It’s almost funny, really, but if it weren’t for his organization’s attack on the scientific method, I wouldn’t make such a big deal out of it. More faith-based transpo-logic from the Discovery Institute:
Some transportation experts say I-90’s middle lanes could be converted to “hot lanes” or “zip lanes” for single-occupancy drivers willing to pay tolls, as well as toll-exempt buses. This could provide an interim approach to light rail and provide a better picture of transit demand, plus help pay for transit improvements on both trans-lake corridors, said Bruce Agnew, director of the Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center for Regional Development, a Seattle think tank.
If only I could get some rich dorkwads and corporations to back me with cash, then I could get my loopy ideas quoted in the newspaper. If only!
I think we need to start referring to the Cascadia Center and its parent Discovery Institute as “belief tanks” instead of “think tanks.”
Better yet, Will, why don’t you go out and make a few Million $$$, then you could take advantage of the Zip Lanes. Or do you think the only way you’ll ever be able to make it on “your own” is if someone hands you a wad of dough? Do you have so little faith in yourself that you don’t believe that you too can take full advantage of the American dream?
What’s the point of money if it doesn’t get you into places that are otherwise closed to you? Where is it written that the approach Agnew suggests is heresy? Sounds like a melding of the best congestion pricing ideas. Nothing like an infusion of private $$$ to take some of the load of the taxpayer.
If paying a toll saved you an hour a day, wouldn’t you consider it?
The Piper
Yes, allowing single occupancy vehicles to pay to use the carpool lane is a well established first step toward light rail. ;)
After reading the linked P-I article, sounds like light rail is getting dropped from everyone’s agenda…except that of the non-influential HA Happy Hooligans.
The Piper
@ 4
?
Dude, this isn’t Crosscut, where they pay you to turd-out nonsense. Did you really read the article? You do know that they’re talking about light rail… on 520, right? They’re more or less dropping light rail from that bridge. Did you not read the quote where the Bellevue Mayor marries up to rail on I-90? Guess not.
@5…Will…
See…that’s a difference between you and me; why give it away when you can sell it?
The P-I article has everyone dropping light rail from 520 like a hot potato. That Mayor Grant Degginger of Bellevue still hopes for it on I-90 is, at present, more wishful thinking than anything.
Typical of the rigidity of left-wing statist thinking is to demand the biggest government “solution” to a problem that has yet to be fully defined. You have no actual experience data to suggest that light rail is the answer to what ails humanity, yet you continue to insist that it must lead the way.
Why? What if it’s not what the people want? What if they can be served by HOV lanes, buses, and more roads? And be happy about it? Why MUST there be light rail? And at a cost that even some die-hard HA Happy Hooligans consider outlandish and a rip-off?
A lot of the thinking behind this is massive government (requireing massive tax increases) for its own sake; income re-distribution run amok.
That you have a deep hatred for the private sector is obvious as evidenced by your outright dismissal of Bruce Agnew’s suggestion to allow access to Zip Lanes to those willing to pay extra. I’ll bet you hate the idea of first class on an airplane too.
Light rail isn’t holy grail; quite worshipping it as if it were some sort of iron god.
The Piper
In @6 it should be “quit worshipping…” in the last sentence.
The Piper
Aren’t the dorkwads that contribute to HorsesAss enough for you? Your loopy ideas are usually stillborn to begin with.
@ 6
Scott, while I respect your opinion, I am heartened that the greater electorate agrees less with your opinion than mine. If the surveys post-Prop 1 teach us anything, it’s that folks were worried about cost, and they didn’t want lots of new roads.
Also, I’m not against “private sector”, it’s just that “ziplanes” are less efficient and move fewer people than rail or even buses. Plus, they are elitest as fuck (Lexus lanes!).
As for what the people want… I can’t see them wanting serious roads expansion at great expense to our wallets and environment. (And by people, I’m not talking about the ever-shrinking GOP caucus).
RIGGGHHHTT. So there’s no proof “rail” works to move people? Where do you “pave our way to hell” idiots come from? I mean what goof reality do you people live in. In what wingnut crazy-town made up faith based world do you think MORE pavement will solve the problem of suburban sprawl? It’s never worked in any city yet. But I’m SURE Seattle is different. We will be the first city in the world to pave our way out of bad traffic! RRRIIIIGGGHHHHTTT.
