I really love that only 31% of people who work in downtown Seattle drive alone to work. Transit is still the largest category, and of course, there are plenty of jobs outside the urban core. None the less, the environmental impact of fewer cars, the health impact of fewer cars on the road, the congestion impact of fewer cars, the pedestrian safety impact of fewer cars is really great.
Still, there’s a lot more work to do. Public transit needs to better serve downtown, and the rest of the city and the region. There’s plenty of improvements to make walking and biking easier — even if you ignore my obviously correct idea of flattening some of the hills like they did in Belltown.
It has always been easy to commute via bus to the core. The problem is everywhere else. For ten years I commuted from NE Seattle to downtown Bellevue. I hated driving every day, but it was unavoidable. Even though it was a mere 13.5 miles door to door, even though I lived a couple of blocks from a major arterial, (15th NE), even though I worked right in downtown Bellevue, (116th and 8th) public transit made a 20-30 minute commute into a 90 minute commute. If I worked swing shift, it was a dicey as to whether I could catch the last bus to the northgate transit center. After that I had to go downtown and transfer in the tunnel, adding more time. Untenable for a single person, impossible for a single parent.
I still live in NE Seattle, but now work in Lynnwood. 10 miles door to door, 15 minutes by car. By bus, 45-60 minutes, and obscenely expensive.
We need rail. Everywhere. 24/7. There is no excuse for not being able to jump on a train at NTC and being at BTC or LTC in a few minutes and then catching a shuttle to the final destination, for less than the cost of a gallon of gas.
Seattle’s motto should be, “Do you drive a car?…If the answer is yes, then fuck off”
@1 Yeah, bus commuting is only feasible if you work downtown, and then only if you’re healthy enough to stand up the whole way. Some of us can’t get around by bike or walking because of age and/or medical conditions. Seattle’s latest attack on car drivers is the Bell Street ticket trap. The official policy is to drive cars out of downtown and it’s succeeding; I never go there anymore, except for bar association meetings a couple times a year. Soon it’ll be the whole city. I don’t shop or pay taxes in Seattle anymore; the ‘burbs get my business. I drive maybe 2 or 3 thousand miles a year, so it’s not rabbits like me who are wrecking the planet with car exhaust and all the side effects of petroleum production (my next car probably will be an electric, but I’ll still have a car). Seattle’s collective hatred of cars is getting ridiculous.
@3- war on cars? Really? You, of all people around here are going to trot out that tired, Dori Munson meme?
There is no war on cars. And if you can’t read the signs to figure out where to park, when, where to turn, go straight, etc. then one shouldn’t be driving.
Driving and parking downtown is no harder than driving and parking anywhere else, just more expensive, as it should be.
@1 You should have been stuck on 520 yesterday after the wreck that blocked the right-hand lane of the west-end flyover to southbound I-5. On average, driving between northeast Seattle and the Eastside may be faster, but it’s still about as much fun as stepping on a rusty nail.
But – my motorcycle only has one seat…
@1 not sure when you were commuting to Bellevue from Northgate, but there is a direct bus now if you have a 9-5 ish shift beats the heck out of trying to drive.
@3
Sorry Roger, I have zero sympathy. If you think Seattle is bad try San Francisco, Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, New York, or Boston.