However, it was and still is
without its problems. One of these problems is Mount Baker station.
I use Mount Baker station quite often, mostly when I've just missed the buses I usually take home from downtown. I then take the Light Rail to Mount Baker, where three buses, two of which run every fifteen minutes, will take me home.
Mount Baker station suffers from many problems. First, the station's main plaza, situated under the elevated platform, has a colossal amount of unused space. There is literally nothing there, it is just a long, elongated slab of concrete.
This makes connections to buses really tedious, especially connections that involve getting to and from the actual transit center next to it.
Another thing that makes connections so tedious is the fact that there is only one set of staircase and escalator per side of the platform. This would not be a problem if these sets were central, but they are on the far south side of the platform. There are two problems with this. First, it makes descending from the platform slow and inconvenient. Second, since the transit center is located to the northeast of the rail station, connections to the transit center are even slower.
Third, the crosswalk that has to be used to connect to and from the transit center is slow, since you are trying to cross Rainier Avenue, a very important corridor in South Seattle. This slows down connections even more.
If I were to propose a solution to this, I would create an elevated connection from the transit center directly to platform, and for connections to the southbound branch of the Light Rail, a connection either over the often or just to the bottom of the stairs.
Sound Transit could use this as an example of not how to design elevated stations in the future, like the one at Northgate, for example.
I use Mount Baker station quite often, mostly when I've just missed the buses I usually take home from downtown. I then take the Light Rail to Mount Baker, where three buses, two of which run every fifteen minutes, will take me home.
Mount Baker station suffers from many problems. First, the station's main plaza, situated under the elevated platform, has a colossal amount of unused space. There is literally nothing there, it is just a long, elongated slab of concrete.
This makes connections to buses really tedious, especially connections that involve getting to and from the actual transit center next to it.
Another thing that makes connections so tedious is the fact that there is only one set of staircase and escalator per side of the platform. This would not be a problem if these sets were central, but they are on the far south side of the platform. There are two problems with this. First, it makes descending from the platform slow and inconvenient. Second, since the transit center is located to the northeast of the rail station, connections to the transit center are even slower.
Third, the crosswalk that has to be used to connect to and from the transit center is slow, since you are trying to cross Rainier Avenue, a very important corridor in South Seattle. This slows down connections even more.
If I were to propose a solution to this, I would create an elevated connection from the transit center directly to platform, and for connections to the southbound branch of the Light Rail, a connection either over the often or just to the bottom of the stairs.
Sound Transit could use this as an example of not how to design elevated stations in the future, like the one at Northgate, for example.