Maybe we can just “create” new land to build a new freeway through downtown…a MAGICAL new dimension created by Jesus or something. There is NO more free/open land to build roads in town, we HAVE TO have rail to increase movement.
Dude, name a city that’s implemented rail that DOESN’T work? New York? Philly? Chicago? DC? Portland? San Francisco? The ONLY places where it’s problematic (I think LA personally) is where it’s not implemented ENOUGH (not enough lines connecting dense areas).
Rail encourages density, which reduces sprawl. You want to encourage (free market, not forced government relocation) people to live closer to town in denser accessible areas. Why rail and not buses? Builders of big complexes and towers are MORE likely to commit years of resources and 10s of millions to these developments along RAIL rather than bus lines historically. Why? Maybe it’s just psychological, the “permanent” feel to rail, versus a bus route that can be moved by just pulling up a sign post.
@ 9
I’m talking Microsoft money, bitch. I’m talking that right-wing think-tank money, bitch. I want dollar dollar bills ya’ll, raining from the mofo-ing sky, bitch.
This blog don’t pay nothin’. Sheeyit.
Your loopy ideas are already being broadcast through the KIRO radio corporation. That’s plenty of exposure. Quite your bitching!
Guy who didn’t read the byline @ 12
Huh?
Spiro Agnew, too, would rather die than say a nice word about lite rail.
Me too, and I’m working on it. So tell Scared Rabbit that it’s safe to come out now.
Funny thing is Roger Rabbit is a voice of sanity on light rail.
Once you open the center lanes for “toll traffic”, you will NEVER get it back for use by light rail. The eastside high-rollers will consider it to be their personal highway, and fight any attempt to get it converted back to general public use.
They actually like the tolls, not because it pays the bills (it only pays a small fraction), but becausse it helps seperate them from the lower classes with which they don’t have to “rub
shouldersfenders” anymore. But that won’t prevent them from claiming that the token tolls they would pay meant “they paid for it”, so they will have the right to use it exclusivly into perpetuity.And, of course, once you get a new source of income into a public entitity, it is virtually impossible to make any changes which will eliminate that source of income. That’s why it would be impossible to eliminate the lottery in this state – by linking it to the education fund, the backers guaranteed the lottery’s existence into the indefinate future.
If anyone hasn’t already guessed, I HATE toll roads. I’ve seen them in operation in Japan, and I don’t want us heading down that slippery slope.
In contrast, public transit in Japan is very good – JL lines, Monorail, etc.
Zip lanes STINK! They have to merge to get off so they either stall all the traffic in the regular lanes (read: poor peoples lanes) or wait themselves and are useless.
How many times are the express lanes flowing freely when the exits are clogged and the regular lanes are clogged?
almost never – they don’t WORK!
The busses are then stuck in the same place as the cars. Rail doesn’t get stuck in traffic – simple fact. It works almost everywhere else (civilized society) such as Europe and the rest of the US.
Light rail isn’t a bad idea per se. The devil is in the details. Before laying down your money, you should look at topography and engineering difficulties, cost per mail, demography and potential ridership, the financing scheme, etc.
Zip lanes remind me of those special roads in Moscow reserved for the party elite in their black Zils. If an ordinary citizen drives on them he’s thrown in Lubyanka Prison! Someone should check around to see if Discovery Institute is buying large quantities of concrete and steel bars.
How many rail proponents have taken the time to consider whether folks who move to suburbs do so to escape density? That the last thing they want to do is live in cracker-box condos or tiny houses where you can reach out your kitchen window into your neighbor’s kitchen?
What a lot of you call sprawl, others call breathing space and area. Density isn’t necessarily family-friendly nor conducive to the interests many people have; try growing a sizable veggie garden in a third-floor condo or on a postage-stamp-sized lot on Queen Anne Hill.
What does density do for someone who owns a horse? Or other animals?
The rush toward density is scary. What if people don’t want to go? What will density proponents do then? Club the unwilling into submission?
The Piper
Bruce Agnew’s views on these things seem to drift with the conventional wisdom wind. His organization chases headlines of the day, generally not long term solutions.
They seem to read a lot of newspapers, chat with special interest developers, get paid a few bucks by them, and then promote or steal other people’s work. There’s little original being promoted by Cascadia/Discovery, on the topic of transportation.
There’s nothing really wrong with that unless you really want to do something about a problem. However, Agnew’s organization thrives on chit chat, not action. The big mystery is why anyone takes them seriously. The Seattle Times and the Puget Sound Business Journal have been oh-so-lazy on all of this and appear to have been duped.
