On my way home today I got stuck in some heinous post-Mariners traffic. To make matters worse, the closure of lanes on I-5 had put more buses on city streets. On city streets near the stadium, it was a parking lot full of Metro buses, Sound Transit buses, and maybe even a few Community Transit buses. The roads were clogged.
As it turns out, northbound bus traffic was directed from 1st Avenue South, 4th Avenue South, and 6th Avenue South all on to 4th Ave South north of Royal Brougham Street. I got home about 45 minutes late. The buses’ interior reach about 80 degrees or higher, and the toddler on the seat across from me crapped his diaper. (Although you never can tell on a Metro bus exactly who has shit their pants, the toddler was my best bet. Sometimes it’s the driver.)
I don’t know a single car owner who would give up their automobile for the kind of experience I had today. Even in Seattle, a city known for doing good for goodness’ sake, most folks won’t ride transit if they have other options. Which is why I’m amazed that serious people actually think that adding buses, and not light rail, is the best route to take.
Wouldn’t this be an equally good argument against building light rail? Toddlers can soil their diapers on mass transit just as sharply.
@ 1
You’ve nailed it, my newly-minted Democratic friend!
See, with rail, I would never had been stuck in rush hour game-day traffic. I’d be on and off in the time it took to go a single block on 6th Ave S.
Also, say some kid does drop a load in his shorts. I can change cars. Or, I could even wait for the next train! After all, they’d be no more than 10 minutes apart, if that!
I know lots of people who’d never ride a Metro bus, but would happily ride rail for some of these reasons.
like hte 70 minute ride in the morning on the #48, instead of a 25 min drive?
or the longer ride home stuck in traffic on … some other busses, instead of 25 or 35 mins?
busses will work if and only if the streets are dedicated to busses AND they are multi lane. duh?
how can I get my hair shirt cleaned if I spend 2+ hours a day commuting instead of 1 hour?
rmm.
Will,
Why weren’t you on your bike?
The adding buses recipe includes the dedicated pavement for them.
Light rail gets stuck in traffic too when it coexists on surface streets.
Yup. The Greatest Generation pretty much screwed the pooch back in the 60’s when they turned down mass transit in Seattle and other places. Instead they opted to “force” (dont’cha just love it when you can use winger terms?)their vision of suburban paradise on lower class city dwellers.
And they call Boomers selfish.
Train is great if you can walk to get on it and walk from the end of the ride to where ever you’re going. Otherwise you still need to take a bus, or have a car parked nearby, or a bike. Your total trip time may or may not be faster.
Will,
You need a ride on the Boston subways. ANYTHING in a Seattle bus pales when compared to the persistent vomit, urine graffitti, etc. Any shared transit systekm will have to deal with the reality of the US class system.
OR, you can live in 2200* and never see the poor, the sick, the filthy. Remember the story of Siddartha Guatama, the Buddha. Kept by his Dad in a harem unil a young adult, the Buddha was shocked into his long voyage when, outside the harem he me .. shock, shock .. the old, the sick, the filthy.
For those illiterate in Seattleania ..2200 is part of Vulcan SLU development. It is close to being a w3alled castle, a self contained living space with tis own “neighborhood” so the crew of this starship don’t need to mix with the hoi poloi. For this who do not know any Buddhism, SJ recommends the great novel “Siddartha” by Herman Hesse.
Will,
I’ve been riding the buses around here for over 4 years and I don’t have a single story of being on a bus with a kid who crapped his diaper. Are you sure you’re not scaring these kids somehow?
re 6: They have wheelchair holders on the trains. Each wheelchair occupant is issued a pair of safety glasses to obviate the blinding effect of bugs coming into contact with the eyes.
The safety glasses are only $5, and last for years. You must supply your own Mackinaw for inclement weather.
Charles Krauthammer was observed in Denver riding the rails with his wheelchair attached to a cattle guard, wearing a crown and waving a scepter, claiming to be a “proud imperialist!”
Strange man.
Headless:
Wonderful post. How appropriate for him to be associated with cattle.
I see in the fishwrapper that saving Puget Sound will cost “tens of billions of dollars.” http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ks16m.html
Of course, that should come from the people who messed it up in the first place. But I know better (and so do you). This, like everything else, will be foisted on the proletariat.
We’re told the 520 bridge will cost $4 billion in it, and the tax increases on this fall’s ballot provide only a downpayment on that project — which means if voters pass it the pols and bureaucrats will be back later for more.
