A one-seat ride

RantWoman and RantMom went to the Symphony this weekend! RantMom scored tickets in connection with one of her volunteer gigs. The Symphony is firmly tied in both RantMom's and RantWoman's heads with the best parts of younger family life, including for instance RantWoman's musician father. The experience definitely lived up to all the wonderful background evoked.

Over time despite modest circumstances, RantWoman has gone to several different events at Benaroya and has yet to have a bad seat. In this case the performance was also exquisite. Alas, this post is about transit matters, not a concert review.

The question: bus or light rail? RantMom lives near Rainier, about halfway between the Columbia City stop and the MountBaker stop. Riding Link downtown really does not make sense as long as the faithful 7 rolls as frequently as it does. Coming home? Ummmmm.....

Going downtown, RantWoman and RantMom met at our connecting bus stop having both without conferring in advance dressed in the same colors, red and black, striking for the symphony but no darn good at all as far as visibility after dark. More on that in a moment.

Downtown, we joined a whole stream of concertgoers from our bus stop. We did not trip over some really steep drops in the aisles. We found our seats and RantWoman tentatively asked RantMom whether she wanted to try the Light Rail home. RantWoman does not know exactly how to connect to the bus tunnel entrance that is right under Benaroya Hall but thought it was eminently doable.

Also doable in RantWoman's head: the walk from the Columbia City station to Rainier to catch an inbound 7. RantWoman was thinking: avoid having to cross Rainier at an intersection she does not like near RantMom's in dark clothing. Not to mention avoid many of the more piquant elements of the number 7 bus on a Saturday night. RantWoman would not have minded being able to let RantMom off and continue toward her stop without fretting about RantMom alone on the bus at night.

Silly RantWoman. Among other points, RantWoman failed to reckon with the fact that the concert would end basically past RantMom's bedtime. RantMom may have expressed slight interest before the concert in the idea of riding the Light Rail home, but after the concert was completely another matter!

We listened attentively. We applauded madly. The hall lights came back up. Here it would have made sense to wait until the crowd cleared and then proceed out the Second Ave side of the hall, but RantMom sprang from her seat and all but sprinted toward the Third Avenue doors.

RantWoman thought mistakenly that there is an elevator from the street at the University Street tunnel entrance, but the door turned out to be some kind of utility access. RantMom does not do escalators, but she peered gamely down three flights of stairs and offered to walk them. No! BAD idea! It would take ALL night. By this time RantMom had all the patience and conversation skills of a very tired child and going down stairs is not one of RantWoman's favorite experiences no matter what and especially not if she is also trying to look out for RantMom. RantWoman demurred! Instead, back across the street. Keep it simple. Just get the bus!

Mercifully, there was only one reeking drunk. No one seemed to be suffering withdrawals from anything. Nor was anyone setting RantWoman's teeth on edge in Spanish. Still, RantWoman stayed on the bus to RantMom's stop, crossed the street with her, gave her a hug and stopped to wait for a bus back toward her place. RantMom promised to try out RantWoman's suggestion sometime during the day.

RantWoman also realized ruefully that if we want to go to the Symphony maybe it makes sense to recruit one of our groupies with a car, either that or figure out how to deal with taxi scrip and waiting half an hour for a cab to show up. But if RantMom is going to score free tickets maybe dealing with a cab is the least RantWoman can do.