The C is for Crank
Light Rail is Becoming More Like the 7. And That's a Good Thing.
As I've mentioned (lamented?) frequently, the path of least resistance from my house to my office downtown is Metro's 7 bus---the most dangerous bus route in the city. In the past few weeks alone, I've seen: A guy light up a joint in the back seat; two adults give shots from a bottle of vodka to a 14-year-old kid they'd just met; another dude banging his fists violently against the back of a seat while drinking a 40 and screaming incoherently; and a guy who got kicked off for harassing other passengers. Last year, a man attacked
a developmentally disabled passenger while getting off the 7 and knocked him out in the street; just yesterday, a brawl that started on the 7 ended up in four arrests and put one victim in the hospital.
[pullquote]If light rail is just a shiny commuter bus-on-rails for yuppies, it'll never work.[/pullquote]
For my own part: For the first time in my 10 years in Seattle, I got seriously harassed on the 7 just a few weeks ago. A guy, about 45, kept following me from seat to seat, leaning up against me, reading my book, pawing my leg and generally being a drunken ass. This being Seattle, everyone averted their eyes while I yelled, "Back off, I don't want to talk!" and pushed him away from me. Eventually, I managed to shove past him and tell the driver, "There's a guy back there who probably needs to be asked to leave the bus."
I was seriously skeeved out by the whole situation, which I'm only relaying partially here---but it is an inevitable side effect of urbanization. The street harasser is, in a way, an indicator species for cities.
My alternative to the 7, generally, is to walk to the Columbia City light rail station, a brisk 10-minute jaunt from my house. Generally, yuppie conventional wisdom is that rail is typically "cleaner" and "less dangerous" than the bus---hence the hordes of white car owners who flocked to light rail in the first year after it opened.
Thing is, though, rail is becoming more and more like the 7. The last few times I've ridden, I've encountered cracked-out women flailing across the seats, homeless guys with pit bulls, graffiti on the walls ("Skool Suks"), a dude with a boombox turned up loud, and smells I associate with, well, the 7. And that's a good thing.
[pullquote]Thing is, though, rail is becoming more and more like the 7. The last few times I've ridden, I've encountered cracked-out women flailing across the seats, graffiti on the walls ("Skool Suks"), and smells I associate with, well, the 7. And that's a good thing.[/pullquote]
Why? Because if light rail is just a shiny commuter bus-on-rails for yuppies, it'll never work. And the presence of all sorts of people---tourists traveling downtown from SeaTac, teenagers heading to school at Franklin, me, going to work or to the gym, and, yes, drunk and high and out-of-it riders and folks who haven't paid their fare---is a sign that light rail is finally becoming an actual transit system.
When rail first opened, in June 2009, Josh said he'd believe it was a real transit line when he saw kids streaming out of trains into the Westlake transit station. For me, it became a real transit line when its population---and problems---started to look more like the population and problems of the rest of the city.
[pullquote]If light rail is just a shiny commuter bus-on-rails for yuppies, it'll never work.[/pullquote]
For my own part: For the first time in my 10 years in Seattle, I got seriously harassed on the 7 just a few weeks ago. A guy, about 45, kept following me from seat to seat, leaning up against me, reading my book, pawing my leg and generally being a drunken ass. This being Seattle, everyone averted their eyes while I yelled, "Back off, I don't want to talk!" and pushed him away from me. Eventually, I managed to shove past him and tell the driver, "There's a guy back there who probably needs to be asked to leave the bus."
I was seriously skeeved out by the whole situation, which I'm only relaying partially here---but it is an inevitable side effect of urbanization. The street harasser is, in a way, an indicator species for cities.
My alternative to the 7, generally, is to walk to the Columbia City light rail station, a brisk 10-minute jaunt from my house. Generally, yuppie conventional wisdom is that rail is typically "cleaner" and "less dangerous" than the bus---hence the hordes of white car owners who flocked to light rail in the first year after it opened.
Thing is, though, rail is becoming more and more like the 7. The last few times I've ridden, I've encountered cracked-out women flailing across the seats, homeless guys with pit bulls, graffiti on the walls ("Skool Suks"), a dude with a boombox turned up loud, and smells I associate with, well, the 7. And that's a good thing.
[pullquote]Thing is, though, rail is becoming more and more like the 7. The last few times I've ridden, I've encountered cracked-out women flailing across the seats, graffiti on the walls ("Skool Suks"), and smells I associate with, well, the 7. And that's a good thing.[/pullquote]
Why? Because if light rail is just a shiny commuter bus-on-rails for yuppies, it'll never work. And the presence of all sorts of people---tourists traveling downtown from SeaTac, teenagers heading to school at Franklin, me, going to work or to the gym, and, yes, drunk and high and out-of-it riders and folks who haven't paid their fare---is a sign that light rail is finally becoming an actual transit system.
When rail first opened, in June 2009, Josh said he'd believe it was a real transit line when he saw kids streaming out of trains into the Westlake transit station. For me, it became a real transit line when its population---and problems---started to look more like the population and problems of the rest of the city.
