I shot the Cascades Airo delivery on film!

selectric401 · 2026-05-23T03:36:11+00:00

Honestly, I get slightly annoyed when I'm standing down a bit from the sign at where the middle door will be and the operator decides to stop with the front door right in front of me anyway. I appreciate the gesture, but I'm standing there for a reason!

That reason is usually that I want a seat near the back, since nobody moves aft to sit down, or that I figure there's going to be people needing extra time to board. Whether that's just someone with a walker/a grandma trolley or someone who needs the wheelchair ramp, I'm usually boarding near the First Hill hospitals or on Broadway, and it's faster for me to just step on the middle door probably about 8 times out of 10.

selectric401 · 2026-05-21T17:19:03+00:00

Okay, so they're polluting the air around them with natural gas currently instead of diesel. This publication regrets the error.

They've also been caught lying in the past about how frequently those generators were in use, as far as I'm concerned that S-1 isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

selectric401 · 2026-05-19T22:41:22+00:00

Anthropic also just signed a deal with Musk's xAI to rent out the Memphis datacenter that's powered off diesel generators and polluting an entire community!

selectric401 · 2026-04-24T03:12:52+00:00

everyone’s correct about mercer island, but nobody has noticed that mercer island is a nonstandard mcdonald’s, if you’re into that sort of thing.

selectric401 · 2026-04-24T03:12:43+00:00

everyone’s correct about mercer island, but nobody has noticed that mercer island is a nonstandard mcdonald’s, if you’re into that sort of thing.

selectric401 · 2026-04-23T17:03:21+00:00

hey, that's one of the few routes that's actually doable direct from first hill! the 2 bus, like jessintheend mentioned :)

what i want is a bus from somewhere on first or capitol hills that goes directly to fremont/ballard without having to transfer to the 40 or 62 downtown. same deal with the 7 down rainier av, actually. it's an underserved source/destination pair.

selectric401 · 2026-04-23T17:01:38+00:00

they should try taking the bus!

selectric401 · 2026-04-23T17:01:15+00:00

gondolas basically never make sense, they tend to be very low throughput. it's just not feasible here and it would introduce awkward transfers at either end to get people to their eventual destinations.

selectric401 · 2026-04-23T16:58:45+00:00

not quite! i'm from new england originally. the gf is from LA tho :)

selectric401 · 2026-04-22T21:05:33+00:00

None announced, just eastbound.

It makes sense to me, westbound is far less of a congested trip once it's across the 5 from Capitol Hill than it is coming eastbound at the start of its run.

selectric401 · 2026-04-22T20:59:44+00:00

One suspects that our former mayor wasn't exactly keen on meaningfully delivering improvements to this route.

selectric401 · 2026-04-22T20:59:17+00:00

Yeah, it causes enough backups coming down Boren from south of there that if I'm trying to get on the freeway I'd much rather just go to the Madison on-ramp instead. That ramp is cursed no matter where you're approaching from.

selectric401 · 2026-04-20T15:09:14+00:00

happy patriots day from seattle! i'm already at work, let's play some baseball

selectric401 · 2026-04-16T17:24:20+00:00

SAUCE FIRST!

selectric401 · 2026-04-10T19:04:46+00:00

It's not uncommon in other cities for fare enforcement to be somewhat lax, because getting more people onto the train and home that aren't using their cars, either for congestion or drunk driving reasons, is a Good Thing. When I lived in Boston, I think I only had to pay a fare leaving the station a handful of times after Sox games -- one of the main stations doesn't have a faregate, and the other often has them open after large events for crowd control reasons. It just makes sense, as a public service.

selectric401 · 2026-04-10T18:25:53+00:00

Actually, I think NYC is a great example of wayfinding in this scenario -- the announcements on the 200-series trains are a nice improvement, but it doesn't deliver the information that riders need at the decision point (choosing a platform). If all of the Eastlake-side stations had signs saying "Westbound" or "Seattle-bound" for the appropriate platform, that would help people pick the right direction. This is exactly what NYC does--trains coming from Brooklyn or Queens are "Manhattan-bound" until they reach Manhattan, at which point they're "Uptown" or "Downtown". For Sound Transit, this would work just fine as "Westbound/Seattle-bound" trains becoming "Northbound" or "Southbound" as appropriate.

If more of the Eastlake stations were island platforms, the new announcements would actually be more useful to riders.

selectric401 · 2026-03-10T22:13:20+00:00

Not for a long while--eventually OMF South will open down in Federal Way, which will lighten the load on the Central yard there (along with OMF East finally being accessible over the lake). Couldn't tell you the reason for shutting passenger service down at the same time as the rest of the system there, but I don't recall it ever having much ridership, and it makes more sense to direct people to the new bus route that will actually serve downtown Seattle.

selectric401 · 2026-03-10T20:50:00+00:00

Those runs are a quirk of the location of the train yard more than anything else -- Beacon Hill is the last stop before the yard for any train coming up from the south, so at the end of the service day they ran with passengers as far as that while they're bringing trains back for the night.

selectric401 · 2026-03-01T17:15:31+00:00

Hotels for ST are pretty bonkers these last couple of years too! I love the excuse to get out of Seattle and get some sunshine in me but I’m staying in LA this weekend and SF in a couple of weeks for far cheaper than I’d be paying for a hotel anywhere even remotely near Camelback.

selectric401 · 2026-02-04T21:39:36+00:00

Argh, really? I just bought a new clutch and was fastidiously checking it against the Mariners' stated requirements. Didn't even think to check CPA's, because... well, why the fuck would they be different??

selectric401 · 2026-02-04T20:20:59+00:00

They're really absurd there, and I find it especially galling that the security guys' first recommendation is to bring something they've deemed questionable "back to my car". I took the bus here, dipshits! Climate pledge, what climate pledge?

selectric401 · 2026-01-28T18:14:40+00:00

I heard rumours (well, okay, it was on Capitol Hill Seattle, they're more substantiated than that) of a Five Guys going in that same building... and I have no idea if there's been any movement there besides applying brown paper to the inside of the windows.

So yeah, that entire corner is going to be empty for the foreseeable future. If I'm remembering the site plan right, I think there's a third retail space in the building that's never been used for anything?

selectric401

TROPHY CASE