It’s officially summer (at least from the weather app, which predicts multiple sunny days above 80ºF), and this is a reminder that you can 100% work from a park. In fact, I’m writing this blog post from a park picnic table right now. For most people, parks come from a sense of wanting to connect with nature. We use parks to play tennis, stroll around, shoot hoops, and up until 2024 I would use the swing sets (I now get really nauseous 😔). But why silo public spaces for specific uses?
Instead of trying to fit nature into specific blocks of time, working from a park provides an invaluable opportunity to immerse yourself into nature. It has been proven by me that spending a day out in a park is 100% better than staying in your room that overheats because it’s on the second floor of your house which is mildly under insulated and to save money on electricity bills you have your thermostat set to 74º even though it’s definitely past 80º in the room (anyone else?)
Anyways, I hope this post serves as your reminder to get outside and enjoy what life has to offer outside of air conditioning. If this self-described chronic sweater can do it, so can you!
This is Post 2 of my Seattle Transit Series: Sound Move
Sound Move is produced in collaboration with CreativeSystems of America. An independently-owned and operated collective, CreativeSystems of America aims to amplify voices of the American people.
If you’ve been keeping up with the latest in Seattle transit news, you’ll know about Sound Transit’s record-breaking $34 billion shortfall. A shortfall of this size will be devastating to Sound Transit, undermining their potential capability to complete voter-approved Sound Transit 3 projects. Sound Transit is currently reviewing the Enterprise Initiative, a cost-cutting plan to re-work Sound Transit’s finances.
In this initiative, there are a bunch of projects that Sound Transit is planning on deferring or reducing the scope of. This post is a reaction of sorts – answering the question of “Is this worth the deferral?”
Link Light Rail to Tacoma Dome
Status: Fully Funded
Although I understand why this project needs to get built, I can also see why this project could be deferred for a future phase. Tacoma to SeaTac trips are the main reason why this line should exist. In my mind, upgrades and improvements to Sounder S Line would be a much better investment, as the line links Tacoma to Seattle that makes much more sense. Link Light Rail would take much longer to get to Seattle, and I don’t know if it’s worth that investment. This section would also see very little ridership.
In a political sense, this project is highly unlikely to be deferred. Pierce County subarea voters have received very little improvements outside of the T Line extension, so this project will “recoup” Tacoma’s investment into regional transit.
Link Light Rail to Everett
Status: Fully Funded
This project, despite the abysmal rider projections is sorely needed for regional connectivity. The existing options, including Sound Transit Express lines and the Sounder N Line are relatively insufficient to support future rider growth. Snohomish County got its first light rail line back in 2024, and a connection to Everett would be a great investment to maintain regional connectivity. No complaints here, other than the line’s strange routing.
Link Light Rail to Issaquah and SOuth Kirkland
Status: Fully Funded but Delayed to 2050
This line would be an easy offshoot from the 2 Line as long as they follow the freeway routing. Although the line would be a lot more valuable if Kirkland wanted the line, it’s decently needed for more interconnectivity in East King Subregion. I doubt that it would be as impactful as Stride BRT, but as it stands I’m happy with the delay.
Link Light Rail to West Seattle
Status: Fully Funded without Avalon Station
This branch would bring pretty decent ridership for Link despite being so short, but I think Avalon should be put back onto the map to provide better connections to Burien or White Center. Alaska Junction is already served by the RapidRide C Line and the Link conection would be beneficial for the area.
Link Light Rail to Ballard
Status: Fully Funded to Seattle Center, Phase 2 to Ballard Deferred
This is a pretty big mistake. Ballard Link, including the Second Downtown Tunnel is a valuable opportunity to provide better connections in a transit-dependent area. Building the full link out to Ballard would provide way better regional opportunities for riders outside of the North King Subarea, as they can use Link as a part of a true transit corridor in Seattle. Although the costs are high, this one project will boost regional opportunities much further than a light rail line to Issaquah.
