Tag / light rail

by Adron

Part 1: Disconnected by Design – The Death of the Third Place

> “A third place is a space that isn’t home (the first place) or work (the second place). It’s where people go to just exist together.”
> — Ray Oldenburg (Paraphrased and adapted for modern reality)

Let’s get something straight up front. Third places are disappearing (or already disappeared) in America. And no, we’re not talking about some twee idea of a cafe with succulents and overpriced drip coffee. We’re talking about foundational infrastructure—the places that once held the social fabric together.

We’ve designed them out of our neighborhoods, priced them out of our cities, and paved over them in the name of “development.” What’s replaced them? Nothing of substance. Just parking lots, chain retail, and algorithmic dopamine feeds that masquerade as community.

What Is a Third Place (And Why It Matters)

A third place is simple in concept: a social setting where people gather that isn’t home or work. Think:

  • Libraries (Please stop closing them, just figure out how to make em’ work, because they will!)
  • Coffee shops (actual community hubs, not Starbucks outlets)
  • Bookstores with comfy chairs
  • Park benches with regulars
  • Local bars, barber shops, bike co-ops
  • Public plazas, community centers, corner bodegas where people linger

These places foster unplanned conversation, spontaneous collaboration, and yes—real, human connection. They offer a counterbalance to the transactional nature of modern life.

And in the U.S.? We’ve systematically eliminated them.

Business freelance team chatting during coffee break in office. Creative multiethnic colleagues engaged in teamwork at coworking open space

From Common Ground to Commercialized Nowhere

If you’re in a suburb, odds are your nearest third place is at least a 10-minute drive away—and no, a drive-thru Starbucks doesn’t count.

Urban planning over the last 50 years has systematically pushed out the informal, low-cost, and unbranded spaces in favor of traffic flow, parking capacity, and revenue-per-square-foot. The result?

  • Communities where there is no place to gather without spending money
  • Spaces that feel sterile, overly regulated, or outright exclusionary
  • Entire generations growing up with no idea what a third place even is
An aerial view of the Twin Cities Outer Suburb of Apple Valley, Minnesota

The Great Digital Substitution (That Isn’t)

Somewhere along the way, we convinced ourselves that social media was a good enough replacement. That Discord servers could be the new pub. That Reddit threads replaced roundtables. That Instagram comment sections were valid forms of shared experience.

No.

Those are digital holding pens designed to manipulate your attention, not give you context, warmth, or presence. You can’t replace a knowing glance or a random conversation with a stream of hot takes and emojis.

They mimic connection. But they don’t create it.

Case Study: Third Place Commons – Holding the Line

Located in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Commons is one of the few community anchors that still embodies what a third place should be.

  • It’s open to everyone.
  • It hosts events like chess nights, concerts, and civic forums.
  • It’s tied into a bookstore (shoutout to Third Place Books).
  • It isn’t flashy, and that’s the point.

When You Erase the Third Place…

…you erase empathy. You erase frictionless socializing. You erase the chance to bump into people outside of work and curated social events. You erase the “Hey, good to see you again” rhythm that holds communities together.

You replace it with:

  • Loneliness
  • Economic stagnation
  • Fragmented civic life
  • Performative connection

And then we act shocked when people are burnt out, disconnected, and angry.

Next Up: The Car That Ate Your Community

In Part 2, I’ll get into how the automobile didn’t just kill walkability—it nuked third places out of existence. We’ll talk about the rise and quiet death of parklets, the shrinking of civic spaces, and how cities like Portland tried (and often failed) to fight the tide with bike co-ops and transit stations.

If this series hits a nerve, good. It’s supposed to.

You can’t rebuild what you don’t even realize is missing.

by Adron

The Chaos & Madness of Forgetting One’s Keys

I have a rather interesting commute these days. It consists of four parts for the time being.

  1. Departure from home and arrival at the Redmond Link Station via e-bike.
  2. Departure with Spacey (this bike) from the Redmond Link Station to South Bellevue Station.
  3. Departure from South Bellevue Station via the Sound Transit Express 550 bus.
  4. Then via bicycle to the little coffee shop (i.e. Starbucks HQ) in Seattle’s SODO.

Today I departed from home and traversed all of the parts of my commute until arrival at South Bellevue Station. I then realized I had forgotten my keys at home. The keys I use to lock my bike via u-lock at the coffee shop. No keys no lock, so that wouldn’t do.

So a good 1/2rds of the way into the city I made the u-turn to head back to get my u-lock keys. Back to the Redmond Link Station, I parked Spacey, and then took the e-bike back up the hill to home. I got my keys and headed back out again.

An Aside: Naming Chaos Among Key Chaos

Alright, let’s detail this topic for a moment. What the hell is wrong with Seattle and naming things. Before Redmond Technology Station became “Redmond Technology Center”, it was called Overlake Transit Center. They renamed it and the next station, which is still just touching Microsoft Campus, is called Overlake Village Station. No confusion to be had for anybody that has been in the area for more than a few years, no none at all.

Amidst that ridiculousness Marymoor Park Station is only tangentially connected to Marymoor Park. To get anywhere where people congregate in the park you’ve got to walk between 3-20 minutes to get there. Then there is the Symphony Station, once the University Station but not connected to the University District and confusing to folks about what University, if any, it connected to. Because the nearest was many blocks away. But I digress.

I could go on and on about this and the locations, because it is clear there were powers that worked diligently against the light rail to make it less than useful. However in spite of these assholes and short-sighted fools, it’s already immensely useful even with the stop locations.

