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To Go to Meeting from the Station

To celebrate the October 2 opening of the University District Light Rail station, and in appreciate of a minute some time ago embracing all the changes coming with the opening of the Light Rail as part of the fight against #Climate catastrophe, RantWoman offers the following transportation related commentary  

RantWoman invites readers to use their own dang search engines to find info about all the opening day festivities at the different stations. RantWoman thinks it would have been AWESOME for Friends to consider some kind of opening day event; RantWoman will not comment about reception of this and many other suggestions.

RantWoman is due to host a blind people Zoom meetup and is unclear whether that will be compatible with in-person appearance. As a public service though for anyone who might be curious about Quakers and want to come to UFM on the train RantWoman offers the following very  imperfectly blind-person friendly commentary:

RantWoman's suggested pedestrian routing from the University Station to UFM.:

--Turn R on NE 43rd as you exit the station. RantWoman is unsure of blind person landmarks around the station. RantWoman walked through the area recently and RantWoman respectfully hopes many elements of pedestrian mess will be cleaned up by opening day.

Walk W on NE 43rd to Roosevelt which is one-way going South. Do not try to cross Roosevelt here, Instead turn L and walk S on Roosevelt to NE 42nd St. There is an accessible pedestrian signal and newish curb cuts well delineated with tactile elements including yellow domes. Cross Roosevelt at the light . RantWoman prefers crossing on the N side of 42nd.  (Thought question: why? Hint: NE 42nd sort of dead-ends at Roosevelt so if the walk signal is on to cross Roosevelt, there may be cars turning L onto Roosevelt.) For extra pedestrian fun, there is a bike lane on the W side of Roosevelt.

Once you cross Roosevelt, continue S. There is a building with a courtyard set back from the street. Then there is a parking garage driveway. Then more building and finally a one-car length parking lot facing the rest of NE 42nd St. (Yes, NE 42nd has a discontinuity. RantWoman had nothing to do with naming the streets and encourages readers just to savor this moment of Seattle esoterica.

There is a traffic signal at NE 42nd but it is not an APS. There are yellow domes along the rounded corner but the corner is not well delineated in relation to the street. Sometimes there are cars turning R with the traffic signal but most of the traffic is southbound.

Once you are across 42nd, you have two choices. 

Turn R. Walk along the S side of NE 42nd St to 9th Ave NE. There will be one parking garage exit on the left midblock. Turn L and walk S. Stay on the E side of 9th because it has better trees and better sidewalk. Stay there until you get to the end of the second building. There are driveway exits on the left out of both buildings. When you get past the buildings, you should find the same street crossing described below to cross 9th NE and enter the Meeting.

OR

Continue S on Roosevelt along a building with very new sidewalk. The sidewalk curves around the building. If you follow the building eventually there will be a few stairs to your left back up to the main sidewalk. Beyond staying to the Left, RantWoman cannot remember a good landmark to stay on the regular sidewalk. 

Past the stairs, there is shrubbery on the right. There is a semicircle concrete bench and the the SB sidewalk and a street crossing across 9th Ave NE. The street crossing has yellow domes on both sides. The sidewalk on the Meeting side of the street goes past a planted area nd then to the entryway to the Meeting house. If you start to notice a downslope there will be stairs up to the entry.

Google suggestion is to walk S on Brooklyn Ave NE to Campus Parkway. RantWoman does not remember precise street math but thinks this is about 2.5 blocks. Campus Parkway has a boulevard in the middle. If you find the boulevard, back track to the N side of the street.  RantWoman thinks there is a new accessible Ped signal at Brooklyn and campus parkway.  RantWoman has no current info about sidewalk quality but notes past concern. At campus Parkway turn R then follow campus Parkway a couple blocks and around a bend to a crossing of 9th Ave NE. 

There is one block on Campus Parkway where you should bear left in order not to walk up to a parking lot that will be no help as a safe route. As the curve starts there is a wall along the right and sometimes there are blackberries. That crossing has poor curb definition because of an old curb cut. RantWoman also does not like crossing 9th NE there because of her own vision and driver line of sight issues.  But readers who cross there need to walk uphill past a wall and past the stairs. RantWoman also does not like the other crossing option which is to walk along the E side of 9th NE until there is a street coming in from the Right and then cross 9th to the entry to the grounds.

Da Bus

RantWoman's best transit option, the Metro rt 48. will not change. Nor will RantWoman's preferred walking route from the bus, a route different from the one suggested by Google.

The Google suggested walk route is to ride the 48 bus to the 15th Ave NE and Campus Parkway stop which is N of the accessible pedestrian signal needed to cross 15th Ave NE. The signal cycle at that intersection is now what is called a Barnes dance, after the traffic engineer who pioneered it. One part of the cycle pedestrian signal are on in all directions. RantWoman thinks the other parts of the signal cycle handle each direction of the traffic on its own interval but will have to go check. Hopefully the new traffic signal timing has cut down on the count of car vs pedestrian collisions reflected as a large blob on a map of many collision count blobs around the U district. 

RantWoman still does not feel entirely safe eve n with the new signal cycle but at least the streets are orthogonal so one can either immediately walk N to the N side of campus parkway or walk a block or so W and then walk N to Campus Parkway and follow the directions as above. In fact, if RantWoman did not already dislike the street crossing at 15th Ave NE she would definitely walk a block or two West to find better curb cuts and accessible ped signals than the intersection of 15th Ave NE and Campus Parkway needed to cross Campus Parkway.

RantWoman's preferred pedestrian routing is to ride the bus to the last two at 15th Ave NE and NE 4nd, back track to the corner of 42nd and cross 15th NE. There is a low wall along the L (East) side of the sidewalk but RantWoman is not thinking offhand of a good landmark to line up with the crosswalk. Alas, there also are traffic signals but not APS both at 15th Ave NE and at NE 42nd and the Ave..

Travel on the N side of NE 42nd W to Roosevelt. The sidewalk between 12th and 11th NE is currently crumbly because of construction traffic, but the sidewalk is still on the whole better, smoother than on the S side of NE 42nd. There is a traffic signal that is not an APS at 11th NE. The street is one-way northbound. At Roosevelt, follow the directions as above just as if one were comin from the University Station.

Despite the tone of this post, RantWoman wants to hope that visitors will experience the best of what UFM has to offer as a worship space and faith community. RantWoman is also called to be faithful to her light about ways the community might stop embarrassing itself about MANY issues, but RantWoman is doing the best she can to be worshipful and not insufferable about that point.