Tag / king county metro

Sound Transit Double Tall
by Adron

Seattle Explorations & A Guide to Double Talls

First a bit about double tall busses. Then a bit about my trip out to Lynnwood to finally, after years of wanting to ride a double tall, doing so!

Double tall buses, also known as double-decker buses, have become an iconic part of Seattle’s public transportation landscape. These impressive vehicles offer increased passenger capacity while maintaining a smaller footprint on the road, making them an efficient solution for high-capacity routes.

The Alexander Dennis Connection

The majority of double-decker buses in the Seattle area are manufactured by Alexander Dennis Limited (ADL), a British bus manufacturer with a strong presence in North America. The company’s Enviro500 model has become the standard for double-decker operations in the region.

Sound Transit’s Fleet

Sound Transit operates a fleet of Alexander Dennis Enviro500 buses, specifically the MMC (Multi-Modal Coach) variant. These buses feature:

  • Length: 45 feet
  • Height: 14 feet
  • Capacity: 81 passengers (57 seated, 24 standing)
  • Engine: Cummins ISL9
  • Transmission: Allison B500R
  • Air conditioning and heating systems
  • Low-floor design for improved accessibility
  • USB charging ports and WiFi

The Enviro500 MMC is known for its modern design, fuel efficiency, and passenger comfort. Sound Transit primarily uses these buses on their ST Express routes, particularly on high-demand corridors like the 510/511/512 routes between Seattle and Everett.

Other Operators

While Sound Transit is the primary operator of double-decker buses in the region, other transit agencies have also incorporated them into their fleets:

  • Community Transit: Operates Enviro500 buses on their Swift Bus Rapid Transit lines
  • King County Metro: Has tested double-decker buses on certain routes

Technical Specifications

The Alexander Dennis Enviro500 MMC features several advanced technologies:

  • LED lighting throughout
  • Electronic destination signs
  • GPS tracking and real-time passenger information
  • Advanced driver assistance systems
  • Euro 6 compliant engines
  • Composite body construction for reduced weight

Impact on Seattle Transit

The introduction of double-decker buses has significantly improved capacity on key routes, particularly during peak hours. Their ability to carry more passengers while taking up the same road space as a standard bus has made them an efficient solution for Seattle’s growing transit needs.

Taking a Ride to Lynnwood

Today I took a ride, for the very first time, on one of Sound Transit’s double decker buses. I opted, since it would include some light rail usage, to take the 515 Express from downtown Seattle to Lynnwood. This is the story, of all the things I noticed along the way.

I believe it was the 4:15pm bus that I boarded between King Street Station and Union Station. I’d racked my bike, then stepped onto the bus, swiped my Orca card, took a video (see below) and climbed the steps upstairs.

The bus then carefully, and very smoothly, traveled forth through the streets of Seattle. Slowly coming to and striking branches of trees because of the height. We stopped at about a dozen stops, from the originating stop I boarded at through to the egress point from downtown. When we left, we did it in relative style because we exited via the express lanes.

Sound Transit Double Tall

To note – when I showed the “empty” bus just after the first stop downtown, it was almost entirely full by the time we left downtown. Don’t get in your head that this is an empty route, it’s a very well used rush hour service. A kind of extra interlined service, in addition to the light rail and other Sound Transit Express lines that go out this way.

However, if you watch the video all the way through, you’ll notice the enjoyment of zooming along in the express lanes comes to an end before we even got past the Greenlake and Ravenna areas! Motorized “road” transportation without right of way is, and always will be a joke when it comes to speed and throughput.

But, that didn’t really matter much because being on a double decker, in a cool air conditioned environment with big ole’ windows to see as far as thee eye could see was a joy! We carried on, as you do, at a reasonable 20-35mph. The traffic slugged into a accodian like zig zag of slow drivers stuck behind entire cavalcades of other slow drivers under the guise of the inefficiencies and stupidities of mass transportation movement via single occupancy vehicles.

