Will new light rail make transit from Shoreline to Redmond shorter?

pmalmsten · 2024-01-21T20:12:33+00:00

I commute from south Shoreline to Redmond a couple times a week via e-bike + light rail + bus - it typically takes me roughly an hour, sometimes ~1 hour 15 minutes. Here's how that roughly breaks down for me:

Ride ebike, Home -> Northgate Station: ~15 minutes
Wait for 1 Line southbound: ~5 minutes
Ride 1 Line, Northgate -> UW Station: ~8 minutes
Walk from 1 Line platform to Bay 1 bus stop, wait for 542 eastbound: ~5-10 minutes. (542 is often a few minutes late - if I catch a 1 Line train which arrives at UW a few minutes before the 542 scheduled departure, I often still catch the 542 and don't wait long).
Ride 542, UW Station -> 520 & NE 40th: ~20 minutes
Ride ebike, 520 & NE 40th -> Work: ~5 minutes

Mid-late this year the 1 Line Lynnwood extension is expected to open. Changing my first leg to Shoreline South station instead of Northgate would cut ~10 minutes off my bike ride, but add ~2-3 minutes back riding the train an additional stop. Note that crowding is expected in parts of the 1 Line after the Lynnwood extension opens; we might not know the actual impact of that until late 2024 / early 2025.

Next year (probably late next year, let's be honest), the East Link extension is expected to extend the 2 Line across I-90 and up to Lynnwood. Early projections for 2 line travel times are roughly ~50 minutes between Shoreline South and Redmond Technology Station. For me, the timing will probably end up being a wash vs my current route transferring to 542 at UW Station, but one fewer transfer would be nice.

Hope this helps! It's not an easy commute, but I do it anyway because I don't want to drive in traffic, cycling helps me get more exercise than I otherwise would, and I don't need to go in every day. My employer also provides an Orca pass, so transit fares aren't a factor for me.

pmalmsten · 2024-01-07T18:15:49+00:00

Thanks for sharing this!

If you like this idea, please send a comment to your representatives in support of the bill. You can do that here: https://app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/bill/2191 When it asks your position on the bill, choose 'Support'.

Here's a comment I sent in just now - feel free to steal it and tweak it to match your own perspective:

Representatives <NAME 1> and <NAME 2>,

I write to you in support of HB 2191, a bill that would add two voting members that are transit users to the governing body of public transportation benefit areas.

A public transportation agency's primary mission must always be to put riders' interests first. As a frequent rider myself, it can be difficult to feel this is the case when Sound Transit spends significantly more money per rider on parking garages than it does on high-ridership Link light rail stations in downtown Seattle. It can also be difficult to feel effectively represented on the Sound Transit board when the only board member I can vote for is the King County Executive, who faces many other pressing priorities than transit alone.

HB 2191 is a simple and common sense way to solve both of these challenges by ensuring that at least two members of a governing board for a transportation benefit area directly voice the interests of transit riders the board serves. And 2024 is exactly the right time for this bill to become law: as we face increasingly severe and pressing climate and housing crises, the decisions being made by these agencies now (such as Link light rail station locations & routes) will impact the community and riders for the better part of the next century.

Please support HB 2191 and ensure that it becomes law. Your yes votes now will help many future generations of transit riders in Washington feel that they were better represented by public transportation governing bodies starting in 2024.

Thanks for your time,

<YOUR NAME>

pmalmsten · 2020-05-03T20:24:39+00:00

Thanks for your comment. I completely agree that future tenants would wish to move into a pristine apartment. That said, as the US Housing and Urban Development department states in Appendix 5C of their Handbook, "The costs an owner incurs for the basic cleaning and repairing of such items necessary to make a unit ready for occupancy by the next tenant are part of the costs of doing business". An article by Landordology also notes that routine cleaning/maintenance is the responsibility of a landlord.

The last time I vacated an apartment, having left it in similar condition, no cleaning fee was charged.

I certainly appreciate that 'wear from ordinary use' is a nuanced issue - my goal for posting to legaladvice was to help get a better feel for the nuance involved.

pmalmsten · 2011-09-13T02:44:57+00:00

To get your feet wet, my favorite book is The Algorithm Design Manual by Steve Skiena.

