While I was walking to Westlake Station from work yesterday, where I took Light Rail northbound and then Laney joined on Capitol Hill to go explore the new stations to the north, I thought about what a uniquely exciting day like yesterday was, when new stations open. From the next day on, it's just a normal thing: the trains go there. But on the day itself, the first day the stations open, it is An Event.

And they even made it a bigger event than usual this time: each of the four new Lynnwood Extension stations had a Night Market, with local vendor booths and live entertainment, from 4-6pm, after the standard Ribbon Cutting at 11 a.m. I had wondered why they made Opening Day a Friday for Lynnwood Extension rather than a Saturday like previous openings, and Laney theorized that it might help publicize further ridership over a three-day holiday weekend with several different games happening. That kind of made sense to me, and reportedly the Night Markets were to help encourage celebration later in the day for people with day jobs who could not attend the Ribbon Cutting at 11 a.m. on a Friday.

All of this is to say, I was really glad to be able to go check out the new stations yesterday in particular—when the last extension occurred, on October 2, 2021—a Saturday—it was the day they were finally able to schedule Auntie Rose's memorial service in Port Townsend. Shobhit and I went to explore the three new stations between University of Washington Station and Northgate three weeks later instead.

No scheduling conflicts yesterday, though! Except for the possible issue of Laney's back: she apparently woke up on Wednesday with some back pain, but she came to see Between the Temples with me that evening anyway. It wasn't terrible, but she said her back only felt a little better on Thursday—she later told me that she had to rearrange plans she'd had that day to take Light Rail south to Tukwila to meet up with her friend Julie, as she knew her back could not take a day of train riding. She spent the day alternately icing and heating her back, which she said helped. Yesterday morning she texted me, So far this morning my back is feeling better, so that's a relief.

I was still kind of afraid she'd wind up canceling later, though. I looked at my calendar and saw that we could feasibly postpone to Monday, right after we get together to watch the origial Beetlejuice in prep for seeing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice next weekend. But, I still really wanted to go yesterday, with all the festivities happening. I found myself trying to think of any friends I might be able to use as backup.

Thankfully, that wasn't necessary. I asked her later while we were on the train how her back was, and she said it felt fine. Whew! I was afraid she might still have been going even with a slight irritation in her back or something. She told me she forced herself to sleep on her back the night before and apparently that made all the difference.

So: we actually stopped at five stations, not just four. Laney had never gotten out to explore Roosevelt Station before, so we did that first, ater she boarded at Capitol Hill Station, and we passed through University of Washington Station (open 2016) and U District Station (opened 2021—Laney's favorite, and one she got to get a good look at once we started using it fairly frequently to see movies at the AMC 10 in the U District). We very nearly missed Roosevelt Station just because we were so quickly into deep conversation.

Laney is now the only person I've done a Light Rail Opening exploration with twice. I already had a broader "Public Transit" collection of photo albums, with the Light Rail opening albums noted in the Description field, but the other day I also made another collection, specific to these Light Rail openings and extensions, of which I have now covered four. (Technically yesterday's was the fifth: eight miles of Line 2 opened between Bellevue and Redmond in April, but I see no sense in exploring that line until the connection on I-90 across Lake Washington opens, which will hopefully happen by either 2025 or 2026.) I toured the initial opening of Light Rail with Barbara and Susan back in 2009, when it didn't even yet quite reach the airport—when Light Rail first opened, it only ran between Westlake Station and Tukwila Station, with bus shuttles from Tukwila Station to the airport. I always found that stupid and annoying, but at least Seatac Station opened in December 2009, all of five months after the initial line opening.

There was not another extension until 2016, when "U Link" opened in March, adding Capitol Hill and University of Washington Stations to the north—Laney lived in Capitol Hill at the time, and so we were both beyond thrilled, finally getting a Light Rail station in our own neighborhood. (It's half a mile from Shobhit's and my place, which makes it quite convenient enough most of the time, but if we are going to the airport with luggage, it remains easier to catch the #11 at our building and ride the bus down to Westlake Station.)

