Open Thread 30
This article is brought to you by Colman Park.
One Saturday this month I decided to visit Colman Park by only frequent transit (so not the 27 or 14). I'd been to Colman Park a few times before, taking the 27 to the end and and using the pedestrian underpass under Lake Washington Blvd to the park. I found the park extends quite a way and has several different parts. This time I decided to see if I could get there by frequent transit. I took the 8 to the I-90 trail, which has a cluster of parks around MLK. The bus stop was at South Massachusetts Street at the south end of that cluster. Immediately I had to walk up a very steep hill from 27th to 31st. 31st is where the 14 runs, and overlooks the park, and has a park entrance. The entrance had a big stairway down. I didn't want to go down those stairs and back up after I'd gone up a steep hill that I'd have to go back down again, so I settled with just looking down at the park. It was a sea of bare trees with whitish bark. (Birch trees?) And beyond that, beautiful Lake Washington and the Cascade foothills.
I turned around and visited a couple other parks I'd passed along the way: a P-Patch garden with Seattle Tilth signs, and a dog-walking park in a canyon (Blue Dog Park).. Then I went west on the I-90 trail. It was blocked off at Judkins Park Station (under construction), so I took a more northerly trail route. The previous time I'd been on the trail, it went along the eastern side of Beacon Hill and Daejon Park, a Korean park with a gazebo, and then on to the 12th Avenue bridge (Jose Rizal Bridge). I'd left the trail there and walked across the bridge to Jackson Street, but I'd seen a sign that the trail continued to SODO. I wanted to see that last part of the trail. But this time the trail didn't go to Beacon Hill at all. I was on another branch. So I decided to go to bus 7. The trail ended at a large arterial. Which arterial is this? It looks like maybe Rainier." And it was Rainier, just north of the I-90 freeway entrance. So i was conveniently at the 7, although the bus stop was a long block from the trail exit.
Does anyone have other thoughts about Colman Park, or the other parks in the Central District/North Rainier?
In other news:
Bothell's new downtown is pretty yimby. ($)
King County's highest- and lowest-income neighborhoods. ($)
The Washington-Oregon I-5 bridge gets a federal grant. ($)
Toronto needs a bus revolution. (RMTransit video) At 5:47 he compares Seattle's express and RapidRide bus networks.
This is an open thread.