After all these years of self promotion, what has Discovery/Cascadia accomplished on transportation? What did Gates get for roughly $10 million?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made a big mistake and unwittingly provided a credibility boost to Discovery and Cascadia – which both actively promoted the Gates grant to raise more funds from all kinds of people.
The Discovery Institute’s waste of Bill Gates Sr.’s grant for transportation (diverting enormous resources into an anti science PR campaign) is a seriously under reported shame on an otherwise OK foundation.
It is not too late for the BMGF to atone.
@19…RR…
Problem with you, Rabbit, is that you’ve been sheltered too long from the real world. You worked for government your whole career without getting out and taking a risk.
Check out this video by Drew Carey for the Reason Foundation showing the benefits of privately funded, toll-financed freeways where you have to pay to play.
http://reason.tv/video/show/6.html
Those who use them benefit, and those who don’t also benefit. It’s a win-win-win-win!
You think too much inside the box, and you have no vision.
The Piper
Since the problem is not the capacity of the highway, but the ability to exit the highway…how the f**k does this work? All it does is get those willing to pay, from one end of the bridge to the other faster than their serfs stuck in traffic.
Seattle should just tax the hell out of parking if you don’t live in the city.
How about a comment or two from Busdrivermike about what he thinks about “zip” lanes. Betcha he isn’t too keen on having to try to slow down with an aisle full of standees when some self-possessed jerkoff cuts in front of him hits his brakes.
“You think too much inside the box, and you have no vision.” You mean like the vision of Dick Cheney to create toll roads then sell them to Chinese investors?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....03085.html
@22 I learned risk-aversion in Vietnam. The reason I’m still here is because I kept my fucking head down! That’s also why I survived in the bureaucracy for 30 years and prospered in the stock market. Damn right I don’t like risk. I also understand damn well Republicans understand risk extremely well, and their blueprint for success consists in large measure of making sure they get the profits and other people get the risks.
@22 P.S., don’t bother linking me to videos, because I have a POTS internet connection and don’t even attempt to download videos.
@27…RR…
As my oldest son would then say, “Rabbit…sucks to be you!”
You can get broadband internet for $33/month, which would then allow you to enter the latter half of the 16th Century.
The video was Drew Carey showing how effective privately funded highways are in Southern California – how they save people time, money, aggravation, and how they also provide a general public benefit at zero public cost.
Time to quit looking only to the gub’mint to solve your problems. Think outside the box and be open to private sector alternatives.
The Piper
Yeah, just how effective are those privately funded highways in SoCal?
The San Joaquin Hills toll road, located in Orange County, California, opened to traffic in July of 1996. Actual toll revenue growth, while high in absolute terms, has been below levels projected with increasing divergence from the 1997 forecast. SJHTCA management has been very proactive in addressing sub-par performance, and has increased tolls seven times in the last 10 fiscal years — more frequently and higher than those planned in the 1997 refinancing. SJHTCA faces daunting increases in debt service of 32% between fiscal years 2005 and 2008, and 33% between fiscal years 2008 and 2012. In Fitch’s view, the agreement’s requirement that SJHTCA meet a revenue target that is lower than the 1997 plan of finance is likely to provide SJHTCA with future economic ratemaking flexibility, as toll revenue for fiscal 2005 is already in excess of this forecast. As a result, SJHTCA may be able to delay or reduce the significant toll increases that otherwise would be needed through 2012 and would likely test management’s ability to maximize revenue. The peak cash toll rate per mile after the implementation of the 2004 toll increase is nearly 27 cents, among the highest for Fitch rated toll roads in the U.S.
(click on name for link)
PS @ 20: The problem with people moving into rural areas to escape density is that the population keeps growing, so they keep having to move further away. It reminds me of the legendary story of Daniel Boone – he was so upset when someone moved within five miles of him that he had to pick up and leave so he would have “elbow room”.
Other people who also want to avoid density will crowd in so the original inhabitants either (a) pick up and move further out again, or (b) try to prohibit immigration into their little enclave. You know the drill – legislation requiring lots no smaller than five acres, restrictions on allowing more than one family per lot/per household, etc. Then somebody a mile away starts clearing trees for their own development, and the ones that are there get upset because it spoils their million-dollar view of the mountains.
