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Friday, August 7, 2009

Transportation Being Drunk in Tukwila: Notes from a Transit-Oriented Pub Crawl

Posted by Bryan T. Bissell on Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 3:21 PM

"I know a lot of those people over there; the transit nerds, the virgins," said Will Kelley-Kamp, smirking. The blogger and longtime transit ally was describing the crowd who showed up to last night's Link light rail pub crawl.

31eb/1249682780-light_rail_mag.jpg And with scenes like this, he was at least half right. The crawl was organized on facebook by some of the folks from Transportation Choices Coalition, and although more than 90 people registered in the “yes” and “maybe” columns, only about 30 showed up. But hey, everybody loves to say they take public transit.

I missed the first leg of the crawl, which began at the Beacon Hill Pub. It wasn't until I had put back a couple of Boundary Bay IPAs and a fucking delicious piece of cheese covered focaccia bread at the Columbia City Ale House that the crawlers met up with me. They were slightly giddy from their stop at the Beacon Hill Pub and, quite frankly, the historic nature of the event. I mean, it was the first ever Seattle pub crawl that required light rail!

Down in Columbia City, the event coincided with the monthly meet-up for the Seattle Transit Blog (their candidate write-up is here). Politicians in attendance: Mike McGinn, Mike O'Brien, Dow Constantine staffer Chris Arkills, and Jessie Israel.

As expected, conversation at the bar was mostly centered around transit issues and politics, and there was even a train driver who showed up to talk about the Link and show off his user manual. But the transit and political nerdery slowly seeped away as people snuck off to Lottie's Lounge for tequila shots, and eventually descended into debauchery, hooliganism and piggyback bike riding for the dozen of us who continued on to the crawl's conclusion in Tukwila.

f648/1249683333-light_rail_gymnastics.jpg

And that is one of the great things about the new light rail: we went to a bar in Tukwila. I've never done that before. The place was called Trudy's and I drank $2.50 cans of Rainier, shook my ass on a carpeted dance floor, and had a ten minute conversation with a beautiful prostitute who was visiting from Las Vegas about how much she liked Seattle's trees and water and how much she hated Tukwila. The bar's DJs also raffled off free bbq sandwiches every ten minutes.

Unfortunately the night's planners were a little too optimistic about the rail service. They said the last train would leave Tukwila at 1:00 AM, which didn't make any sense, and as Will and I hustled back to the station at 12:45 we could see the final train speeding north toward its destination at Mount Baker station.

On the bright side it meant we got to go back and close down Trudy's, but on the dark side it meant a pricey cab ride back into the city. But now we know, and knowing's half the battle.

Comments (20) RSS

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Damn it, this was so my idea for Slog Happy......

Posted by boxofbirds on August 7, 2009 at 3:26 PM

I wish Sound Transit would tell people when the last train was! That would make a whole lot of sense.

Posted by Baconcat on August 7, 2009 at 3:55 PM

I love me some Rainier, but $2.50/can? In Tukwila? Even for a tallboy, you paid too much.

Posted by joykiller on August 7, 2009 at 4:27 PM

@2: I know. That would be great.

Posted by Greg on August 7, 2009 at 4:28 PM

@4: Maybe they forgot their iPhones and couldn't check that website? How else would they get that info? How insensitive of you to dismiss their first world problems.

Posted by Baconcat on August 7, 2009 at 4:44 PM

That's why some of us didn't stay to go to Tukwila...

Posted by Mickymse on August 7, 2009 at 4:49 PM

Departure times of the first and last trains are posted on the mezzanine at Tukwila station. Yes, it's in fine print; you kinda have to look for it. And maybe at the end of a night's pub-crawl, that's asking too much.

Posted by Citizen R on August 7, 2009 at 5:08 PM

Sorry I missed it. But I hear it was fun.

In fact, one of the SLOG people phoned me about it afterwards, and she seemed to have a good time.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on August 7, 2009 at 5:13 PM

It's a little frustrating that Link, which "runs until 1am", actually runs so much earlier if you are trying to get from either end of the line to the other. Basically, you have to assume your last train is at 12 if you want to be safe. Not so cool.

Posted by litlnemo

on August 7, 2009 at 5:13 PM

See, in Vancouver, the last train from downtown is at like 1:30, if you want to go to New West - which weeks out all the really drunk people who crash on their friends couches or the beach.

No, seriously.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on August 7, 2009 at 5:24 PM

That should cut into the 245 years it will take fares to pay back the $2.3 billion spent by about 0.49 seconds.

Posted by LINK 9000 on August 7, 2009 at 5:26 PM

Sally Bagshaw, Nick Licata and Jessie Israel endorsed for Seattle City Council

"Israel wants more of a police presence in the neighborhoods and has some intriguing plans to prevent youth violence. Between now and the general election Israel should flesh out proposals on how to help businesses and neighborhoods dealing with public drunkenness and aggressive panhandling."

Did you guys pester people for money?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/ed…

Posted by Mass Drunk on August 7, 2009 at 5:48 PM

Any pictures of the visitor from Vegas?

Posted by NumberOne on August 7, 2009 at 6:29 PM

@8: You're not Will Kelley-Camp? Cause he sounds kinda like you.

Posted by Lee on August 7, 2009 at 7:09 PM

I was a virgin transit nerd until I did Will Kelley-Camp's mom. And sister.

Posted by Lance on August 7, 2009 at 8:19 PM

Boundary Bay IPA? Cheese-covered focaccia? You are SO hard core. And so brave for going to a bar in... TUKWILA!!! OMG!!!! Nobody else there had tight jeans!!!!

Posted by Yo. on August 7, 2009 at 11:10 PM

Oh, and I forgot about your HARD CORE friends who hung UPSIDE DOWN on a train. Cuz you can't do that on a bus!!! EXTREME!!!!

Posted by Yo. on August 7, 2009 at 11:13 PM

This is one of the most frustrating aspects of link to me. That the last train on the weekends isn't a couple of hours later.

Posted by j-lon on August 7, 2009 at 11:32 PM

I'm jealous, that sounds like a rad night. Is it too much to hope for another one?

Posted by BombasticMO

on August 8, 2009 at 10:06 AM

Amazing, you took Link to the fourth-or-so category of mass transit use in under a month, and probably a good five years before Sound Transit predicted. I'd say Link's looking good. Good thing we have lots of transplants from transit-oriented cities around.

This also means that the gentrification process for MLK is well underway.

Posted by K on August 8, 2009 at 12:58 PM