So far, the subarea structure of Sound Transit essentially means that this project is very unlikely to be fully funded by ST3, despite the fact that it is guaranteed to provide the best value for money. I understand that the political will to build this project is very much alive, but Seattle’s interests remain eaten up by the rest of the board that must advocate for their areas.
In the meantime, the proposal to build to Seattle Center would still benefit South Lake Union, so I’m happy that at least a stub line is being built. My fear is that the stub will exist in a Wilshire/Western-esque limbo of existence. My hope is that they’re able to prioritize the full buildout to Ballard before the political motivation to build it disappears.
Graham Street Station (Infill)
Status: Deferred (Design Work Funded)
Not a fan of this deferral. Subjectively, South Seattle has been f*cked over by the Link system because of this at-grade section. Despite that, it has still managed to prosper and maintain a lot of its character. Graham Street has been requested for years by the community, and would fill a particularly important gap along MLK Jr. Way. It’s a pretty “cheap” station (estimated at US$214M) that would greatly benefit the community. Seattle continues to alienate some of the city’s most marginalized neighborhoods, and the deferral of this station is a reminder of that fact. A proposal by Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has proposed a “last-in” funding mechanism that would restore funding for this station, and I really hope it passes.
Boeing Access Road Station (Infill)
Status: Deferred (Design Work Funded)
If I’m honest, I’d rather see this station cancelled outright. For the estimated cost of US$425-475M, this station would serve basically nothing and has very little development potential. This is already an incredible waste of money, and it should be removed from the schedule altogether.
Sounder Improvements
Status: Deferred
A whole list of Sounder improvements, including capacity improvements for Sounder South, and an extension to DuPont are all proposed to be deferred. While it would be nice, the extension to DuPont is less of a priority than the Sounder South capacity improvements. Hourly frequencies between Tacoma and Seattle would be a dream, but I doubt BNSF would be co-operative for that amount of traffic.
Link Light Rail to Tacoma Community College
Status: Fully Funded but Delayed to 2043
I don’t know much about the T Line unfortunately, but the T Line’s Hilltop Extension has proven to be of great value to the City of Tacoma. Since the main priority for this line is economic development, keeping it on the table but extending the debt priority is probably the best outcome for this project.
What’s Next?
As of the date of publication, the Sound Transit Board is voting to approve or amend the Enterprise Initiative today (Thursday, 28 May). My hope is that we can find ways to lower soft costs and keep the transit momentum going in the Puget Sound. Seattle is on a great run with building and developing transit, and this momentum needs to be harvested for the next generation of projects.
My main gripe with Metrolinx is the fact that they choose to use white OR gray tile in every piece of infrastructure that they build. My main issue with this is the fact that it makes each station extremely boring.
Building an identity
Tiu Keng Leng Station uses bright, vivid colors to create a sense of place in their stations.
What color does to a station cannot be understated in our communities. The use of color has always carried cultural connotations, from the colors of flags, to emotions and other uses (color analysis). I’ve grown up riding the Hong Kong MTR, a system that heavily relies of color theming to build identity to make it easier for people to identify individual stations. Causeway Bay will always be lilac, and Sheung Shui will always be a light blue in my mind.
Connecting our communities with color would have gone a long way in establishing transit in the roots of our placemaking efforts. The original Yonge subway tiles, first installed when the subway began operations back in 1954, stayed true to this theming – utilitarian designs, but with each station having a different color trim and tile, it helped establish a sense of identity to each station. TMU (formerly Dundas)’s iconic highlighter yellow tiles is another good (albeit ugly) example of how color shapes places in our mind.
Meanwhile…
Mount Olive Stop on a gray day… Really blends in with the road and gloomy sky.
Riding the new TTC Line 6 Finch West, it was pretty clear how much value-engineering took place on the line. Disregarding the main issues of the line, the issue I take with the design of the line is the fact that each station has no character. The surface stops are modern, simple, and clean, with black shelters made with metal and glass.