That was a nearly seven-year space between extensions, but thankfully every extension since has been more frequent than that. The stations Shobhit and I explored when they opened in 2021 were U District Station (which, ironically, was only a few blocks from the old PCC Central Office—five years after we moved away from there), Roosevelt Station and Northgate Station. Over time, how useful each of these stations have been to me has ebbed and flowed, but I have found use for each of them at one time or another: there always comes a need once or twice a year to get out to Northgate; U District Station is eternally useful as the one closest to the AMC 10 theater; I used Roosevelt Station a couple of times to hang out with Claudia, when she still lived within walking distance of that station until she and Dylan moved to Port Orchard in 2022.

Oh! I nearly forgot. The 1 line extended just one station to the south in September 2016, with the opening of Angle Lake Station, where there is a huge parking structure largely used for airport parking, as SeaTac is the next station, northward.

The Line 2 opening that happened in April of this year was actually by far the largest number of Light Rail stations to open at one time since the first opening in 2009: eight stations, between South Bellevue and South Redmond. (The initial opening in 2009 had been 13 stations.) If you count both the 2 line and yesterday's Lynnwood Extension stations, then we've had 12 new station openings within a single calendar year, falling just one short of the record opening at the very start. That said, I find it hard to count the 2 line just yet as it is still not actually connected to the 1 line as originally designed.

But, whatever! Lynnwood Extension added 8.5 miles to the line to the north, which doesn't sound like that much unless, for instance, you're like me and you do the vast majority of your longer-distance regional movement by public transit. It should be noted that Northgate Extension was 4.3 miles, so as of yesterday it goes 12.8 miles further north than University of Washington Station. And U Link Extension was 3.15 miles, so as of yesterday, Light Rail goes 16 miles further north than it did in February of 2016 (granted, that was eight years ago, but still).

There are other things that make Lynnwood Extension unique, though. There has long been a 12-station, 4-mile Light Rail line in Tacoma, in fact it's the oldest track, open since 2003—but it has yet to link up with the system that runs through Seattle. (There is no plan for that to happen until 2035.) The reason I mention this is: Lynnwood Extension crosses the county line from King County into Snohomish County, making it the first time the contiguous, Seattle-based Light Rail track has moved into another county.

It's hardly the first time it's gone out of Seattle proper: the line went out of city limits and into suburbs to the south (Tukwila, Seatac) the very year it first opened. And the 2 line is obviously suburban, being on the Eastside. But these are the first suburbs to the north to be served by Light Rail—and also the first suburban stations not to the south that I have yet had a chance to see. And I must say, it's quite different up there. They clearly have much higher income levels than suburbanites to the south.

I'll start with the positive observation. Thanks in large part to the Night Markets, all four of the stations were hopping—like, legit festivals going on, at every one of them. It occurs to me literally now as I am writing this that such things would be largely thanks to bigger municipal budgets in those cities. In any case, a lot of people turned out, and were clearly interested and excited in all this. Higher-income communities use public transit less, but like it or not, Light Rail is generally a nicer and cleaner form of it. Time will tell how much usage the trains will get among those communities as time goes on, but Laney and I talked several times about how cool an option these people now have, to ride into town on the train and not have to worry about parking, to attend a game, or just find a cool place to eat on Capitol Hill or in Pioneer Square or wherever. Seeing that much excitement was genuinely awesome.

Now for the less positive observations. I guess I'll try not to judge people for nothing more than having children, but holy hell, there was a lot of whiny children around. One little girl started crying loudly in a station elevator just because someone else had already pressed the button so she didn't get a chance to. Oh my god, get over it you little shit! (You can tell I am not a parent, nor perhaps should I be.)

