All exit at the end of the line. (Photo/Doug Schwartz)

And on the fourth day, I paid. For a light rail ticket on Sound Transit’s shinny new Central Link line.

Trip details: Set off from Bauhaus, walked seven minutes to Westlake, waited 10 minutes for a train. The ride to Tukwila took 36 minutes, then 14 minutes for the return train to set out, then 37 minutes back to Westlake and another eight minutes back to Bauhaus. In all, 1:52 minutes, with a latte as my reward.

It was a sunny day and a pleasant ride. I’ll pass on a long list of observations, which would probably be on the boring side. Light rail to Tukwila is not, after all, a trip to the moon.

But a few things warrant quick mention. Maybe 45 people left Westlake just before noon. Maybe six people got on in Tukwila for the ride back, though it almost got crowded by the time the train entered the former bus tunnel. Excluding the bus tunnel, the actual underground portion was less than five minutes in duration. And once the train passed the Rainier Beach station, when it no longer had to contend with stop lights, the ride got pretty zippy. One couple was heading the airport, suitcases in tow. And one women stepped on the train at the Mount Baker station and asked someone if the train went to Kent. Answer: no, and the woman stepped off.

It seems clear that once the line is extended to the airport, which should happen in December, Link could be an actual transportation alternative for people who don’t live near one of the stations.

Seattlest shows us how to get to the airport via light rail from Capitol Hill:

Instead of mimicking Seattle’s big-time media outlet, which spent the new light rail’s first in-service day counting parking slots in Tukwila and heads on trains, we decided to give the new line a practical test. Our goal: to get from Capitol Hill to SeaTac (and back).

The route:

• The 10 bus to Westlake (4 min.),
• A light rail ride from Westlake Center to Tukwila (34 min.)
• A shuttle bus from the Tukwila station to the airport (9 min.)

Not bad. Of course, Seattlest left out our biggest travel downfall — packing (8 hours). Fortunately, there’s still brand new Neighborlogs Seattle network sponsor STITA Taxi when we’re late.

For more on taking light rail to the airport, see No airport express for light rail from earlier this year.

I’m pretty much a fan of light rail. But despite the good words and celebratory self-congrats offered by various electeds at Link’s Saturday opening – you’d have thought Patty Murray was angling for a knighthood or something – it’s worth remembering what Link Light Rail is not.

What happened to the Deluxe light rail station?
For one thing, it is not what it set out to be when voters approved funding to create Sound Transit in 1996. The agency’s travails in the early part of the decade are well known, and it deserves credit for getting its house in order. But originally, light rail was meant to open in 2006 and cost a billion or so dollars less. And it was supposed to include Capitol Hill.

Just before Westlake. (Photo/Doug Schwartz)

Early imaginings had a station at Broadway and East Roy Street, across from the Deluxe, as part of a mixed-use project that might have included the Capitol Hill library, as well as a Broadway station further south. And a First Hill station was to be part of the mix as well, a natural choice given the dense population and the large numbers of people who work at the neighborhood’s numerous medical facilities. The north Broadway station was abandoned early on, a fairly defensible decision given its proximity to the Broadway station now under construction. But not building a First Hill station will be a significant loss.

Slow lane to rapid-transit
It’s important to remember how late Seattle was getting to the rapid-transit party. Consider the years 1863, 1896 and 1986. In 1863, London opened the world’s first subway line, using steam-powered trains, building six stations that are still in use today. Budapest was next in 1896. Closer to home, Portland opened its light-rail system in 1986.

Seattle voted down rapid transit in two Forward Thrust initiatives in 1968 and 1970. As a result, $900 million in federal funding – back when that was a lot of money – earmarked for the project went to Atlanta instead. (It’s light rail system started running in 1979.) Saying no 40 years ago, in hindsight, was a substantial missed opportunity. Creating a rapid transit system now costs far, far more than it would have 40 years ago. And wouldn’t it have been nice to have had a Broadway station in, say, 1976, rather than its anticipated 2016 opening?

Such a mindset was one of the compelling reasons to press ahead with light rail when Sound Transit’s problems nearly sank the project nine years ago.

Thus with light-rail’s opening last weekend, along with construction extending the line north, there’s a strong chance that someone blogging about Seattle’s rapid-transit system 40 years from now won’t be bemoaning the previous generation’s missed opportunities.