My main issue is that they could have very easily made small, unique changes to each station by changing the colors of some glass panels to add character to each station. St. Clair’s rebuild included artwork at the top of each shelter panel to represent the neighborhoods that the streetcar line runs through, which added character to an otherwise monotonous piece of infrastructure. Big infrastructure projects shouldn’t just be reliable, but also work as placemakers for the communities it serves.
What can Metrolinx do?
Redmond Technology on the Sound Transit 2 Line
Honestly, I don’t mind the vinyls that Sound Transit (temporarily) applied to their stations during openings. The vinyls act as a cheap way to add character and color to each station. I would love it if Metrolinx / Mosaic Transit Partners could work in similar vinyls for each station stop. It doesn’t even need to be anything special – just a different color for each stop.
If Metrolinx wants to claim that they can design high-quality rapid transit, what’s the point of half-assing it? Why build stations that are as drab and utilitarian as the road itself? We had a once-in-a-Canadian-lifetime opportunity to build a rapid transit line Northwest Etobicoke could be proud of, and like most things, we’ve failed to take pride in our work and do it correctly.
While I’m on hold with Rogers, I’d like to take this time to reflect on a whole year of writing quips on here!
I initially started this blog because I chose to make my site a WordPress site. WordPress is probably best known for the fact that it’s used as a blogging site, so I decided to just add a blog onto here. Later on, I realized that I wanted to improve my writing skills as well. I wouldn’t call myself a proficient writer, and my goal was to make my writing more effective. I tend to use a lot of filler words in my every day writing, which really hasn’t changed much after a year of writing. So not sure how effective that has been going!
This blog was also a great way for me to deep-dive into my interests. One of my first posts was finding out why Muni transfers were free from Daly City BART, and I’ve written more over the year! Please check them out if you haven’t done so.
Finally, I wanted to use this place to get more real with my friends. You know how people joke about being “closed off” but people don’t really ever ask them questions? In my case, people do ask me questions but I never give straight answers. I wanted to use the blog as a introspective space for my thoughts. Hopefully I was more open! I am really aware though that I have at most two readers, since I don’t advertise this website out to most people.
That’s all I really have on a whole year of blogging. I did fall off the metaphorical wagon a bit because of the statement of purposes I wrote for graduate school applications, but I am getting back on that horse now that I am re-invigorated and all applications have gotten back to me. Stay tuned for more content (probably all about transit).
I’ve been trying to get back into casual photography over the past six months. Unfortunately, photography can be a pretty expensive hobby, so I am pretty grateful that I got a Charmera over the holidays to play around with!
What is a Charmera?
A Charmera is a popular keychain camera, which have grown in popularity over the past couple of years. This one is pretty expensive for a 1 megapixel sensor, but it comes in a blind box with six different designs, including one ultra rare design! It’s perfect for consumerists such as myself.
Unfortunately for me, I got this blue one that I don’t mind, but don’t love either. If anyone has a cool one (the yellow or red) and wants to trade, do let me know!
Now that I’ve been seriously using this camera for slightly over a month, here are three things I’ve learned about the camera, and photography in general:
Wow, this camera has no stabilization!
Everything is shaky, especially if you have stress tremors like me. Snap more than one photo because it’s a huge gamble on which photo will not be slightly blurry.
Don’t count on a good sunset
Surprisingly, low-light performance is slightly better than what you’d expect on this camera. What isn’t good however, is any photo taken during dusk. The camera is not good at picking up a large light range and will end up overexposing the entire photo as a result. Shadows still work, but focus on even lighting in your photos.
People are WAY better to shoot than non-animated subjects
For some reason, photos with people really pop out with this camera. I believe it’s because it softens out silhouettes and faces, which really helps with the crappy look of the cameras.
TrTried
Ultimately, I have really enjoyed using the Charmera, despite all of the issues I’ve faced with the formatting with the SD card. The camera works particularly well with street photography and those candid moments that come and ago, and I’ll continue using it for that purpose. Looking forward to exploring photography more and being mindful of the photos I take!