But even worse was the strollers. Oh my god, the strollers! I have never seen such monstrosities. This was a very crowded event, and yet consistently there would be between one and three strollers in a station elevator, of staggeringly varied sizes. I saw single-occupancy strollers the size of three old-school, simple strollers. I saw several double-seated strollers, rarely with both seats occupied. In one instance I saw what looked like the limousine of strollers: basically a giant wagon, with four seat capacity, like a little tour bus. Only two children were sitting in it, one on each side, sitting diagonally from each other. It had a horizontal panel with cup holders across the middle, between the two pairs of seats, all of which had individual seatbelts. This hulking thing took up enough space in the crowded station elevator that probably three average sized adults could have crammed into.

How much do these things even cost, I wonder? I tried in vain to find this exact model online, but I found four-seat strollers that were relatively close and they all seem to average around $500. Jesus Christ.

I shudder to think of all these strollers on crowded trains. But I'm trying to be positive! Better that than in a car, right?

I've seen complaints online about the decision to run Light Rail mostly alongside the freeway (I-5, in this case) rather than closer to Aurora, where it would better serve neighborhoods. This seems like a relatively fair point, but you can't have everything. Progress not perfection, people!

I guess I'll mention now that each of the four shots in this post are from each of the Lynnwood Extension stations. At the top is a video I took from the top level of the giant, adjacent parking structure (which three of these stations have; I think the parking there is even free) at Shortline South / 148th Station. The second shot is of a very cool pedestrian overpass at Shoreline North / 185th Station. The third is of the functional art encasing the stairs and escalators at Mountlake Terrace Station, a stop Laney and I plan to go back to sometime and walk the mile from there to Ballinger Park—which has a lake with an island in it that was supposed to be part of my island-themed Birth Week but Shauna had to cancel. And the fourth shot, seen below, was also taken from a parking structure, at Lynnwood City Center Station. If you look closely you can see how the elevated track there just ends mid-air in the distance. They must have to do a certain distance from the station just in case the brakes go out or something.

There is no plan to extend further north until 2037, when it will go from Lynnwood to Mariner; the schedule from Mariner to Everett is not until 2041. The year I turn 65!

Thankfully, the next extension south is much sooner: Federal Way Extension is slated for 2026! Once that happens, visiting Gabriel will become much, much easier.

Anyway. I guess I'll mention that all our exploration yesterday yielded a 63-shot photo album. I only took 4 shots at Roosevelt Station, but got 17 at Shoreline South / 148th Station; 15 at Shoreline North / 185th Station; 11 at Mountlake Terrace Station; and 12 at Lynnwood City Center Station.

We spent the most time at Lynnwood, as we went around looking for a snack. I had taken the leftover two slices of pizza I made on Thursday night to work with me, so I could reheat and eat those right before I left. I also brought a tumbler bottle with three shots of vodka and lime juice in it, with a small bottle of ginger beer separate that I kept in the Merchandising refrigerator all day, and I mixed that together to make a Moscow Mule right before I left as well. (This amount of prep and planning also made me really hope Laney would not have to cancel.) Laney brought her own cocktail, and we took drinks at all the stations. (Laney and I did that once before, riding the whole original Light Rail line for my Birth Week in 2016, but that was not for an opening, it was just because.)

Any of the many food trucks with legit food had lines a mile long. We wound up settling on a cookie vendor called Pinckney Cookie Cafe. The cookies were good but a little pricey at $4. Or maybe I'm turning into an old person who doesn't understand inflation. Who knows! At least it was Black owned. I will say this about those crowds in the northern suburbs: they may not have been exclusively White, but they were overwhelmingly so. There is far more diversity to the south. (Also to the east, to be fair, considering the high number of South Asians working for Microsoft or similar companies. Not as many Black people over there either though, or just about anywhere in the Pacific Northwest really. Their numbers get slightly higher in central Seattle.)

The whole thing took a few hours. We met at Capitol Hill Station at 5:00. The last photo I took, from the train through Mountlake Terrace, was at 7:55. It was about 8:30 before I got home. Shobhit worked last night but we did go do a bit of grocery shopping at QFC when he got home around 9:30. Now I need to post this so I can finally get ready for the day, we can go pick up Laney, and we can all head out to West Seattle for this year's Alki Beach Pride!

[posted 10:16am]