Special Delight

Consider this:  The bus stop around the corner from my house is so close that, starting in the kitchen, the driver, in a walker vs. driver race to the bus stop, may win by only a length.

 

Consider also:  It is especially delightful to stroll to the bus stop and just stroll right onto the bus without having to wait for the bus to arrive.

 

With these considerations in mind, I suffered a certain sense of lost opportunity last week when, having to drive to work because of after-work errands, I drove by the bus stop just a moment ahead of the bus. 

 

Brad, Staff.

 

Leaving on time!

Yesterday, instead of staying late, I actually left work on time and was able to catch the 5:04pm (#16) to downtown.  I was able to make my next connection and got home at around 5:30pm.  Nice! 

Save the Pagwens

While in Seattle a couple of weekends ago, I grabbed some lunch and hopped on a bus, with the intention of making my way in a random direction to see if I could track down a 1960’s dress. My survey uncovered a lot of expected construction, a neat café with a tree house in front of it, and quite possible the most amazing “global warming awareness” poster that I have ever seem. The poster was hung amongst finger paintings in the window of a daycare. The poster, framed by a colorful border, read “Save the Pagwens…Dide you no that omost abot hafe of Antarctica melted.” It was moving enough to send me off the bus, in order to get a snap shot of it, which turned out well for me, because it also happened to be very close to a random vintage shop that had just what I was looking for.

Tara, Student

A New View of Tacoma on the '16'

Wow, I got so busy telling everyone else about my bus adventures that I totally spaced posting in the blog.  Here's the latest update:

After living close to 6th avenue for a year and a half, I moved this semester to a house on the Alder side of campus. Although I soon noticed the bus stop near my new house was for the "16" bus and it went downtown, I assumed it was inferior to my standard "1" bus and continued to walk to 6th Ave so as to avoid change.  I finally decided to look at other options when my 7 minute bike commute turned into a 30 minute house to downtown commute that always resulted in me being 20 minutes early for work.  The "16" has solved all of that.  Not only is the bus stop right out my door, it also leaves at a better time, is less crowded and, to my great surprise, showed me a great new side of Tacoma.  Don't get me wrong, I love 6th Ave, having walked a failing bike up it's hills more than once I have become acquainted with all of its glory. That being said, a little change is good.  The '16' started out its journey downtown through some pretty narrow neighborhood streets.  Since driving my little Saturn through these same streets still scares me, I was amazed that the bus was able to make it without incident.  Views of the sound and Mount Ranier were up next followed by some Tacoma classics- Stadium high school, Rankos pharmacy and Frisko Freeze. It was a lovely start to my day and while the route may not have been the most direct way downtown.the views were definitely worth it.

Liz, student

Missing the bus

Subject: Missing the Bus

So, after a lovely afternoon of rowing on Lake Union, a friend and me started back to the bus stop. Wanting to keep moving, we decided to keep going down the bus route, thinking we would be able to catch the bus further down. After about 10 minutes of walking, we were stuck waiting for traffic to subside, when we saw our bus driving past. We continued along our journey, eventually walking what seemed like the whole route of the bus we were trying to catch, wandering to from one end of Seattle to the other. All in all, not a bad hike.

Tara, Student