In other words, we were limited by the stupidity of cars as primary modal option at rush hour.

But it was entertaining and pleasant. I wrote up this blog entry and got some work done as I explored this new transportation choice for traveling north to Lynnwood.

At this point I also had zero idea what I would do once I got to Lynnwood, but I didn’t really care, I’d likely the board the Link Light Rail line back south and then take the 542 at University District back home.

The Bus Itself

The bus itself, being a double decker, is very smooth similar to one of those intercity buses. The air conditioner worked great, so it was a cool ride in spite of it being a bit warm outside.

Additional Observations

As we rolled forward and stopped, then moved forward again, and stopped, and then lurched and stopped, we made our way ever so slowly to Lynnwood. I couldn’t help but wonder, was this even faster than light rail with all this traffic? I had no idea, as I’d never even looked at the schedule vs. what time this was taking now.

At one point we just stopped for a solid 20+ seconds and sat. Traffic unmoving and a light rail train zipped by beside us, one going north full of people and one going south with a dramatically smaller number of people.

It really did seem like the light rail would have been the faster choice at this point. However this is likely the smoother option, considering how the double deckers ride! They really are not like other buses.

Drama!

In normal society fashion, at some point some guy got a phone call and began talking loudly – very “American” of him – about a financial situation that a child or someone in family was having difficulty with. He wanted to see funds and bank accounts and started “telling them” a number of things.

Why are people like this, what is the deal with the lack of situational awareness? So many parents bring up kids to become these adults that just utterly drives me nuts as a parent. I’ll take rowdy kids any day over an oblivious adult yapping drama out of the pie hole openly and loudly!

But even with that slight little interruption along the route, the ride was great. One more great way to commute in the Seattle area, so great I’d even put this up close right after “Ferries”, “Commuter Trains”, competitive with “Light Rail”, but definitely better than intercity buses!

by Adron

Thursday Wrap Up, Some Standard Seattle.

I ride up to Capital Hill and check out Elliot Bay Books. I find the book I’m looking for, “Apple in China: The Capture of The World’s Greatest Company” and have a sit down at book store coffee shop, Oddfellows, for a read and drink. Upon purchasing a delightful Arnold Palmer I take a seat and dive right into one of the chapters. It’s the section on Navy Seals, not the real Navy Seals mind you, but a group of security folks that ended up dubbed the Navy Seals. But I digress, after reading a while I purchased the book, tossed it in my backpack and back upon my steed I rode. After the drop back into downtown Seattle I went over to Union and boarded the next Sound Transit 550 Express.

That’s where the stupid started. Upon arriving at the South Bellevue Station to transfer to the Link Light Rail, I realized the train was off. As in, there was no applied power. I had just took the elevator up to the platform, but the train power seemed to be off. I stook patiently by the train waiting, and listening to the driver’s radio chatter. It sounded like the power had just been restored. Great, I thought!

So I boarded. The AC kicked on, but the train had been there long enough without power in this 80+ degree day that it was hot inside. As the train sat there the driver exited his driver’s cabin (cockpit?) and tried over and over again to fix the front right door. It seemed to be stuck in a state of being closed but in alarm. The normally blue lights of the door shown red, and he worked on it and worked on it. Opening the bay overhead and fiddling and fiddling.

Finally, off we went with the door, theoretically, fixed. Arriving at the very next station however things went sideways again. The door opened, but then upon closing went into an alarm state again. After attempting to shut the doors several times, the driver again existed the driver’s cabin and started fiddling with the door again. The interesting thing, was the lights went green this time instead of red when the door was in alarm. The other oddball thing was, the train wouldn’t depart.

Yay Seattle issues! We’ve gold plated things at ludicrous prices yet still get these ridiculous toothing problems. I’ll give em’ this, at least on the east side the line is relatively new, so these kinds of things happen. But hot damn it’s rather ridiculous.