We’re told the I-5 segment currently being repaired will eventually have to be replaced at a cost of $2 billion (in today’s dollars; more later). Think “more taxes.”
Even though we’ve apparently backed off the notion of donating half a billion dollars to the latest sports robber baron to blow into down (although some folks still think we should throw a couple hundred million at Key Arena), the transportation folks keep telling us there’s a $100 billion backlog of transportation projects in our region. And they apparently still believe fervently they can build them all, and get the money for them out of us, whether we’re willing or not.
I can understand why the government-haters are able to get traction by sowing taxaphobia in the populace. These numbers scare the hell out of me, too.
blow into town
Ain’t it great that we let Greg Nickels strangle the monorail baby in the bathtub so that “street-level” light rail could live and breath free? I am still seething at the lack of foresight or vision in the city. The monorail died at the very moment that global warming became an everyday issue.
Yeah, it’s a good thing “Mayor Gridlock” still gets “enviro cred” while proposing $5 billion tunnels and deep sixes bike lanes at the service of capital. It’s kind of like Jean Godden’s campaign glossy mailer having her stand among trees and kayaking while calling herself an environmentalist. Michael Dukakis in a tank wearing a helmet, anyone?
BTW, my brother and sister-in-law changed my niece’s diaper in about three minutes on the monorail (it was stuck in the station for almost 15 minutes and the baby was screaming) last Thursday. I would expect anyone else could do the same.
The D.C. subway is glorious, though, and it’d be great to have something like that here. Not likely because of the geology, probably, but it IS a great ride and very well thought-out.
I haven’t travelled many places but I did visit DC once and rode the subway there.
Yep, that’s the way to do it if you can do it.
Wow a first on Wipes. I agree with Cluelessman@15 on the DC Metro. I personally like the slug lane myself.
Buckywunder :
Mayor McNickels or I Don’t Give a Nickel was voted in by many member ASSWipers here on this blog. They have to hold their tongue when he deep sixes they plans for his pet projects.
I love it!
@ 4
My pops has it at the moment. He’s getting me a new seat, some safety lights, etc.
Lee @ 8
Your bus routes are less fun than mine.
Half-assed posts like this give me the suspicion that the real reason you don’t like Lou Guzzo is that he’s too much like you for comfort.
If you’re going to blame Metro for a baby crapping, why not blame the Mariners for the traffic snarl, or the DoT for messing up I-5? Evidently you’ve got a real hateon for Metro, like Dan Savage. (In fact, couldn’t we use your “logic” to blame Savage’s “The AIDS epidemic is ovah!” article a while back for all the new AIDS cases in town?)
I know this is taking the chance of inflaming the rampant narcissism you view the world through, but maybe you should consider the possibility that these things only happen when you’re around. Maybe you should get a car. If you can’t afford that you can blame Metro again, I’m sure that couldn’t possibly be your fault.
@17 As I remember it, no one ran against him in the last election … so I assume you either voted for Hizzoner too, or didn’t vote.
@18
Your bus routes are less fun than mine.
Well, I have had two separate incidents where someone thought they knew me from prison. Must be the goatee or something…
@19
Half-assed posts like this give me the suspicion that the real reason you don’t like Lou Guzzo is that he’s too much like you for comfort.
Who says we don’t like Lou Guzzo? We love that dude.
@20
Voted for Al Runte… as I did for city council primary.
Wooden Nickel won’t get my vote again for anything.
I don’t know a single car owner who would give up their automobile for the kind of experience I had today.
I gave up my automobile over 20 years ago so I could feed, house and clothe my family. It was either that or live in a car. I didn’t give up my car to ride buses to enjoy experiences like yours — I gave it up because I had no economic alternative.
Over the years my economic circumstances have gotten better. Now I can afford to ride a much nicer bus.
Speaking of phoney bus supporters, one of Kemper Freeman’s goons has a poop-soaked op-ed in the Times today, regurgitating the same old crap:
“There is a better solution to our region’s transportation problems than what ST2 offers. The combination of a freeway high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) network (which is approaching completion) and well-funded and coordinated local bus systems (including Bus Rapid Transit enhancements) can do far more to alleviate our congestion problems than light rail can, at one-tenth the cost. It makes sense to continue expanding the bus-transit system that has placed our region eighth in the nation in share of work trips served by public transit.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....tid16.html
Just like Will has pointed out in the past, none of these (temporary) Bus Rapid Transit activists have ever been on a bus.
