How to Get to the Light Rail at SeaTac Airport (Video)

Back in November 2010, this video posted to YouTube of walking from SeaTac baggage claim to the light rail station. It’s since had more than 8,000 views (with no thumbs down — some kind of YouTube record). Sound Transit’s Central Link light rail, running almost 16 miles between downtown Seattle and SeaTac airport, is the cheapest and easiest way to make the trip. The full distance from SeaTac to Westlake Station takes just under 40 minutes, and costs $2.75.

Depending on time of day, the trains run every seven-and-a-half to 20 minutes. Monday through Saturday, the last train leaves SeaTac at 12:10 a.m. (first train, 5:04 a.m.). On Sundays [because Seattle is not a real city — ed.] the last train leaves at 11:05 p.m. (first train, 6:19 a.m.). Is it that smart to spend $2.57 billion on a transit service and not run it all hours?

One thing the video skips — it does point out the one-time ticket machines — is the placement of the yellow card readers for ORCA card holders. They’re not on the platform where you board the train, they’re down by the ticket machines and easy to walk right past without noticing.

But first you’ve got to find out where the train is.

Signs pointing you to the light rail station, which is connected via a covered walkway about 1,000 feet long, are too few, small, and infrequent once you exit the terminal itself. Like almost all airports, travelers are faced with a thicket of signs for every conceivable thing, so it’s difficult to call out one destination or mode. But certainly the Port of Seattle could do more to orient travelers at that crucial moment they exit the doors of the terminal and begin turning in circles.

1,000 feet is a significant investment for a footsore passenger (note that if you are at the farthest baggage claim the full trek is almost a half-mile). Plus, there are enough bends in the passageway to keep you wondering what’s at the end of it, so you’d really want to see something continuous that confirms you’ve taken the right path, like perhaps a stenciled light rail train running down the floor in front of you. We won’t even suggest the prospect of a smart sign indicating when the next train leaves, stationed at the beginning of the walkway.

Sound Transit’s light rail home page offers travelers no walking map , nor even a link to the Port of Seattle’s map.  Puget Sound transit agencies often seem to engage in a sort of counterintelligence when it comes to things like this.

[UPDATE: ST’s Bruce Gray points out the Sound Transit home page does have an airport-light rail map, which makes the absence of a link from the light rail home page particularly strange — if you search Google for “seatac light rail” after all, that is where you end up, not Sound Transit’s home page. To get to the map from there, you need to click on a “Rider’s Guide” that covers all of Sound Transit, read through 10 options, and then choose Popular Destinations, then choose SeaTac Airport.]

What’s interesting about the video above, as traffic for it continues to grow, is that seems terribly easy for Sound Transit and the Port of Seattle to have produced their own version, and yet they have not.