Jim Horn, the ornery chair of the Eastside Transportation Association and former state senator, just hates Prop 1’s expansion of light rail:
“It costs too much. It does too little. It is too late. And there is a better solution,” Horn said. […] “We can have people carpooling for virtually one-tenth of the cost and we can carry 50 percent more riders than the light rail does,” he said.
Yeah… carpooling. (Or, as long as we’re proposing creative solutions, perhaps we could just follow the lead set by the grandfather of fellow transit-hater Kemper Freeman Jr., and just lock up the Eastside’s large Asian population in internment camps. That’ll clear a lot of cars off the roads.)
And how does Horn propose we achieve this epic increase in carpooling?
The key to increasing carpool numbers across the region is in aggressive advertising, Horn said.
Aggressive advertising. Now that’s a transportation solution I’m guessing Horn expects our struggling local media to get behind.
How to solve traffic congestion, let the private sector have a shot at it.
You know that bridge collapse in minnesota? They contracted private businesses to build it.
No cost over runs. Nothing like the democrat’s favorite project the big dig.
Finished months ahead of schedule.
Interesting tidbit…
Unlike the government that never listens. Of course, the government collects their paychecks no matter how dissatisfied we are with them so there is no incentive to do the right thing.
1 Uhhh…I was under the impression that the design and construction of most public projects are contracted out. At least, when one gets going there seem to be plenty of company logos on the trucks and cranes. Nice that the contractors on this one turned out to be honest, competent and concerned. Maybe the bidding process wasn’t….er, “biased” by under-the-table lining of public officals’ pockets.
Of course, it would have been a whole lot nicer had the wherewithall been made available to fix or replace the old bridge before it fell down…or at least to keep track of its condition so people would have known it was dangerous.
Kind of like the authorities responding in advance to the many warnings of the imminence of this economic meltdown. Or about 9/11. Or a lot of other things.
Carpooling doesn’t work.
One of the biggest reasons is there just aren’t very many people who live close together and work close together and have the same work schedules and never need to work overtime or travel out of the office.
In fact, as far as I could tell when I was working and looking for a carpool, there aren’t any.
@1 Marvin, all bridges in this country are built by private contractors, and always have been. The Minnesota bridge that collapsed was built by a private contractor.
What Horn says about light rail is true. It costs too much, does too little, will take years to build, and there’s a better solution — expanded bus service.
But carpooling? Is he joking?
Horn’s a day late and a dollar short. We’re already doing that.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/TDM/CTR
A lot of big employers have CTR programs and all the state agencies, colleges, prisons Etc. Have them.
Well, that about summarizes every transit-related debate in the area.
@1
Admit it…you have to practice to be that dumb, right?
hundreds if not 1000+ buses and dozens of park and ride can be built, moving 100’s of times more people AND having an effect on actual congestion for less than the cost of light rail.
It simply does not move enough people, to enough destinations with any economic efficiency.
Car pools organizing, a open enrollment platform to connect users of mutual benefit can play a role but it’s role is nominal. The fact still remains that the bus is the correct solution.
8
I know what you mean. sometimes I wonder if Marvin is putting us on. I mean, can anyone really be that stupid? So lacking in self awareness? So impervious to reason? And then I remember Puddy Pud.
For anyone to look back on the past eight years and consider them to be anything less than a disaster for this country and the world is delusional. To think that the Republicans behave in a manner consistent with their stated values is delusional.
Marvin, I think your goats are out. Go close the gate.
9
And bus stops can be installed as needed. Normally they are two to five blocks apart in neighborhoods. How far apart will the light rail stations be?
I forget, which President authorized the internment of the Japanese?
1/8 Some people were born stupid. Marvin is truly a self-made man.
I forget, which president ignored the PDB about Alkida terrorists determined to attack the United States?
@14
Goldy didn’t mention Bush and the 08/06/01 Presidential Daily Briefing, but he did mention the Japanese internment.
My comment was indirectly related to the topic, yours wasn’t.
Stay on topic, dumbass.
Pig fucking Troll @15
You pig is calling you. Hump that bacon. Oink, oink.
I’ve tried to find a carpool from my neighborhood in Everett to my office in Bellevue. Need to leave by 6:00 a.m. at the latest, return time can be anywhere between 4:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., depending upon how the day goes.
Guess how many potential car pool buddys I found?
Why aren’t there Slug Lines in Seattle? Riders could pool up on the east side and ride into the downtown core pretty easily. Why isn’t this happening?
Explanation of slug lines is here:
http://www.slug-lines.com/
@16
On this blog, unlike many other more contentious blogs, we try to keep things civil. If you can’t abide by this, perhaps this isn’t the blog for you.
Cecil @ 9: name another metro region in North America (of the world, for that matter) where an all-bus mass transit system has proven effective, or is being implemented.