Jim MacIsaac, PE. likes to tout his “40 years of experience” in transportation. What his bio fails to mention, however, is the fact he was kicked out of the very firm ( the TRANSPO Group, Inc) he founded and ran for 20 years! Gee, I wonder why he’s always fighting progress?
Add in the rest of the angry white guys he works with at Kemper Development Corporation http://www.eastsideta.com/docs......11.05.pdf and you have a pool of guys with some serious issues. Try Googling Jim MacIsaac’s pal Will Knedlik, and you get the idea.
To see what kind of disgruntled cranks these road hogs are…look into their politics. These over-the-hill Republicans gravitate toward Rush Limbaugh and the GOP on social issues (gays, guns, god, abortion, etc) but on transportation, the perennial axe-grinders and sprawl advocates set their sights on light rail. It’s an odd phenomenon. But very typical.
The common theme across the full spectrum of issues: these clowns blame everybody else for their own problems.
“I can understand why the government-haters are able to get traction by sowing taxaphobia in the populace. These numbers scare the hell out of me, too. ”
The amount of money these critical transit and roads investment cost the median household is less than that same household can spend on a night out for dinner. When you figure the average cost of owning a car is about $7k per year, again, these taxes represent only a tiny fraction of automobile ownership.
In other words, Roger Rabbit is scared to hell by mosquitoes….or, he just choses to ignore all the hidden costs we already pay, which is typical of the famously ignorant right wing…
-On city streets near the stadium, it was a parking lot full of Metro buses, Sound Transit buses, and maybe even a few Community Transit buses. The roads were clogged.-
I got stuck in this mess, too, Will. It was still an absolute congestion fest at 6:30 pm, literally hours after the Mariner game ended.
A long line of buses mixed in with general purpose traffic is precisely the Bus Rapid Transit supporters’ “vision of the future”.
They pretend to support some kind of “new improved” bus system, but when you ask them for details, it’s always “BRT on the cheap” which means dumping even MORE buses onto already crowded streets, ramps, arterials and highways. If you spend the money for new or improved rights-of-way, the pricetag gets right up there in short order. Which is why these anti-rail people are really just supporting BRT Lite. They just don’t want to tell you that.
But those new buses get painted pretty colors, and they cover the wheel-wells, to make them look more like a train!
Open the bus tunnel. Put them underground and out of the traffic. Problem solved in September.
Some people think that light rail is an important kind of transit for the Seattle region to have. But the geography of the region — waterways and hills — makes light rail very expensive here.
Buses do not move as quickly as light rail in a tunnel, but with a fraction of the investment that a tunnel, tracks, and rail cars require, buses can be made to move well enough.
Expansion of our bus-based regional mass transit system would carry more people to more places at less cost than Sound Transit’s Central Link Light Rail.
Bus rapid transit (BRT) is a set of techniques for making buses faster and more attractive. There are a number of ways to do this, with many techniques and examples listed in the Bus Rapid Transit Policy Center web site.
To say that the pro-transit, anti-LRT folks at CETA simply want to insert more buses into traffic jams is inaccurate.
Bus transit should be allowed to have a fair share of space on the street, providing reliable movement during peak period, shared with other HOVs if buses can move without interference.
CETA members prefer the direction taken in King County’s Transit Now bus expansion, and in Community Transit’s Swift initiative on SR 99. The number of new transit riders for each dollar of public investment in Transit Now is far superior to the productivity of the investment in light rail that is already underway, never mind the billions in additional tracks and stations in ST2.
We believe that buses must be improved to work better, because the Puget Sound Regional Council forecasts for our region in year 2040 with 125 miles of light rail show that most transit trips in the future will travel on buses. See the mode share forecast from PSRC posted at Public Interest Transportation Forum .
Whatever amount of light rail ends up being built around here, the train tracks will not reach enough different places to support the majority of the trip making that people need to do. We must make buses work region-wide to make transit work well.
Would putting additional billions into Sound Transit’s light rail mean less is available for buses? Here’s a clue — money for the South Lake Union Streetcar is coming at the expense of Metro bus service to feed people to the new light rail stations in SE Seattle. A King County official told me this.
For the billions of dollars that Sound Transit seeks for building light rail in a few corridors, buses can be made to work better all over the region in many corridors.
Instead of building 50 miles of “always” reliable light rail for $200 million per mile, some of us would prefer upgrading 500 miles of bus service to be “usually” reliable for $20 million per mile.
And by the way, the light rail coming in 2009 to SE Seattle that will travel through 18 signaled intersections along Martin Luther King, Jr. Way is not going to be perfect in its reliability.