If anyone is still reading I am impressed and happy to know (so please toss in a comment!)

Anyway, I am now living in Seattle and riding the King County Metro and Sound Transit System on an almost daily basis now.  I must say, I’m impressed and unimpressed with some of the transit options up here, but it is at least as capable as TriMet.  That makes Seattle a pretty rocking city.  As always, I’ll now be blogging from up here, and of course blogging on trips down to o’ Portland too!

So stay tuned and I’ll have blog entries a flowing again soon.  Especially now that I actually have a commute again (Even though it is only about 25-45 minutes each way)!  🙂

I leave you with this hilarity (one of the things I do NOT find impressive, more or less just stupid)

I have not posted, obviously in a number of days.  My transit interests have taken a significant backburner to my career and other aspects of life lately.  However, today (Sunday), I decided I would take part of the streetcar loop along the south waterfront on my way to Backspace.  Backspace of course, is not anywhere near this part of the streetcar route, but figured it would be nice just for some thinking time.

I boarded at 3rd & Harrison.  The streetcar wasn’t real full so it was easy to just grab a comfortable seat for laptop use and start writing.  As the streetcar snaked the way down to the south waterfront we left the slow section onto the 30mph section of track.  Whizzing along and looking to the left, one could see the blue and yellow Cirque Du Soliel Tent.  We pulled into the muddling slow south waterfront finally and poked along again, as the Portland Streetcar does.

At this time I started working on some work related code and design finalizations for a prototype.  Wow, what a mouth full really.  I made some good progress while watching this small part of Portland go by.  Gave me some good contemplations too.  But alas, I’m not going into those at the moment, At some point I will kick off a new writing flurry on the ole’ Transit Sleuth here and you’ll just have to read about them then.

A few people got on board, which were interesting to watch.  Some grandparents and their granddaughters boarded.  The two daughters, probably in their tweens, were enraptured by the streetcar and surrounding scenery of buildings, greenery, and other various urban things.  One could tell they were not from the city.  After standing for a while they waltzed off to some seats.  Another dozen people boarded at PSU, and off when my ongoing observable pietry dish of humanity.  With me in the rear corner of the streetcar being all productive.

The streetcar rolled through the other PSU and park stops, while I worked away for a while longer.  I eventually got off the streetcar at Couch (pronounced kooch) and walked the last few blocks to Backspace.  I killed an extra hour plus of time this way, but it was time well spent with ideas & thoughts that I have been needing.

With that, adieu.

Per the article on CNN,

In general, the regulations require all passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States to get an overall average of 34.1 miles per gallon by model year 2016. It’s the first time there has been a national average for all vehicles.

By the 2016 model year, cars will be expected to average about 39 mpg while trucks are expected to get an average of 30 mpg.

This has been a long time coming.  What I don’t get, is why the Government decides to step in just after they forced the car manufacturers to make cars less efficiently for the facade of safety.  What gives?  A little hypocrisy, it sure looks at it.

Sure, this doesn’t measure anything compared the 60-70 MPG rating per passenger of a high speed rail line.

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/prdailynews/news.asp?id=22679

Oh yeah, Oregon has ordered two Talgos.  What do you think of that eh?

So I don’t get some of the logistics of the matter, such as the fact that Oregon is getting two trains with 13 cars.  Oregon can’t even get 10 car trains filled up between Eugene and Portland.  Maybe they’ll be able to change the schedule for better trips?  Who knows.

Anyway, would love to hear what people think.

This weekend I took a trip to go enjoy Seattle.  It included a lot of flange wheel riding and a few feet of walking too.  I’ll refer to we, as I did have a traveling companion, so don’t get confused.

We headed out about 11ish toward Union Station in Portland aboard the Green Line MAX.  It was just a short trip, from one end of downtown to the other.  We managed, ok, so I managed to miss the stop and we ended up riding across the Steal Bridge.  Fortunately, as is often the case, we where early for the departure so it wasn’t a big hassle.  We rode back across on the west bound Green Line and got off at the right stop.

With a while to wait we went up and took a seat at my favorite spot in the station.  The bench right up near the entrance and exit for passengers.  There we sat, waiting for #501 to arrive.  My father, as he does, decided he was going to come wish us well on the trip and ride from PDX to Vancouver just for some train miles.

The train arrived, he met us and we sat and carried on for a bit.  Boarding call was made and we all bounced up to board the train.  The took almost not time, being that trains are extremely easy to board with the 10 open doors and all.  Without further ado, we departed on the Amtrak Cascades for Seattle.

We went about our trip relaxing and enjoying the Bistro.  Checking out the sites, and for good measure, managed to throw in a half hour of sleep.  The train arrived about 15 minutes late, and en route we didn’t lose any time, so managed to pull into Seattle King Street Station at 4:05.

Sound Transit Light Rail

This is when I got the first real use (not a whimsical ride about) trip on the light rail in Seattle.  We walked from King Street Station across the street to Union Station, and down to the International/China Station.  The next LRV that came along we walked aboard and planted ourselves.  Within a zippy few minutes the LRV pulled up to the Westlake Station, end of the line stop, and we popped out and up the stairs.  At surface one can easily see the Monorail and Streetcar just beyond.  We headed that way, as the Hotel MAX is just beyond that.

Hotel MAX, Twitter, and the whole Social Media Thing

A short walk a few blocks and without any issue, we found Hotel MAX.  Hotel MAX is a pretty nice hotel, with reasonable prices for Seattle.  The other awesome thing is, as with any modern hotel that has a good marketing group with a brain, is active in social media.  That includes Twitter, Facebook, and the whole gamut of sites.  Between these sources I had found this hotel, and deemed it worth a visit.  Otherwise I would most likely never have known about this hotel.

With that said, everyone including UP, BNSF, TriMet, and others should or already have a social media presence.  In this day and age it is an absolute must.  The credibility of the medium to land hot leads, really get across messages, and attract people actually interested in your message is light years beyond yesterdays media.

I digress though, this is about the trip, so I will continue.

Hotel MAX is in a 10 story older building, think pre-40s.  They’ve put some rocker-ish stylings, plush furniture and other details in the place, and turned it into a pretty cool modernistic hotel.  Definitely a place worth staying at in Seattle.

We walked about Seattle and wandered aimlessly, with aim, throughout downtown Seattle.  After a Sunday of pastries, treats, Pike Place Market and other such things, we headed toward the train station.  Before that though we stopped in to Zeitgeist for a cappuccino before the departure time.  If you are ever in Seattle, Zeitgeist is actually one of the better coffee shops in the entire city.  It is worth the visit.  The shop also is a great place to sip on a beverage and pull out the laptop for a little bit of internet action.

After that, with just about 20 minutes to spare, we walked over to King Street Station.  It only takes about 5-6 minutes from Zeitgeist.  Upon arrival I got seat assignments and we walked right out to the waiting train.

We departed on Amtrak Cascades #509 on time, ran into a delay however down line.  Out of Tacoma a tree had fallen across the tracks.  We waited for about 20 minutes while they cleared the tracks and then we moved on.  BNSF was rocking with the quick response time.  During the delay and Portland we cleared up another 5 or so minute and got in at about 9:10.

Everyone hustled up off the train and headed for their respective destinations.  My compatriot and I made the dash for the MAX, but there where a few minutes to go.  With that we strolled by Backspace, which was having a packed house type of Poetry Reading.  We waited there and grabbed the last flanged wheel of the night.

A good trip, relaxing yet exhausting all at the same time.  Great food, good talk, great conversation, jovial travelers all around, cool visit, new names and faces, and all in all a kick ass weekend trip.

Will do it again.