Over at Publicola, Erica C. Barnett takes the piss out of this King 5 report.
But first, KING offers viewers a lesson in transportation taxonomy. Specifically: Cars are “traffic”; transit is not.
“Here on Alaska, two traffic lanes have been taken away and turned into bus-only lanes,” reporter Natasha Ryan intones, gesturing—with no apparent irony—at the completely empty street behind her. (Screen shot above). “Residents say there already aren’t enough parking spots. … Now residents fear that once the RapidRide stops that are already in place here on Alaska actually start service it’s going to mean even less parking.”
Got that? Bus-only lanes “take away” lanes from the streets’ rightful users—single-occupant cars.
This is fine as far as it goes, but it got me thinking: it’s yet another TV report that assumes its viewers are drivers. I assume a majority of its viewers are drivers as a majority of the people in the region are drivers. But plenty of their viewers must take the bus, as the bus is regularly quite crowed.
A while ago, I wrote that I was always surprised when newspapers aren’t the biggest advocates of public transit. Since we’re getting to an era when TV news can be watched on the bus (but still not in the car, hopefully), I wonder if maybe the knee jerk anti-transit stuff will come to an end. But I won’t think it’ll come any time soon.
TV news doesn’t care so much about viewers, and newspapers don’t care much about readers, even those who might be subscribers. The bulk of their revenue comes from advertisers. What are some of the most frequent advertisers in both broadcast and print media? Companies that make cars and car-related accessories. There’s no such thing as a pedestrian industry, and bike sales are a small fraction of car sales. Unless viewers/readers threaten the revenue stream of news providers, the news media ignore them.
Off topic, but to choice to pass up.
Carl, you’re missing another (and in this case more significant) distinction.
I’m a driver–some of the time, but less and less over time. I take the bus to work and so does my wife part of the time. If we’re going downtown for the evening, we often take the bus (we’re three blocks from the #71) and when we travel we take transit to and from the railroad station or the airport. We’ll drive to run errands and do other things around town, and to get to our timeshare in Port Townsend.
However, KING wasn’t talking about me–or, for that matter, you. Take another look: “Residents say there already aren’t enough parking spots. … Now residents fear…the RapidRide…” They’re talking about the people who live nearby who consider Alaska to be their street.
Josh Feit gets OWNED!
when you act like a punk, you get treated like a punk.
love it.
@4
You’re smoking crack again. You should really cut that out.
@5
fail.
@4
Judging be the coverage I’m seeing courtesy of Google News and the comments people are leaving on those stories it looks like it was Michael Baumgartner that got own. His political career is pretty much done.
@7
Indeed.
I’m really at a loss why the nitwit @4,6 is trumpeting the whole thing, on this thread and the DL one, when it looks extremely bad for Baumgartner. What is with the flaky Republican Senate Candidates?
Stick a fork in this one.
Back on topic.
The default understanding of traffic lane in the US is as a general lane used by all. The King 5 story, while unenlightening and annoying, is correct.
Baumgartner wasnt going to win anyway – not against the hordes of cantwell’s progressive-bots.
but he surely did own Feit…perhaps you should get the details and figure out why……its rather entertaining.
@10, “he surely did own Feit” Yes, surely he did. Perhaps now Baumgartner will break 30% in the general.
Are you sure the stupid does not burn?
Back on topic, hey, if you need a parking spot for your car, buy a piece of land and build a garage. moochers! :-D
@11
Exactly. And more buses will mean that over time fewer people will need cars.
My main problem with RapidRide is that in some ways, they are just renaming the old route, with a better bus, and some off-board fare collection. I like Community Transit’s SWIFT Line a little better when it comes to Bus Rapid Transit, as the fares are collected entirely off the bus.
The RapidRide F-line is going to be the 140 Burien-Tukwilla-Renton route, with a slight extension proposed from the Renton Transit Center to the Boeing-Renton plant, aa there is talk of getting rid of one of the employee parking lots. There is talk of increasing production, and they need more shop-floor space(should not have sold off the other half of the plant, now they need it).
http://renton.patch.com/articl.....-fall-2013
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ing05.html
I think that a short extension of RapidRide F makes sense for that issue, although I would prefer that a light Diesel Multiple Unit with an FRA Waiver like what the Denton County Transit Authority in Texas is using could be used on the tracks between Tukwilla and Coulon Park in Renton, as pretty much the only freight on the track are the trains dropping off the fuselages.