Why people take ACCESS and taxis, and ....

RantWoman is unclear that the world will be thrilled to hear today's tale of transit-related woe and, RantWoman wishes there were some intrigue. The world is not thrilled.and they just get to visit; RantWoman lives this STUFF all the time. Some of this STUFF could of course be cured with taxi, paratransit or checking one's route every dang time before setting out, but this is RantWoman, and RantWoman willing to plunge into adventures other people do not even attempt.

RantWoman's travel needs: a trip to the Bonney Watson location on International Boulevard for a memorial well noted elsewhere. RantWoman looked up routing and the options basically were either Link +a line or Link + F line. Link Station options were either Tukwila or SeaTac.

Google maps has no concept of elevator and station construction issues.

RantWoman is on an email list full of so many Sound Transit elevator issue notifications that frankly RantWoman's head is close to exploding. That does not even mean RantWoman gets all the notifications read or that she remembers the ones she does read. For instance if RantWoman had remembered about both elevators at Pioneer Square being out of service or being serviced or some linguistic variant of not available, RantWoman would have just ridden the bus she was on another stop and hopped onto Link at University Street.

Once at Pioneer Square, RantWoman decided she had zero interest in flights of stairs but that she could hop one of many buses that go to the International District Station. RantWoman could hop a bus--once she found the bus stop which had been moved a block north of where RantWoman expected it. And bingo, another elevator all blocked so off RantWoman headed to the second elevator at IDS. At least there is a second elevator!

Thank you on-board announcement for the reminder that the SB elevator at Mt Baker station is also out of order. Good thing RantWoman will only need the NB elevator coming home.

Now where to get off?

RantWoman had no interest in the 4 flights of stairs from the pedestrian overpass to the street at SeaTac. RantWoman only figured out station construction at Tukwila when she arrived. .RantWoman noticed a sign for Via, Metro's experiment in short-haul trips to and from Light Rail stations, but by then RantWoman was too rattled to try to figure out Via.

For RantWoman's trouble, instead RantWoman got to deal with signage and temporary bus stops. RantWoman detected minimal signage without a map and there were NO signs between the station entrance and the temporary bus stops. RantWoman can read maps and signs if she is close enough to them. Temporary bus stops tend not to be advertised with signs tall enough to seen from any kind of distance and it would be a dice roll whether RantWoman would be able to see the signs anyway. But some to help along the way would be marvelous.

After a couple missed attempts, RantWoman got directions from a bus driver and found the A line. The driver nicely called the stop which was only a couple stops after RantWoman got on. There was still a by RantWoman standards modest walk to Bonney Watson. It was a nice sunny day, a little breezy and of course lots of traffic noise on International Boulevard. The sidewalk was in good condition, and there  was only one driveway to worry about before RantWoman got close enough to Bonney Watson to identify its turn in.

Bonney Watson staff let RantWoman follow rather than take an arm and guided RantWoman to the memorial. The memorial and reception went about as expected. RantWoman had figured she would just retrace her walking path, cross with the light and catch the bus back to Tukwila; RantWoman is extremely grateful that Bonney Watson staff offered her a ride back to the Tukwila station. RantWoman supposes some more Perfect Storm elements could be added to this saga, but will not mind if none show up.