After a few more attempts and another half dozen Sound Transit employees and Sound Transit security showing up they fiddled and fiddle with it and eventually it shut, the lights went blue, and off we went.

Finally, after almost 8 minutes, we arrived in Bellevue. For the record, it usually takes about 2-3 minutes to get from South Bellevue to downtown Bellevue.

But whatever, it’s a nice day and things were going well otherwise. I got to read a book, enjoyed a nice drink, and rode my bike around the city. A solid day plus a significant number of code contributions for the day too.

As for the book mentioned above that I purchased, it’s a must read if you want to get a solid grasp of the magnitude of how much the west basically sold off to develop China (and hats off to China for benefiting off that) with the misleading idea that China would become more focused on freedom, liberty, individual rights, and opening up to the world. Even though the book is about Apple, the correlations to what Apple has done tightly correlates to what transit and transportation organizations and companies have done for and in China. But I digress, more on all that later!

by Adron

A Re-introduction to Transit Sleuth via Link Light Rail

Today marks about the ~20th or so day I’ve ridden the light rail from Redmond to South Bellevue, and then transferred to the Sound Transit Express 550 from there to downtown.

My commute priority has always been about functional use versus speed or other criteria. When I write functional use, what I mean is can I use the commute for something besides just wasting away rotting like one might do in a cage (i.e. a car). Even when I have used a car in the past, the focus still remained exactly that.

Simply put, I despise the idea I follow the modern American tradition of plopping myself into a car, that I’ve worked a job to buy, to sit in traffic – often stop and go or just stopped – to go to a job that I work to do shit like buy a car. I prefer my job funds go to strategic and tactical things like living life. Travel, exploration, games, beer, good food, racing cars, bikes, more bikes, and other entertaining and enriching things vs. buying a car, maintaining a car, paying rent, and all that rat race bullshit.

So now that I’ve written this, I hope to be back soon on a regular basis writing on this blog. If for any other reason, because I enjoy it. But also to document my commuting adventures and related things. Hopefully I’ll conjure up the energy to also start putting videos together again, ya know like this one, this, or this.

Back to the Link Light Rail

With the opening of the Redmond Station, the commute – even in spite of it being 2 parts still – has dramatically improved. Largely because I can take a significant part of the trip via light rail. That means listening to music, getting some code written, videos watched, maybe edited, AI’s vibe coding, views observed, maybe a snack, some AI models processed, or simply enjoying my coffee while en route to the office.

Sometimes, shockingly, I’ll even meet someone and we’ll have a good solid kick ass conversation while en route! But why am I riding the light rail these days?

How Did I Get Here?

Ok, somewhat dreadfully, based on the Seattle area leadership’s inability to deliver on much of anything promised, the Ballard Link Light Rail didn’t look like it was ever going to happen in my life time (i.e. the next ~20-40 years at least). The house I lived in also wasn’t cutting it, so family deemed a new house was in order and we began to search a few years back.

It was hard going. Forget money even, which is it’s own problem with housing these days, houses just weren’t available. Not with the basic – for us – that put a house into qualifying. The characteristics of the house we wanted, in order of importance;

  • being on a trail(s) or dedicated bike infrastructure
  • being near park(s) and woodland space
  • being away from any primary interstate or highway arterial (preferable to stay away from carcinogens)
  • being near transit options to get into and out of Seattle downtown
  • being near transit options to get to King St Station and SEATAC and/or other airport with area departure options.
  • being away from any primary roadway arterial
  • being most quiet
  • being walkable (i.e. do sidewalks exist, do business exist?)
  • being low crime (honestly, only sort of important in certain ways)
  • minimum number of rooms for remote/home work in addition to kiddo space
  • no HOA cuz forget that shortsighted self-fascistic nonsense
  • MAGAt density is no more than 1 out of 10 (super easy in this area, since low crime areas have very low MAGAt density) **
  • minimum ~1600 square feet
  • enough land to use for a victory garden (i.e. something like ~200 sq ft minimum, more is better)

Redmond? What? Not intuitive!

