Yesterday was the big day. Seattle’s light rail system finally opened to the public. Now I couldn’t be there to ride it and report on it, but many other people were, so there are tons of reports all over the web from the big opening day.

Seattle Transit Blog probably had the most persistent coverage. Several of their writers spent all day on the train, riding back and forth between downtown and Tukwila, checking out the people, the trains, and the stations. Their conclusion is that hopefully the train will bring Seattle’s neighborhoods together more than the bus or car ever could.

The Seattle P-I’s transportation blog also covered the opening day. They were at the big ceremony at the Mount Baker station, where the mayors of Seattle and Tukwila rode trains from the two ends of the line to meet in the middle. Ribbons were cut, and speeches were given, then everyone got to ride the train. They also reported that the trains were standing-room-only, as can be seen above, and that waits at the stations reached up to 30 minutes to get on board. The fact that the trains are free all day Saturday and Sunday probably helped that. All together 45,000 people rode the train yesterday.

The NW Progressive Blog has plenty of photos. There are also a ton of pictures on Flickr, and videos on YouTube.

I can’t wait to get up there and ride the train myself!

Update: a few more links.

Seattle By Rail is a new blog focused on the light rail, opening day, and all the stations along the route.

Seattle Transit Blog had their opening day post-mortem.

A Flickr set of photos from opening day, by Lee LeFever (who runs Seattle By Rail).

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