West - Seattle begin new light rail expansions

Hi All,

This weekend where you can ride for free. Until on Monday morning you have to pay the fares on the light rail. Its has been long awaited the light rail. So here the link:

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_071809WAB-light-rail-sat-SW.520eaae0.html

You can go on the light rail tomorrow 10am to 6pm for free riders.

Very exciting. Have any of our Seattle FTers ridden the trains?

Any experiences from SEA?

My wife is flying into SEA in a few days. She needs to go downtown. It LOOKS pretty easy (you still need to take a short bus ride from SEA as the airport stop won't be complete until later this year).

BTW, how is the safety of this or, alternatively, the express bus? She may not arrive at SEA until about 9 pm -- just when the Gray Line Airporter stops running. It SEEMS pretty crazy to pay 40 bucks for a cab when you can do this (unless, of course, this isn't safe in the evening).

Thanks for the advice.

How did Mrs.iahphx fare on light rail? Did she ride after 9pm?

I searched Twitter for reports and the dozen or so Tweets are positive. Here's a pic from @ike6. (http://img269.yfrog.com/i/b30d.jpg/)

...how is the safety of this or, alternatively, the express bus?... Thanks for the advice. This comes too late to help Mrs. iahphx, I guess, but I would urge others planning SEA visits to be very cautious about using light rail after rush hour to get into the city.

Not only is light rail time-consuming (you have to ride a temporary bus-shuttle about 1.5 miles to the current end of the line until the airport spur is finished, then the trains go on 15/20-minute headways), but the line goes through some sketchy neighborhoods known for gang activity, and the stations along the way are unattended.

The bottom line is, I wouldn't let my family ride the thing after 600pm. The Gray Line Airporter bus, while far more expensive and also poky and slow and affording you a grand tour of everybody else's hotel, is perfectly safe IMO.

Both options will take you from 30 to 60 minutes. A taxi after hours will take you about 13 minutes. No contest.