#1088 Good Training

I had to go up to a Mariners game and I thought, “Hey I’ll just drive to Tukwila and pick up the new light rail.” Yep, light rail, Seattle finally has non-buss mass transit just like a big East Coast city.
I would have saved a lot of time and money too if I hadn’t missed one key automobile turn and got lost in the bowels of Burien.
The turn I missed sent me involuntarily to the airport. I looped through and got back to International Boulevard, but one of those stupid amber warning signs told me the street I needed was closed so I turned off one street early and descended into the winding guts of suburbitude that can only be summed up with the woeful word Burien.
I finally ended up approaching the intersection I needed from the opposite direction. The problem? The traffic lights were out. Totally out, not blinking-red out. So everyone was going for it. With four streets and four left turn lanes it was a traffic cluster of epic proportions.
Maybe it was Sound Transit’s way of really making you appreciate getting out of your car. I had spent from 5 to 6 o’clock wandering the streets of Burien. It only took 20 minutes on the train to the Stadium depot. No charge for parking where I started at the Tukwila Station. A one block walk to the entrance of Safeco Field when I arrived. $4.50 for a round trip. A lot less than the E tickets we once tendered for the Disneyland Monorail.
I think we’ll see more rail now that we have one. It’s fun to ride. Weird though. The train refers to itself possessively. A female voice says things like, “Now arriving at Othello Station, doors open to my right.”
I was confused. It’s already an otherworldly experience riding this high train through tunnels and up in the air soaring above traffic. And with the pleasant female voice talking about exiting on her right, I felt like I was riding some fantasy creature and not a train.
On my next trip to the Emerald City, maybe I’ll see flying monkeys.
I already saw worse in Burien.
America, ya gotta love it.