I applauded rails-to-trails, but now with car overuse, I'd like it if those rail lines were still there and started back up with low-speed passenger rail service. We have a big r2t multiuse paved trail that predates my coming here, so decades, yeah in the dry months it's an excellent bike route for commuters. But most don't ride in the wet months. Buses get caught in the vehicle traffic.

Our progressive city and county has built an ever-expanding light-rail line that is more central than the old freight rail line that skirted the edge of the highlands to avoid steep grades, and a lot of people are using it to be car-free, especially avoiding expense and frantic search for available parking downtown.

I bike everywhere, saves on parking and good for me, and the city buses give me motion sickness bad with the constant stop-and-go. Even with the light rail, those are mostly N/S in the city so you need a bike for E/W connections, though I've yet to use the rails. Going out of the city is a new E/W line so the reverse, need bike for N/S connections. Things are slowly getting better. There's a bike route E/W (the new light rail parallels it and the freeway) from Seattle to the east side of the Cascade mountains pass (not a steady path, takes a few rides to see the small path markers where the path goes to a road or sidewalk and back), I've ridden it 20 miles east, OK on a dry day, but a real slog for over two hours in the pouring rain which was not forecast, especially with 2 flats which I thankfully found truck loading docks with roofs to fix in the dry. Some sections were pure walking uphill until I put lower gears on the bike. One area for a couple miles, just the narrow edge shoulder on blacktop and in the rain at night, the faded road edge line disappears, fortunately by that time I'd gotten a really powerful headlight to light things up. But other than that, getting better all the time for us bikers.