History, politics, people of Oly WA

Public transporting: Ocean Shores to downtown Seattle

You’re in Ocean Shores on a Monday morning, its just after 8:30 in the morning and you’re going to Seattle.

The 50 Bus of Grays Harbor Transite picks you up at 8:35 a.m. and takes you into Aberdeen.

You get into Aberdeen about an hour later and then wait for the bus into Olympia, which leaves at about 11:00. The Aberdeen Library opens at about 10:30 on Monday, so you can get a quick visit there. Pick up a book or something.

You get into Olympia at 1:00 in the afternoon. You can drop off your book from the Aberdeen library at the Olympia Library and then catch the express to Tacoma at 1:30 at the Olympia transit center.

The Olympia Express gets into Tacoma at 10th and Commerce at 2:40 p.m. Quick turn around in the City of Destiny, so you get on a 2:45 bus into Seattle which drops you off at almost 4 p.m. on the north side of downtown Seattle.

Overall seven hours over three different transportation agencies. Eventually I’ll get down to calculating the cost of this trip.

This is my first time doing this sort of thing, so I think there were some kinks in the system. I’m pretty sure I could have saved some time

I’m somewhat curious about how the various schedules of local public transport agencies can work to get you from one place to another in Washington. Specifically I was inspired by the first chapter in Archie Binns’ The Roaring Land, and I’ll explain that later.


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1 Comment

  1. Mike Kretzler

    What an interesting idea (for someone with the time). My daughter used the bus to travel from Olympia to the UW in Seattle, and back, a couple of times a week a few years ago. It seemed to work, for the most part, but it sure took some time. I think the biggest problem was the timing of the switches from one system to the other.

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