Naturally we assumed we could only really get something that would have maybe ~3-5 of these items, and then maybe part of another 5-10. We searched and searched and searched and finally, after offers put in, offers turned down, we finally expanded our search outside of Seattle to some east side locations and landed an offer in Redmond. Somewhat shockingly it has a multitude of these things in full and all of them to a partial degree.

The only things Redmond, outside of its downtown core fails on is a few things;

  • Walkability to do anything useful outside of Redmond’s downtown core is questionable and often requires other modal options to complete. However, that said, almost everywhere in Redmond has sidewalks, clear paths, and ways to get places, it just might take 15-45 minutes depending on where one lives.
  • Transit options are spectacular if you are in the downtown core. However leaving the downtown core it becomes immediately questionable whether you will have good transit options.
  • The light rail, as this post is about, massively changes the dynamic into and out of Redmond, Bellevue, and in about a year – theoretically – into Seattle for the east side. Even without the bridge into Seattle being open, it’s still changed the dynamic of the east side in a very positive way.
  • Even though we’re away from primary arterials and highways, interstates, and the like. The roadway system is setup in an auto-focused way that leads people to some expediently stupid behaviors. Negligence and obliviousness – as you might expect – reign supreme with east side drivers. The majority do endeavor to be polite and all but people generally just suck at driving. So YMMV in your automotive driver interactions.

With that being the baseline we have ended up over here in Redmond. So far it’s actually pretty sweet, more so than I thought when we first made the decision and landed the house. Simply put, we live a very European style life over here in Redmond and recently I’ve started commuting to a downtown Seattle office.

Back to The Topic At Hand: Link Light Rail Line 2

My commute now ends up being an interesting and enjoyable string of modal options.

1st – To get to the Link station, I come down from the Redmond hills via bike. There I roll into the now open station, swipe my Orca Card, bump the elevator button and up I go to board the Link.

2nd – Upon boarding the Link I rack the bike. Extremely easy to do since this is the originating station and I generally board a train that has few people on it at its start. Then off we zip toward the – current – other end of the line in South Bellevue. During this segment of the trip I take a seat and out comes the laptop. As mentioned earlier in the post the code, videos, editing, or other activities ensue. After the short trip as we leave the stop just before South Bellevue I slip the laptop back into my pack, and unrack the bike for departure. Upon an elevator ride down, I roll over to wait for the arrival of the Seattle bound Sound Transit Express 550.

3rd – The bus fills the current gap while they wrap up construction work on the I-90. The 550 serves the purpose well, and it isn’t overly packed. This puts me in a position to whip the laptop back out and spend a little more time getting shit done, reading, or whatever I may. Upon arrival in downtown I alight the bus, unrack my bike, and then begin the last short segment to the office.

4th – I then enjoy this last segment riding Spacey to the office. It’s always a smooth, seamless, trip around and along various roads and bike infra in downtown. I tend to change up the route just a bit every time I take the trip.

That’s it. That’s my commute these days, and hot damn it’s an enjoyable one! This time of year especially as the weather gets nice and I’m a quick roll – amidst the hilarious insanity of the car oriented commute – to breweries, the epic Seattle waterfront, and other places to chill before the trip home.

More adventures, thoughts, and interludes of written words in the coming days and weeks. Hope your commute rocks, or if you don’t, that you’ve got an enjoyable day to day. Cheers!

** MAGA specifically. Not a fan of confused fascists. I realize this does not include general Republicans or conservatives, especially of the Reagan, Eisenhower, or even Lincoln variety. Since obviously, none of those Presidents were fascists, maybe shitty, but not wannabe fascists.

by Adron

Seattle Commute Chronicles: Bus Misadventures, Culinary Delights, and Urban Reflections

Riding the bus into Seattle for a day of coding via coffee shop. As always, via the 545 the seats that face inward give the stability needed to be able to type and code. However it’s still wretchedly difficult and the light rail can’t open soon enough.