What you’re advocating for is permanent gridlock, with a backbone transit system that gets slower, less reliable, and less popular each year. Green, cheap to operate cars will make buses even more stuck in traffic, and will provide LESS incentive for ride sharing.
PS – carpooling and vanpools aren’t high capacity transit.
I’m confused. How is Kemper Freeman Jr. related to Gen. John L. DeWitt?
I’m not trying to social engineer people out of their cars Max. The goal is the most flexible and economically efficient means of moving people per tax dollar consumed. At least that’s the goal most of the public would agree upon.
Name a region that has committed to a 100% increase in park and rides and shuttle stops and a 100% increase in Bus trips. (could be done for a tiny fraction of rail). Most large municipalities are burdened with the same “get them out of their car’s” mentality and congestion is seen as a SOLUTION to getting them to do things, like buy ungodly expensive rail systems, rather than the problem itself.
Same here. Seattle and the state leg want more congestion because what they want isn’t the most flexible and efficient transit system, it’s to get people to drop their cars and move into urban areas by A. making them sit in traffic for hours. B. reducing parking and increasing it’s cost at their destinations. C. Taxing the gas and licensing to discourage ownership. D. Not investing in lane miles or cost effective and flexible otpions. All of this to help eliminate cars and force increased urban densities. Most of the system is designed to change where we live and how often we drive, not to make the existing system hold a greater capacity or become more flexible.
Point to any study that shows trains as proposed here reducing gridlock. There are NO indications even by the train folk that suggest that congestion can be alleviated by the plan. It’s not even a goal of the plan. The cost of gas will motivate bus use. Build the park and rides and shuttle parks to increase the number of neighborhoods conveniently served and bus ridership will skyrocket… at a fraction of the cost of rail. But oh no, people will still have their cars and drive them from time to time! FOR SHAME!
The problem with busses is that they are subject to the same problems as cars on surface streets. They have to stop at lights, their route can get clogged by accidents or stalled cars, general congestion can disrupt their schedules, and an inch or two of snow can bring the entire system to a grinding halt. As the number of buses on the roads increase, so do these problems. Eventually we reach full capacity of our road network, regardless of whether we are using buses, cars, or tricycles.
A light rail system, properly configured, can avoid those problems. In times of bad weather it will be the one transportation system which continues to work without a hitch. As long as it isn’t stuck to surface streets, it can avoid the usual traffic congestion problems. If it’s done right (like they do it in Japan), you can set your watch by it.
So if you want to reduce congestion over the next five to ten years, and aren’t worried about anything beyond that, feel free to expand the bus service. But if you want to lay the groundwork for the next half-century of transportation in the area, then a rail system is essential.
Carpools & vanpools are like trying to take a bus which comes ONCE per day.
But since dinosaur Jim Horn and other Prop 1 opponents never take transit, they haven’t figured that out.
Busses would indeed do the job, if as a rule they could travel their own rights-of-way and get people there faster than driving. In the same way, light rail is questionable if the route goes on surface arterials without a means of providing signal precedence to the trains at every intersection. Absent that, you end up with something like the SLUT which along most of its route is barely faster than walking.
It remains that eventually, the cost of commuting by individual vehicles will become prohibitively high, although getting to that point we’ll probably see the stubborn and desperate mortgaging their grandchildrens’ livelihoods to buy and operate cars so “efficient” that they’ll essentially be powered road luges that you strap to your butt. After all that nonsense is over with, there’ll be plenty of unused freeways for running any kind of public transit, whether it be buses, rail cars or horse-drawn wagons.
Another liberal thinking about animal sex.
Seems like a growing trend on horsesass.
I wonder if steve and ekim found this blog looking for pictures of horeses asses and then stuck around.
What say you steve and ekim.
Not sure about seattle…
Down here traffic is caused by-
1. stupid people failing at multi-tasking
2. Old people fearful of traffic
3. big rigs in multiple lanes
4. people not understanding slower traffic to the right
Be nice.
Steve has a friend now to talk about animal sex with.
With the banning of bibigoober, steve wanted to fill that void.
How about advertising on buildings, I wonder if that would reduce traffic.
Of course some would call it vandalism, but it’s pro obama vandalism so it won’t be a big problem. Just like the son of a democrat hacked palins email and well, the liberal media doesn’t care since the hacker didn’t find anything incriminating that could be used against palin.
Back to advertising and traffic…
Of course it wasn’t democrats that did it. They just happened to draw the likeness of obama. Go figure.
I wonder if the pictures scared drivers into driving slower.
27 “Marvin” appears to be making some kind of reference to Los Angeles, apparently unaware that they’ve been building rail transit like hell bent for election.
Then again, unlike the person he pretends to be, “Marvin” may well have never been there.