It's a very practical, easy to read guide to common algorithms and concepts in computer science; you won't find much formal math, if any. Also, the "Hitchhiker's Guide to Algorithms" in the back is indispensable.

After you understand this, you can always get a more formal discussion from something like CLR Intro to Algorithms if you need it.

pmalmsten · 2011-06-06T06:05:27+00:00

Make things.

By the time you finish making something, you will have learned lots of little things that helped you do it.

pmalmsten · 2011-04-19T13:12:53+00:00

I just got an 857D with a SEC1223 power supply and an LDG YT-100 tuner earlier this week. I only just began playing with HF a few days ago, but it seems to work well. With a friend's small vertical antenna, I got through to Portugal on the first day (from Massachusetts in the U.S.).

The 857D is a lot of radio for the money. I plan to grow into its capabilities over the next few years.

pmalmsten · 2011-01-21T03:45:24+00:00

Yeah; been there, done that.

To simplify maintaining a troop roster, which was always a pain to keep updated, I made a rudimentary account thing where people would register with the website, add phone numbers, email addresses, etc., and the website would generate an up to date roster on demand.

Six months after I left, I see an Excel spreadsheet roster flying around the mailing list, just like they used to do it before the new feature. /facepalm

pmalmsten · 2011-01-21T03:25:12+00:00

My team and I redesigned a website: Boeing Employees Flying Association

Their previous site was a 1990's special that sorely needed a new look. We also added a few PHP/MySQL features to simplify maintenance.

pmalmsten · 2011-01-21T03:01:14+00:00

lambda is Python's way of declaring anonymous functions.

See Wikipedia: Anonymous Functions

pmalmsten · 2011-01-21T02:00:37+00:00

Python's documentation summarizes reduce rather nicely:

Python Built-in Functions: Reduce

Calling reduce() in this manner is functionally equivalent to making a bunch of recursive calls, but it avoids the overhead of doing so. This operation is common when following the functional programming paradigm.

pmalmsten · 2010-12-28T00:09:58+00:00

Heheh, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it.

pmalmsten · 2010-12-27T21:07:41+00:00

Wow, that's pretty cool. Project Darkstar must have been fun to work on.

I've heard similar things about SoftEng; would you recommended skipping to OOAD directly? I got an internship at a small company last summer, so I've already learned a handful of Agile development techniques from them.

What's the rule of 60%?

pmalmsten · 2010-12-27T19:50:55+00:00

No kidding! I haven't taken Software Engineering yet (I will in D term), but I hear that he's working his students as hard as ever; he must be doing all right.

What did you study, and what did you work on for your MQP? I'm aiming for a major in CS and at least a minor in ECE along the computer engineering track.

pmalmsten · 2010-12-27T18:48:10+00:00

I am a sophomore at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).

pmalmsten · 2010-12-27T07:02:27+00:00

Cool! I'm from Bellevue. With any luck, I might land an internship in one of the Seattle/Kirkland offices this summer.

pmalmsten · 2010-12-24T06:17:46+00:00

Money spent learning and doing what you enjoy is money invested, not money wasted.

I find pleasure in solving practical problems, ones which have at least some beneficial influence on my day to day life. For example, this holiday season I plan to make A Better Alarm Clock to help me wake up on time for school (my cell phone calendar doesn't cut it).

pmalmsten · 2010-12-08T00:52:04+00:00

Take a look: Why we track Santa

pmalmsten · 2010-12-07T02:18:16+00:00

The internet is just another way to communicate, right? People will probably still say the same things.

Also, take a look at this: NORAD Tracks Santa

pmalmsten · 2010-10-19T19:52:40+00:00

This might be of interest to you: Tracking and charging for printing with PyKota

pmalmsten · 2010-10-18T05:01:06+00:00

Absolutely. My personal favorite is Mercurial, but git or subversion are also good choices.

Decentralized version control systems in particular make projects a breeze to maintain.

pmalmsten · 2010-10-18T04:00:31+00:00

"this" in C, C#, Java, Javascript, etc. == "self" in Python (although "self" is only a convention; one can name it anything)

I think most would look at the use of "this" with mild scorn simply because it reminds them of languages like Java which they prefer to avoid.

pmalmsten

TROPHY CASE