On one of the turns leaving downtown Redmond, someone had used the overhead baggage areas on the bus, and a piece of luggage was about to plummet to the ground. I moved swiftly (which to others on the bus seemd like I was aggressively going after something) and pushed it back onto the luggage rack an densured it was placed correctly. It managed to wiggle around and almost fall again a few moments later because of the jarring movements of the bus, but this time someone else nearby saved it, having noticed after my rapid movements to stop it falling, was keeping an eye on it.

Meanwhile the person who put it up there hadn’t even noticed. People’s situational awareness for the loss. People are far too often a walking catastrophe and I’m amazed as many of us make it through each day that do.

As we pull into the Microsoft stop at 40th another odd occurrence. A guy with a face tattoo, which is always an immediate threat risk just walks on disregarding the driver. I’m all for people tattooing whatever the hell they want to but seriously, face tattoos point to some serious trauma and issues at this point in time. It’s not a mere “art piece” or some such, it’s an advertisement of being broken by something and trying to spite others around you.

Then we get rolling and the driver rolls up to a solid 75+ mph with the bus. A speed that is somewhat reckless on 520 and I’m not real sure how its possible with these buses. They’re not exactly setup for 75mph travel. After having already nearly thrown some passengers to the ground with his hard breaking and related driving behaviors this was concerning. It also made it even more difficult to get any work done or stay focused.

We’ve got the driver going speed crazy, tattoo threat guy skulking in the back seat, elderly folks holding their pain points from the hard braking and bumpiness, and I just want to be able to type up the rest of this post and make it to my destination. As we approach the mid-highway stops I’m fully expecting burning brakes as we go barreling into the stops.

This is, to say the least, disconcerting.

We make it into the first stop, and sure enough, one can smell the heated brake dust. IYKYK

We pull out, throttle planted in the floor with the bus – I’ll just call it twerking – from the throttle being planted. So between the two highway stops the driver manages to get up to speed again very rapidly, clearing around 65mph+. A little less shaky and sketch than 75mph but bothersome none the less. Around 50-55mph is about the top speed these bendy buses can take without becoming and utter shaky annoyance.

Anyway, as we have survived so far barreling across the 520 bridge I started to wrap this post up with a simple, “light rail can’t start soon enough, this bus ride quality sucks in comparison by a significant order of magnitude.”

But then… we blazed into the turn, we had a skip on the ramp that goes 520 to I-5 south and almost had a failure to maintain control incident. We made it though, and the driver did a superb job getting through traffic and to the first stop in downtown Seattle.

All went well and a few stops in we pulled under the Monorail as the 545 always does. I stepped off the bus and got a wiff. It was a wiff of delight and flavor I’d not smelled among the streets in a long time. You see, Seattle never really has food smells, usually other human smells which are not delightful in any way. On the better days you get the fragrance of the sea, which is nice for some folks. But today, this was different. It was seasonings and spice and everything nice. It couldn’t be though I presumed I must be dreaming or delusional or the fentanyl from some dying soul had affected me.

But no, no I was correct, after getting my chain back on I mounted my pannier on my bike and looked toward Westlake Square. Sure enough, NOLA dogs before me, I marched on immediately for some food! I strolled right up and ordered. Immediately I had to comment about NOLA and smelling andouille the moment I got of the bus being one of the most delightful entrances to Seattle in years! The proprietor and I chuckled at this fact and commenced to talk about crawfish boils, the horrors of Seattle’s food, and mitigating such things with our own home grown home cooked deliciousness.

First diversion of topic pondering!

Ok, so have you noticed Seattle has “squares” and all but they’re rarely squares? For example, Pioneer Square, but it’s a triangle within the intersection and confluence of several streets. Westlake Square, but it’s also a partial rectangle + triangle shaped park that is effectively a giant concrete and stone surfaced space in the middle of the city. Nothing real park like or square about it. There are numerous spaces like this throughout Seattle and I do get it, but we should just change the names to be more fitting.