I think Goldy is a living example of the best solution to our region’s traffic congestion. Live close to where you work. Or in Goldy’s case, live WHERE you work. If more people followed his example, or at least lived within a few miles of work, we wouldn’t need to spend billions on a transit fix.
@7 “Well, that about summarizes every transit-related debate in the area.”
No, it doesn’t, and that’s my whole point.
@19 “On this blog, unlike many other more contentious blogs, we try to keep things civil. If you can’t abide by this, perhaps this isn’t the blog for you.”
You and Jim Horn should get together as a comedy duo.
@23 “The problem with busses is that they are subject to the same problems as cars on surface streets. They have to stop at lights, their route can get clogged by accidents or stalled cars, general congestion can disrupt their schedules, and an inch or two of snow can bring the entire system to a grinding halt. … A light rail system, properly configured, can avoid those problems.”
Yeah — with light rail your only problems are stoplights, accidents, stalled cars, congestion, and rain and snow on your way to and from the nearest light rail station, which may be a couple of miles away.
Another problem with light rail …
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/.....index.html
Idiot light rail operators who text on the job.
No, they couldn’t hit a freight train here, but they could hit a stalled bus or truck on the tracks, or another broken down light rail train that they didn’t see up ahead, because they were texting.
@22
The biggest problem with the “more buses” mantra is in many parts of the region there simply isn’t any more road capacity to handle more buses, the streets are maxed out. Take a look at 2nd, 3rd, or 4th ave downtown at rush hour, tell me where those thousands of buses would go. How about I-5 between Seattle and Everett? 520?
Past the road capacity issue there is the problem of operating and maintenance costs. Lots of buses means lots of drivers, lots of mechanics, lots of diesel, etc. Buses cost more per passenger mile to operate and maintain than rail. Buses also have a much shorter useful life than a rail vehicle, something like 15 years for a bus and 40 years for a LRV.
You say we haven’t been adding enough lane miles, well if you think rail is expensive just try pricing adding 2 lanes to 1 mile of any road. 1 mile of rail through the same area will always be cheaper.
I’ve heard the pro-pavement crowd say we should widen I-5 through Seattle. How exactly and who is going to pay for it? Do you have any idea of what the cost would be? We won’t even mention that any attempt to do so would be tied up in lawsuits for at least the next 20-30 years.
1 bus. 60 Riders. 60 Fewer cars.
30 buses 1800 fewer cars.
Since it’s the cost of gas that will move people to the bus, the reduction in cars on the road will add no incentive to additional driving so there won’t be demand to eat up the new reduced congestion supply of road space. The cost of gas will move thousands to buses in the most efficient means of moving them from places immediately accessible from their homes. Very short drives of a couple of miles to a shuttle or P&R. Where as trains will have very few access points and limited total capacity.
If buses remove the cars that would have been on 3rd and 4th, you get more room for…. Buses. Same goes for I-5 and 520.
Also do some research to see that a lot of the train customers shifted from buses netting no new ridership to transit, hence the muted bene to congestion. Just a shift in their uses of transit. Trains won’t reach anywhere near enough of the communities needed to make them viable as congestion relief. People will still need to get on major highways to get to train stations because that system is far too narrow in its reach.
Notice how Cecil refused to answer my basic question.
No other city in the developed world has succeeded with an all-bus system.
Works well in Hoquium, though.
As for the rest of Cecil’s uninteligible rambling: we get it. You like theory. Here’s a suggestion – untested whacko theories don’t build viable, tested transit technologies. But they make for some quality entertainment. I heart kooks like Troll & Cecil!!!
Troll @ 31: people have been repeating your idiotic “work where you live – under a bridge” line for 30 years. Concept is turning out just great, no?
And Cecil @ 37 – thanks for proving what I expected from the start: you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
Hint: buses aren’t taxi cabs, and public transit isn’t a 1:1 replacement for your car
But after reading your stunted views on transportation, I am all for you staying within the lonely confines of your private automobile.
Roger Rabbit @ 34: you are never shy about showing off your ignorance, but light rail doesn’t stop for red lights.
Similarly, the other limitations you attributed to rail are actually problems inherent with buses.
Question: are you totally clueless? Or are you lying on purpose?
Either way, it doesn’t look real good.
You’re an adult, not a Rossi Troll. Act like one.
Is Jim Horn still alive?
I’m voting for Prop. 1 just so I don’t need to listen to the goons that emerge on either side of the light rail issue every time it is on the ballot.
Horn has made a career out of this. It is time for him to retire and turn the ball over to the younger misguided cast he’s been training with Kemper Freeman’s money.
I think Kemper actually thought he was growing a new GOP majority with his investment. Thankfully, it has backfired big time. Which ought to say something about the judgement of the people who live to kill light rail.