Apparently someone got their car stuck on the light rail tracks at Mt. Baker. For those unfamiliar this is 35 feet up in the air
Fun fact! this is likely due to racism. Not the drivers, to be clear, but this is a not-entirely-unsurprising result of systemic racism in the greater Seattle area and the influence it has on infrastructure spending.
I'm a huge proponent of public transit, rail in specific, and I'm very glad that the greater Seattle area is finally starting to see some solid light rail infrastructure sprouting up in the form of the 1 and 2 lines, but that in no way stops me from critiquing the decisions made in planning and implementation.
Light Rail, in it's colloquial form here in the US, is basically always a compromise solution. It's cheaper than subways, can make good use of existing right-of-way around freeways, and can function as a kind of low-capacity commuter rail in the subways while behaving more like a tram or streetcar in downtown areas. It is crucially, however, not a streetcar, nor is it a commuter rail. Streetcars make frequent stops and are optimized for dense areas with lots of traffic. Commuter rails are larger and stop lest frequently, optimized for bringing suburban residents into city centers. Commuter rail should, however, be independent of street traffic so it can travel at higher speeds. For this reason, most of the Link light rail system in seattle is actually not at-grade (street level), but on either elevated or sub-grade track. Downtown, the lightrail actually functions as a low-capacity low-frequency subway system in what used to be the bus tunnel (we don't have time, but yes it was stupid). Everywhere else, it's up on elevated tracks that largely follow the freeway system.
There are three stations, all immediately south of that Mount Baker elevated station, where the Link actually runs at-grade. These stations run through the historic low income immigrant neighborhoods of southeast seattle. Here, the trains are forced to stop at red lights, interact with crossing and left-turning traffic, and even cross through terrifyingly narrow pedestrian islands. They could have built elevated track here, as they did everywhere else, but they didn't. they didn't want to spend the money. I have personally watched light rail cars carrying hundreds of people have to wait two full minutes for cars turning left in front of them, delaying trains so like, 5 people could drive there. Once it reaches the end of this low income immigrant-dominant neighborhood, however, the Link returns to it's above-grade status, with Mount Baker being the first elevated stop. You want to know how this woman, who claims she was misdirected by her GPS, probably ended up here? I would bet anything she tried to make a turn at the intersection just before the stop and got confused. The intersection, for reference, looks like this:
I'm not saying it's an easy mistake to make, but given the number of people who drive through here every day, it's honestly not that surprising that someone, especially someone who is from out of town, or someone who is used to shared streetcar lanes, would eventually make this mistake. When you're dealing with a city of hundreds of thousands of people, it's only a matter of time before a mistake like this happens. but it is only possible for it to happen because of the decisions made in the planning process, and one of those decisions was "we can save money if we make everything worse in that part of town where all the foreign poors live", and so they built the thing at-grade, instead of keeping it elevated like everywhere else.
and yes, those tracks are in the middle of a four lane road, and no, there is no way to get to any of the at-grade stations without crossing at least two lanes of traffic on a very busy avenue. and those tiny little pedestrian islands are not only terrifying to walk on, but a man in a wheelchair was clipped by a passing train car a while back because his chair didn't really fit through the tight turns well and one of his feet was sticking slightly out when the train passed by. This is not a problem at like, any other stops in the Link system. Just here. Just in this neighborhood. And it's a fucking disgrace.
not only was the section of the 1 line built at grade for the purpose of cutting costs, it was directly appealed by a citizens initiative. The Save Our Valley movement (SOV), after not being taken seriously by Sound Transit, sued for race based discrimination and an unfair distribution of public works funding resulting in discriminatory safety hazards, which were argued to be at odds with protections provided by the Civil Rights Act. And guess what. the claims were dismissed anyways. the court dismissed them on grounds that congress could ONLY regulate "intentional discrimination" per the civil rights act and was not authorized to regulate "discriminatory effects", that while the at-grade construction of the light rail line would likely have a disproportionate effect on the minority-dominant area of Rainier Valley, there wasn't any grounds that it was done with racial intent. which, given that the ONLY reason the claims were dismissed was that the discrimination argued couldnt be proven to be intentional, is, ironically, pretty clear evidence of intentional race based discrimination when Sound Transit went ahead with the at grade construction of the Rainier Valley section of Line 1 anyways