Second diversion of topic pondering!

The violent shaking of the 545 inbound was so bad, for the first time ever, a bus had done – technically at least – damage to my bike! It had knocked the chain off of the bike because of the violent shaking! I was impressed, and would have been highly pissed, except that I could re-rail it back onto the derailer and crank easily. But it could have easily snagged or caught on something and been ripped from or damaged beyond repair. There is zero need for this type of driving, but in spite of any need, it does seem that more and more the express buses do get driven like someone is going to a fire. The recent brakes giving out (or whatever happened) on the 545 that caused it to crash into a building in downtown Seattle is a prime example of this. It’s not a good look for Sound Transit, and it’s not a good look for the drivers. It’s also not a good look for the passengers who are being thrown around like rag dolls.

But I digress, ponderings over and my NOLA Dog was ready! Absolutely delicious, if ya see those available in downtown under the tent, get ya one, they’re great!

After trading details and an invite to a proper crawfish boil, I made my way down to Zeitgeist for my first bout of coding and email reading for the day. I arrived and sat outside while the line quelled itself and pondered a bit more.

After the stint at Zeitgeist I embarked on a ride from there to Starbucks Reserve shop at their HQ. I realized two things:

  1. The HQ is parallel, perfectly parallel, heading south via the Link Light Rail. Win!
  2. The HQ also has a kind of, almost, not sure if it is designated as such – greenway that runs perfectly in front of the HQ.

The ride from Zeitgeist by the arenas (stadiums?) and down 1st was mostly pleasant even with the industrial feel. 1st avenue, unlike the trail that runs parallel to the light rail, has no tents or heroin ODs occurring. Mostly it’s just folks going to and from the HQ plus general business. I’m sure the city has focused on this specifically to some degree, because up on 2nd or 3rd or whatever the busway is called, is just kind of nasty at points. Not dangerous, just a bit nasty. But I digress, onwards.

After the visit to Starbucks Research @ the HQ I headed down to the waterfront to check out progress on all of that. I found one things extremely hilarious, auto traffic is so bad you can just walk among or bike among the cars and beat them from point to point. If you’re driving, just avoid – entirely – the waterfront. There is zero reason to go there unless you’re driving to the ferry. But if you’re trying to go anywhere in the city, the waterfront isn’t going to speed you up by any measure.

After riding a big pseudo loop through all of that I head back toward Pioneer Square area to board a 550 bus out of the city and back toward the east side. My plan was to take the 550 and transfer at south station to the Link on the east side. That way, I could minimize bus usage.

It paid off. The bus ride on the 550 was quick, albeit kind of insane but not as ridiculous as the 545 earlier in the morning. Transferred as planned and boarded the light rail.

The Horrors of the “Motorcycle E-Bike Things”

Ok, so these beasts are popping up all over the place now. Basically mini-bikes but people think, because they’re electric vs. gas powered they can just magically use them wherever and on whatever trails. These go like ~40 mph (or faster in some cases) and happen to have pedals but are anything *but* a bike or e-assist e-bike. It’s kind of insane, and the disregard, negligence, and recklessness of riding these in pedestrianized areas is tantamount to blazing down the same with a motorbike or worse, a car. The dissonance that some folks find in their mind that this ok to do is beyond me, and when the police all of a sudden find the requests for policing these increasing to unavoidable levels, they’re gonna be cracking down left and right.

But in the meantime, they’re a risk factor in most places they’re meandering about, especially where they’re specifically detailed to NOT meander about. I hate saying that, because I’m a fan of pretty much anything that gets folks out of cars, but the behavior surrounding these is the problem.

I am all for alt travel and massively reducing car dependency. But holy burnt hot dog on a stick these are going to just cause a massive diversion of effort from that when they start killing some folks with em’. Just one giant utter face palm of disgrace.

