On the pedestrian bridge to the University of Washington Station.
On the pedestrian bridge to the University of Washington Station. Ethan Linck

I live in Ravenna, without a car, some 2.5 miles north of the building at University of Washington where I work. I spend most of my time in North Seattle. There are structural reasons for this. From the front door of my apartment, visiting friends in the Central District is either a hilly seven-mile bike ride that's heavy with car traffic, or one of the various possible combinations of multiple buses and walking. When my legs are feeling spry, the weather is nice, or I am in no particular hurry, the trip is easy. But on days when rain and wind are lashing the city, or time is tight, these slight obstacles often conspire to keep me home. And while home is pleasant, much of what makes Seattle the city it is lies south of the canal.

Which is why I am so enthusiastic about the arrival of light rail to the University District, and its eventual extension to regions further north. It may still be crowded, and I’ll still have to schlep over to Husky Stadium. But in its directness, its predictable schedule, the rail line will dramatically reduce the inconvenience of heading south. And, I would think, bridge some of the psychological distance between the two halves of our city: the distance between a more placid, homogenous Seattle of single-family bungalows, leafy neighborhoods, and college kids, and a more heterogenous, urban Seattle, with high-rises and the industrial Duwamish.

At any rate, my trip to the Central District (or the Seattle Art Museum, Pioneer Square, the International District) will certainly be shorter. In turn, the university’s public offerings will be less isolated from the part of Seattle where most of its population actually lives. (According to the 2013 census, North Seattle is 272K, while south of the canal is 380K.)

For the city’s civic and cultural health, this can only be a good thing.

Note:
I'm a graduate student in the UW Department of Biology and also have a blog, Beyond the Ranges, that, among other things, concerns phylogeography.

This image of skinned and stuffed birds is on the blog Beyond the Ranges.
This image of skinned and stuffed birds is on the blog Beyond the Ranges. Ethan Linck