Back to Key Chaos

Now that I had back tracked to get my keys, I was at least an hour behind my expected arrival at the office. In addition, a meeting was coming up that I wouldn’t make unless I only traversed part of my trip and stopped to have the meeting. I had done this before, where I would go part of the way, then stop at a coffee shop or somewhere that wifi exists to attend a meeting. Then I would continue onward.

Today I decided to stop at the Dote Coffee Shop at Redmond Technology Station. It seemed like a perfect, down to the minute, timing to get part of the way into the commute and also attend the meeting.

A Note on Dote @ Redmond Technology Station

The Dote located at the Redmond Technology Station (here) is a pretty cool location. It is however kind of a stand alone very transit station specific location. All of the other amenities that Softies (That’s what Microsoft employees are called, I kid you not) enjoy such as their walkable urban area is up the street a few blocks and not entirely evident – or that accessible without a little mischievousness or having a blue or orange badge. So this is the publicly accessible option in the area, and it’s pretty great.

However, even though it is a private business not particular part of Microsoft, this location is forced to use the Microsoft wifi. This has always been a bit of an odd logistical lift for Microsoft. The reason being is that Microsoft treats all of the businesses and amenities in the area – even when they are on public property and owned by the local city and public – as if it is their own owned amenities. It’s a weird relationship to say the least.

Amidst all that, I managed to arrive at the station in time to get into the shop in time for the meeting and a drink.

The Last Leg, Broken

Finally, my meetings wrapped up and I began the last leg to get into the office. I walked out of the store, unlocked my bike and progressed toward the Link tracks to board a south bound train. I arrived, saw a train sitting there and noticed it wasn’t moving. After a minute or so I gave up and headed over to the south bound 40th St stop to board – hopefully – the Sound Transit Express 542.

I opted for the 542 (direct to University District) instead of the 545 (the more direct shot into the city) because I could ride it for a short haul into U-District and then board the Link Light Rail through downtown to SODO. They key difference here is I could work on the Link vs. not so easy on the bumpy buses.

I locked out and as I rode my bike up over the highway pedestrian and bike bridge to the other side to board the south bound buses, I only had 4 minutes until the 542 arrived. It pulled in, I racked my bike, and off we went. Upon arriving at U-District I took the elevator down and onto the 1-Line Link Train south through the city. I was able to rack my bike and get a seat, working through the remainder of the trip.

So that was my rather chaotic commute today, one for the books of misadventures in getting the logistics wrong over forgotten keys. Until next trip, cheers!

by Adron

Mountlake Terrace, Pizza, and Art

I reached Mountlake Terrace yesterday. It was after a short ride down the Interuban Trail from Lynnwood Transit Center. Upon arriving, and more on the route in a moment cuz it’s worth its own write up, I made a right turn away from the Link station. My intent to roll downhill to the Zeeks Pizza and grab dinner.

As I rolled downhill the utter chaos of dystopian incompetence in parking was on full display. Full suburban entitlement was evident. Car after car, among the majority parked correctly, was pulled into the PBL (Protected Bike Lane). Some were parked halfway in the road, blocking the road and bike lane, all while beside an actual parking spot. A New Yorker would be enraged at the absurdity of parking beside a empty spot filled by a ghost, maybe?! But all that nonsensical disrespectful motorist shit aside, it was a quick roll down from the station and up on to the sidewalk to park.

There was a solid staple rack right out front of the Zeeks, so I saddled right up to that. I then perused the other establishments on the street here. There’s a coffee shop that looks like it’d be legit, but closes at 3:00pm and it’s 5:30 now. There is also a beer brew joint of some sort. All of it looked like legit quality joints! Not entirely what I’d expect this far out into the suburbs, but after the ride (again more on that in a moment), this Mountlake area is one of the more quality areas in the overall metro area! It’s really nice out here!

Anyway, I strolled my happy ass into the pizza joint. One of the staff (or proprietor, I don’t know) she offered I sit anywhere. I went ahead and took a seat on a two top. She came over, and provided menus and offered some beer options upon my curiosity. We discussed beer for a minute, Pfriem specifically because holy hell are they amazing, and then delved into our children and their recent chaos! No idea how we got there but it was a great multi-minute conversation. As the waitress came up and popped around the corner, the trio of us relayed by beer option and then the waitress and I discussed the varietal of pizza options I had before me.

Zeeks

I will admit, she struck me a bit off kilter because she had enthralling dermal facial and septum piercings of a uniqueness – a very artistic uniqueness – I’d not seen. With necklace, jewelry, and other accoutrement, she had an air about her that was very bespoke. Humans in Seattle are not cookie-cutter. Standing out as unique is rare and a significant compliment for me to ponder, let alone verbally offer someone.

I ordered my pizza and chatted with the team there a bit more. I had a pilsner – ok two because the Italian Pilsner was tops. Then I wrapped up. When I paid, I verbally complimented the waitress on her artisanal bespoke style. She genuinely appreciated my word soup compliment. We discussed the idea of one’s self being presented as a human art. In all seriousness, it’s a topic unto itself, but for those that know y’all know. Hat tipped to you all!

I then left. I had a good phone chat with my kiddo. After that, I mounted my steed to claim and uphill to the Mountlake Terrace Link Station. However I did deviate again and cut right. With a slight bit more hill climb, I rolled past. I gave a good look to the claimed “center” of Mountlake Terrace. I also eyed Hemlock State Brewing. Another trip will include that brewery!

With that I made a u-turn mid-suburb and got another hill drop down to the station. Rode the elevator up and the next Link rolled in within minutes. Boarded, and off I went wrapping up this very blog entry. Until next time, enjoy your transit trips, bike rides, and adventures! Slava Ukraini, may fascism fall on its face, and may your quality of life improve endlessly!

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.