Ok, but so far on goes life. None of these shits with the dissonance of reason and logic have run into me yet. I made it all the way back to Redmond and after some very light editing, have no posted this glorious log of my trip to Seattle today.

Cheers! May your cycling be rewarding, awesome, and your transit riding and elimination of auto-dependency be as rewarding – or more so – than it has for me! 🤘🏻

by Adron

Mission: Record Recon in Seattle “Metro”

I’ve given myself another transit and biking mission in addition to the upcoming posts on the Pittsburgh “Record Recon” missions. Find and recon the record stores in the Seattle “metro” area (obviously right, because I live here!). That includes a lot of territory and I’ll break down with maps and logistics where each of these record stores are and in the coming weeks I’ll be producing a series of videos on each of these shops.

The “Eastside” of the Seattle “Metro”. (Click for larger viewable map)

Now if you’re more interested in just reading about my music collections, reactions to new music, reviews, and all that then check out Vicious Shred. Between that blog and this blog, I try to segment my music specific things from my transit, transportation, and traveling adventures. With that said let’s roll on the record recon!

The Eastside (Seattle “Metro Area”)

Bellevue, Redmond, and the east side in general. This includes the area in the giant pink area. One could generally say “the area between the two major lakes of the area and the wooded northwestern lands of Redmond and Woodinville”. Not that a lot of that area is relevant because the east side simply does NOT have many record stores. However, there are a few, as you can see, which we’ll dive into.

The three record stores (garages?) on the “Eastside”. (Click for larger viewable map)

If we zoom in on the available record stores for the east side they’re all in two places, one is in north Bellevue and the others are in the Totem Lake area. There are only two efficient ways to get to these two area: 1 drive to either of them or 2 bike to either of the locations. Neither are walkable without multiple hours of free time to get to and from them unless you’re located directly inside of these specific areas. Fortunately in *these* suburbs I’ve got some excellent bike route options to get to both locations.

The second option, “Frank’s Garage” is literally Frank’s garage located in a suburban single family home off of any commercial corridor. This is super cool, but also I’ve noted that Frank’s “store hours” are only 1-5pm on Sunday. So that might have to get nixed if I can’t make this trip on a Sunday.

Mission 1

UPDATE: Recon Mission completed on June 14th, 2023. The trip, and record store reviews are available for Vortex Movies & Music and Silver Platters.

(Click for larger image)

A key bike route is along the Cross Kirkland Corridor, which perfectly maps to nearby locations of all three of the record stores! This means that I theoretically could visit each of the record stores in one trip, efficiently stringing them all together in one voyage! Note that time, I’m going to set myself some specific challenges for this voyage:

  1. Ensure the trip time is less than 1 hour and 18 minutes. Think I can accomplish that? I’m pretty confident I can beat that.
  2. Check out both “Vortex Movies & Music” and “Silver Platters“, and for this first voyage to Eastside record stores I’m going to skip Frank’s since I can’t make a Sunday trip.

With that, this I’ll dub “Mission 1: Seattle Metro Eastside Record Stores Voyage“. But with the Eastside locations covered, let’s move on to the *actual* Seattle record stores.

Seattle (The actual *city*)

18 Record Shops – That come back in a maps query. There could be more, and if I zoom in…

My first observation, is that there are none in West Seattle, which seems really odd. I’m finding it hard to believe there isn’t a record store over there, as I’m 100% positive that Easy Street Records & Cafe is over there. Which, I’ll get over there for a full review in the coming weeks as it is easily one of the best record shops in the country let alone Seattle.

I’ve done a secondary query and there is indeed multiple record shops that don’t show up in the above, with the addition of Easy Street Records & Cafe showing up in a query of just West Seattle. Then I did another deeper zoomed map query of University District and sure enough, several additional record shops showed up: Neptune Music, Hi Fi Lo Fi, and Al’s Music, Video, & Games in addition to the two shown on the map above.

