I flew into San Jose this morning to attend the IDCDirections conference, so I was up at 4am to catch the 6:50am flight from Seattle. Had to drive and park at the airport, not my preferred method but I live too far to hire a car.

Not thinking too much about location, I had booked meetings with some top editors in downtown San Francisco starting at noon. I was worried that I would never make it through traffic and into downtown in time. Fortunately for me, the concierge at the Fairmont suggested that we take Cal Train. We had 4 min to catch the free shuttle to the station, which we just barely caught, and when we got to the train station, we were told the train was leaving in 2 min. We ran to catch it and jumped aboard. Flying through the city we arrived in downtown SF with 30 min to spare. Now that is what I call public transportation!

Now why again does Seattle have such an issue with public transportation? Granted I wouldn’t want to have to spend an hour commuting each day but I at least want the option. Seattle’s lightrail would be great if it actually went anywhere that was useful for commuting to work. Maybe by 2050 we will have our own version of Cal Train.