So everyone keeps spreading out, and then come the traffic accidents on overburdened rural roads, calls for better 911 response times, the Sheriff’s deputies have to travel 20 miles to respond to a prowler report, and when is Qwest or Verizon or whoever going to lay high-speed internet lines out to my home?????
The problem is that lots of people want to move out to the fringe of the suburban/rural boundary, but then they want to shut the back door behind them. It seldom works that way.
“Better yet, Will, why don’t you go out and make a few Million $$$, then you could take advantage of the Zip Lanes. Or do you think the only way you’ll ever be able to make it on “your own” is if someone hands you a wad of dough?”
Piper Scott, stuck in the 80’s.
Spiritually and intellectually bankrupt people always rely on materialism to make themselves feel good. Or, to justify their pointless existance.
Actually, I thank the Lord for idiot Republicans. The Dems can screw up all they want, and still come across as brain surgeons…so we gotta keep The Piper around…and get him to make his party look as bad as possible, as often as possible.
“If paying a toll saved you an hour a day, wouldn’t you consider it?”
Goddamn, Piper is stupid though. I used the Washington Policy Center’s tolling calculator to figure a commute from the red areas of the region into Seattle would cost about 17 bucks per day. But, hey, when you’re as rich (inside your own head) as The Piper, what’s the diff between one buck and seventeen bucks?
“Funny thing is Roger Rabbit is a voice of sanity on light rail.”
Uh, no. Roger Rabbit is the voice of angry old white guys with little to live for. Roger likes his car, because it helps him avoid the embarrassment of public interaction. I’m not kidding.
“A lot of the thinking behind this is massive government (requireing massive tax increases) for its own sake; income re-distribution run amok.”
Right, Piper. Which is why the verrry conservative suburbs around Salt Lake recently voted to increase their taxes for a second time to speed up light rail extensions. In the ’05 Denver Phase 2 vote, it was actually the rich, conservative suburbs which put that multi-billion measure over the top. The “income-redistributing” Democrats were less enthusiastic. Check the data.
If The Piper, or Roger Rabbit the broken man pensioner spent an hour looking into the subject (God forbid) they would discover buses require a much larger subsidy than light rail, and cost a lot more over the long run.
I won’t hold my breath, though. Something tells me the band of racist Republican trolls, hapless stuck-in-the-80’s Republicans and paranoid Libertarians who hate rail ain’t gonna educate themselves anytime soon. These clowns consistently wear ignorance as a badge. I think it all started with the Jeff Foxworthy “proud redneck” movement. Or, George W Doorknob. Take yer pick.
What I would give for a couple thoughtful and/or smart conservatives to re-emerge from hiding….
The Piper is good entertainment, though. I wonder why his daddy beat him so much growing up?
“Time to quit looking only to the gub’mint to solve your problems. Think outside the box and be open to private sector alternatives.”
Right, Piper Scott. That explains why Agnew and the Discovery Institute just got done with a five year lobbying effort to get the County to spend over a billion dollars on “private” foot ferries which will carry virtually nobody.
Also explains why Agnew and Discovery were partially responsible for the great monorail debacle, pushing that concept under the guise that a for-profit non-guvmt entity would run the thing. With no hated subsidies.
When Piper “Risky Business” promotes his airhead “free market” ideas for transportation, all you have to do is remember one word: Halliburton.
These morons pretend they’re supporting “market-based” solutions, but in reality it’s always about two things:
1)selling off public assets to large corporations (many of them foreign, btw…especially when it comes to toll roads)
2) delivering our tax dollars to Republican Party donors through any means possible.
They tried that scam with the Tacoma Narrows originally, but luckily the Dems intervened. Senate Republicans came pretty close to basically handing our public power system over to Enron in the 90’s, as well. But they came up short.
Now, Piper and his hapless band of washed up Reaganites are attempting to apply their successful “free market” Enron model to transportation. Nothing like pie-in-the-sky right wing ideology to form the basis of public policy decisions.
If we’re lucky, Piper’s string of privatization losses will continue…just so long as we taxpayers don’t get stuck with the bill first.
“The ONLY places where it’s problematic (I think LA personally) is where it’s not implemented ENOUGH (not enough lines connecting dense areas).”
that could be the problem of the light rail here in Seattle, too.
4 stations in North Seattle up to Northgate?
Not enough.
One station in between downtown and Husky stadium? Just one station for Capitol hill?
Not enough