Some of the very old time readers might remember that I live in the Seattle neighborhood of Greenwood, about 7 miles north of downtown. And a few of the merely old time readers might remember me being excited enough about Seattle light rail to post about it.

Well, plans are afoot to get light rail to north Seattle - yesterday the two gigantic borers near the University of Washington were christened and began digging south, hooking up to the northern most downtown stop. Five years from now light rail should reach to the UW. Great, but still 4 miles south of me.

Tonight I went to an open house for a light rail stop at Northgate, which is about 1.5 miles east of me. The place was packed - a good 150- 200 came. The route and placement of the station has been pretty much decided - tunnel most, popping up some, and an elevated stop next to the Metro transit center. Multiple plans for what the station would look like, and multiple plans for how the buses will interact with the light rail.

Comments from the crowd were mostly good, although it was weird to hear the "how come its not across the street?" versus "its gonna wreck my property values because its so close". Can't win.

For a good twenty blocks the rail line should run in a channel alongside the interstate, so there was a lot of concern about making sure neighborhoods to the west (namely me) could use it. Two road/sidewalk overpasses would be maintained - on 92nd and on 103rd. A couple of comments about community college students not being able to use it. What happened to college students these days? I thought nothing of walking many, many blocks. And this community college campus - like many college campuses - ain't tiny. 12 blocks walking shouldn't be anything.

Matter of fact, the open house was about 8 blocks from the transit center which would be where the light rail line would be. I walked home from the open house. Took me 45 minutes to walk home, no biggie. Ride itself would take about 13 minutes from downtown to the stop.

The real time lag though is that the light rail will come to us in 2020. I'm probably going to be a little less spry by that time.