Blog du Wren

The Long Way Home

A rusted out truck along Tommy Thompson trail seen at the very beginning of my 5 bus public transportation adventure

I've been on a bit of a carless kick recently. I'm essentially experimenting with what life would be like for me without a personal car. I consider it a goal to aspire to for environmental, consumeristic, financial, and simplicity reasons. But for now, I am just investigating.

This weekend, I undertook the ambitious goal of going from Anacortes to Seattle on all public transportation. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem as I have done the same thing on weekdays a number of times. (If you ever need to figure out a carfree way to go from Anacortes to Seattle, talk to me. I know them all.) But since the commuter buses I used to rely on for my north to south jaunt don't run on the weekends, I was forced to seek out a new route. And a new route I found, although it is not what you would call convenient. For those fellow public transportation geeks out there, here's what I did:

Island Transit 411W March Point to Mt. Vernon (free)
Island Transit 411C Mt. Vernon to Stanwood (free)
Community Transit 240 Stanwood to Smokey Point ($1.25)
Community Transit 201 Smokey Point to Lynnwood Park and Ride(free with transfer)
Sound Transit 511 Lynnwood Park and Ride to Seattle ($1.00 with CT transfer)

Total travel time was about 4 hours, plus 20 minute or so to bike out to the March Point park and ride. Total cost was $2.25. I'm glad I did it to prove it is possible, but my final conclusion is that it might be worth the extra $10.00 to take the greyound therefore saving 2.5 hours. Either way, I'm counting it a success for my experiments in carlessness!

Monday January 29 2007

File under: transportation

Toggle Comments (4)

comment?

on Mon 29th Jan, 2007 07:05 pm UTC Saxtor said:
This is a very cool post. I'm sure I've mentioned before, I'm hesitant to fly far-off for my forthcoming paid vacation and a thought I've had is to take public transit as far/much as possible and return.
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on Tue 30th Jan, 2007 12:22 am UTC Bus Chick said:
This sounds like a cool adventure. I am a fan of the San Juan Islands (who isn't?), and I've been meaning to get my behind to the ferry dock in Anacortes for some time. I'm ashamed to say I never have. What buses do you usually take?
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on Mon 12th Feb, 2007 02:30 am UTC amanda said:
train? craig's list car pooling? was budget a part of the an investigative endeavor as well? by the way, the train takes a beautiful scenic route, highly recommend it (but good luck catching a bus to Anacortes, sadly, the schedules don't coincide)
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on Mon 12th Feb, 2007 02:31 am UTC amanda said:
oh, and there are a few feral cats that live in and around that busted down truck on the tommy thompson trail, i would have been much more impressed if you caught them in the photo too. try tuna, works like a charm!
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