This is going to be multiple missions compared to the Eastside, as there is no single route that would travel through all of the record stores as there are just too many of them. But with a bit of study and logistical prowess I’ve attained from years of cycling all over Seattle, I’ve got a few plans following a few strategies.

With those extra queries, the 18 record stores in the map turn into 22 stores in Seattle proper! Clearly, if you’re into vinyl and live in Seattle you’d never have to leave the city, it appears Seattle has record store coverage almost everywhere! With 18 stores I’m going to guess I can maybe drop into 3-6 stores per trip, but it could very well be just 2 or more depending on which ones I’m aiming for. Based on routes and clusters of record stores here is the first two that I’ve deemed a priority.

Mission 2

Mission 2 record reconnaissance will be into the University District of Seattle with a goal to visit 4 stores: Neptune Music, Hi Fi Lo Fi, Seattle Records and Innervisions Posters, and Al’s Music, Video, & Games. There is another store that has theoretically opened at 6215 Roosevelt Way NE called Satisfaction Records & CDs that I’ll roll into this mission. It was in Ballard, but as I searched through the characteristics of that mission I had to back track and add it to this mission! Thus, it’s very likely this will be a recon mission with 5 stores!

Mission 3

Mission 3 record reconnaissance will be into a trio of neighborhood areas: Wallingford, Fremont, and Ballard. This is extremely familiar territory since not long ago I lived in Ballard and also long ago I lived in Ballard. This reconnaissance run will be the hardest to date at this point with 6 record stores to visit! Will resources be enough? Will time be available? Will the store open hours be enough? It could be tricky but I think I can pull off 6 stores in one trip!

Overall, this mission holds a special place in my heart and mind as it’s in old stomping grounds of 2022 and before! In many ways I do miss Ballard and wish we could have stayed in the neighborhood but alas, to the east we went. But just before we left, one of the old well known record stores closed, which this trip will be a hats off homage to the long years of service of said store – if you know you know. But either way, this trip is gonna be fun to record and fun to log the visits afterwards.

Mission 4

Mission 4 is going to be intense, and I might have to split it in two considering the 9 record stores to recon! I like to spend at minimum 15 minutes checking them out which would put just the time in store at 135 minutes minimum, but likely will be more if even one of. the stores has a great selection that I need to recon more intensely. My personal estimate with that many stores, it would add at least 3 hours or more to the entire recon mission just based on in store time.

Mission 5

This mission will include a nice trip, albeit long at 3 hours and 7 minutes, it’ll be beautiful ride and an absolute shit ride. This recon trip includes three record stores. One being the Silver Platters SODO location should be pretty good. Then followed with what I understand (and know) to be two of the coolest parts of the city with two a respective awesome record store in each neighborhood.

Tacoma (Not Seattle, but I had to include it!)

Mission 6

Mission 6 could be so intense from a trip distance, I might just need to interject a train into the mix! After all, trains leave from downtown Seattle and go straight into Tacoma, which would make this trip exponentially easier! But when the mission is on the calendar I’ll narrow it down and confirm the logistics.

Mission 7

Seattle “Metro Area” North is a string areas north of Seattle and south of Everett. I’d go into detail but it’s unnecessarily complicated. Suffice it to say, this trip is going to be long at a suggested 2 hours and 9 minutes, with a significant amount of the trip via trails, amazing. There is still about 15-25% that is on roadway “bike infrastructure” which, in this area, translates to shitty car sewer stroads. But I’ll make due, this is going to be a very interesting recon trip. It’ll also be really interesting if the record stores will validate the trip effort! Hopefully there is a jackpot or two to find among the two.

The other thing that isn’t immediately noticeable in this trip is how much of the trip is actually dedicated trails! There are of course some roadways but significant portion of the trip is extensive trail routes! I’m really looking forward to that aspect of the trip.

Mission 8

In mission 8 the route is about 50% trail and 50% car sewers so that is going to be a bit of a challenge. Either or though, at some point I intend to complete this mission! These two stores seem fascinating and could be interesting collections unto themselves.