute walk to the ticket counters. Seattle's cuts off a third of a mile from the terminal, leaving a *long* walk to the gates. Am I against walking? Absolutely not! But the airport is a different story: Often it's a matter of time to get to the flight, especially for early morning flights. I can't remember what our excuse was for not going right to the terminal—I think it was cost cutting.

Another example of poor design... Portland's MAX light rail goes right to the door of Amtrak's Union Station, whereas ours does not even come close to the Amtrak station. Again, the issue is not that people can't walk, but that there are often tight connections in time & luggage to carry between stations.

And we remain 30 years behind Portland, which just added the Orange Line thru southwest neighborhoods & out to the suburb of Milwaukie. So from almost any direction to & from the city, PDX commuters now have a train option, like most east coast cities & Chicago—but unlike Seattle. The new Cap Hill -> U District line won't really be complete for another five years, when the line finally reaches campus & the business district. Let's face it, no one is really going to Husky Stadium (except on game days, where it will be a great option). And the sorely-needed lines to the east side won't be done for at least 15 more years.

There's much blame to go around... (1) the incredibly short-sighted vote in the '70s to turn down federal funding for a complete subway system, (2) unproductive distractions like the monorail from Ballard to West Seattle, which wouldn't have come close to solving any real transit need, except of course for people in those 'hoods, and (3) thinly-veiled racial opposition to light rail led by mall-man Kemper Freeman in Bellevue.

Blackhook, hun, the King St Station is a 5 minute walk from the Int'l District light rail stop. Not doorstop, but manageable.

Try again.

@12: the point is that it shouldn't be a 5 minute walk. It should be right there. This is especially true of the rail link at the airport, which is just a joke and was apparently designed by folks who either don't understand or don't like mass transit. A couple of minute walk in an exposed wind tunnel is not going to cut it for folks with kids, lots of luggage, and/or bad hips/knees. The connection should be in the airport or very easily accessible.

Let's face it, no one is really going to Husky Stadium (except on game days, where it will be a great option).

@11: I live in Wallingford and plan to use the Husky Stadium stop frequently, either walking 25 minutes to/from my house or taking the 44 bus.

@11 I agree with almost all of your points about Portland's transit options *except* that it's any easier to get from Union Station to the MAX than it is to get from King St. Station to the ID Light Rail stop. The distances are roughly equal.

i live in the id and have for years. i get to where i need to anywhere in the city and usually by public transit ( the husband drives us on grocery runs and dates, but that's it ). no complaints from me. the more ways to do it the better. i got the 49, 7, 60, 36, 14, 1, a train to the airport, beacon hill, columbia and hillman city,new streetcar, and if wadn't fat or lazy i could just walk.
a train to west seattle would be nice ..

We've suspected all along that this subway thing was nothing but a taxpayer-financed conspiracy between free-market-hating socialists and money-grubbing developers to subvert the ruggedly independent American way of life that our brave boys have died for from Benghazi to Baghdad. And here, with this shameless screed, the liberals' media enabler Dan Savage doesn't even bother to maintain the pretense of hiding these ulterior motives. I dunno, Dan, why don't you just stomp on our heroes' graves while you're at it? Why don't you just lean out your window and start chanting "Death to America!?"

OK, now I've had a chance to vent, I do have to confess... Can't wait for March 19 to roll around.

@12 I gotta call you on your comment: I just mapped both & in Portland, when you get off MAX @ 6th & Irving, you can see Union Station, which is a 459 ft walk away. In Seattle, when you get off light rail at the Int'l Dist Station, you have an 1100 ft walk—and no visual to orient the serpentine ped route to get to King St Station (very likely to make a wrong turn, and maybe miss a train). I stand by what I said; it's a goofy (lack of) interchange between the two transit modes, very poor planning. Portland got it right & we didn't, period.

...and how could Seattle address that ridiculous non-interchange between the Int'l Dist light rail & King Street stations? Either: (1) a dedicated overhead ped walkway between the stations (don't know how realistic that is, if at all), (2) a tunnel doing the same (not desirable due to cost & safety concerns), or (3) at minimum, sharrows on the street & sidewalk that *very* clearly delineate the (non-intuitive, serpentine) path bet. stations ...or is that path already marked as such?

@4 Everyone called it the El when I was growing up (gen-x). Even the parts that ran underground were sometimes called the El, though purists would correct that usage.

Sweetie, I split my time between Portland and Seattle. I've traveled this route, on my own, probably close to fifty times at this point.

It takes about twice as long for the Seattle version, which is to say, roughly 4 minutes vs. 2 minutes in Portland. And in both cases there are clearly marked paths. And the placement of seattle's rail link is about as good as you're going to get without a massive change in rail/road.

You might have a point on the other stuff, but you're full of crap on this one.

Lived in Chicago for many, many years and everyone I knew or met used 'the train' and the 'L' or the 'El' interchangeably, even old-school gritty Chicagoans. It definitely doesn't mark you as a tourist. In fact, claiming this-or-that 'marks you as a tourist' just basically marks you as insecure and trying too hard. I love this article, because it is so on-point. The way that the L brings the city together into one cohesive whole is one of the best things about Chicago.

@21: Yes, and that fully illustrates the last 100 yard issue. That difference may not be trivial for someone who is not able bodied, with luggage or small children, for foreign tourists, and/or in bad weather. Is what we're getting better than before? Hell yes. Light rail to the airport has radically improved my life (I fly a lot. I am also able bodied, no kids and never bring more than I can easily carry). Is it as good as it could/should be: no way. And the crazy thing is, we are so late to this party we've got hundreds of examples of what's good.

Regarding the light rail/King Street conundrum: If it were up to me, there would be a tunnel, a la LA Union Station, that went from the east Link platform in the ID station to King Street, with stops on the west Link and Sounder platforms. They would be ramps, of course, to allow for luggage and people with disabilities, of course.

It could very easily be done. It would just be expensive.

Utter crap. The walk from seatac station to the airport (another one I'm quite familiar with) is longer than the walk from intl district to king st.

You're either incredibly lazy or haven't actually tried this walk yourself.

Tservo, you must be a lot of fun at parties. Where does your histrionic hatred come from, when people are trying to have a reasoned discussion?

@20: Interesting. I've been here for over 10 years and very rarely hear people call it the L in conversation, maybe in the media.
But maybe I'm just trying too hard to be down with the public trans. 8)

@4, @27

Chicago has extensive commuter rail systems in addition to the elevated/subway system. When I was growing up there, when someone referred to "The Train," chances were pretty good they were talking about something with a terminus at Union Station.

I lived within walking distance of both; the El was "The El" and "The Train" was the Chicago & North Western Railway.

Times change, though, and language too. I haven't spent more than a weekend there in 20 years, so what do I know?

As somebody who lived in Capitol Hill for 18 years and now lives in Beacon Hill, March 19 cannot come soon enough.