I lived in rural King County for much of my childhood. In 1992, me and my dad went to Husky Stadium to watch the undefeated UW Huskies destroy Pacific. My dad hated (and hates) sports, and it was nice of him to do an activity that only I wanted to do. It was a fun; a day of watching football surrounded by drunk-ass WASPs and rowdy college kids. Mark Brunell (yeah!) and Bill Joe Hobert (boo!) split time at QB, and Napoleon Kaufman was unstoppable at tailback.
So how did we get from Redmond to Montlake? My dad drove us to the Downtown Redmond Park and Ride. We parked and waited for the Metro bus that would take us, across the Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge, to Montlake and Husky Stadium.
Well, the bus never showed, so we had to drive. Traffic sucked, as it always does. We missed kickoff.
I chalk it up to the inherent drawbacks of a bus system. If my dad had driven us to the Downtown Redmond Light Rail Station, it would have been a very different story. Given that light rail has suburban headways of eight minutes (depending on demand, service could be more frequent, or less frequent), the train (barring some calamity) would have shown within those eight minutes, and we would have saved big bucks on parking.
Suburban and rural folks are likely to engage with transit through park and rides. When Sound Transit does community forums out in the ‘burbs, the first question is always, “where are the park and rides?” This is a sensitive issue, especially for enviro-folks, who don’t like park and rides because they think them too accommodating to the automobile.
It sounds counterintuitive, but you have to be strategic about using mass transit to promote density.
Light rail is not just a pour and stir fix.
Running the line where there’s already some earnest development will suck in development and fight sprawl. Spending billions to run it out into Yenemsvelt [Yiddish for “far, far away” -Will] will simply create park and rides and more sprawl.
Opposing light rail on because of park and rides is so incredibly short-sided. If suburban citizens are going to pay taxes for transit, they’ll demand park and rides. Lecturing them to think otherwise is mostly a waste of time.
Besides, who cares? Park and rides become popular, they fill up, and the decision is made about what to do next. Sometimes they’re expanded into parking garages. And those parking garages eventually become paid parking garages, which turn into paid carpool parking garages, which turn into… apartments with retail. I know, evil right?
The park and rides along I-5 are slated to become light rail stations. The empty lots and asphalt slabs that surround these stations are going to turn into mixed-use developments (if you want examples, visit the line that’s opening in ’09). Those developments with attract the kinds of folks who will leave the car at home and ride the train instead. Sure, they’ll use the Honda (or better yet, a Prius Plug-In Hybrid) to run to the store, but many trips, especially the everyday commute-type trips, can and will be made by train. If they need a car at work, there’s always Flexcar (soon to be ZipCar). Give people choices and they’ll respond.
Like Josh, I would err on the side of fewer park and rides at rail stations. Unlike Josh, I’m not going to kill a huge light rail investment over park and rides.
In 1992, me and my dad went to Husky Stadium
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Tsk, tsk, “My dad and I . . “
@1…MWebster…
Cut him some slack…his dad didn’t (doesn’t) like sports, so he’s prone to using child-like colloquilisms.
Since most of the people who use Zip/Flex probably live in the urban dense jungle where the yearning to breathe free is choked by being herded into cubicles and cattle-car like transit cages, what’s so flexible about that?
Still can’t tell me how you’ll get the multitude of errands most commuters do either on the way to or from work done by riding skanky light rail…How many stops does it make? Swing by Lowe’s, does it? Let you take the spur-of-the-moment creative detour? Swing by Krispy Kreme for an indulgence?
Still just 50 measly miles at a cost of billions and billions…
Solzhenitsyn is writing a new book: “Light Rail Archipelago.”
It’s a story of how the masses are jack-booted by their betters who have superior vision as to how they should live into mini-gulags adjacent to light rail camps because what used to be their option to live where they wish was destroyed by being taxed into slavery such that all that was available to them were concrete, steel, and glass high-rise peasant shacks that probably wouldn’t pass Geneva Convention or UN refugee standards muster.
Some choice…You vill do ziss or you vill be shot! Vat is your dezizion, slave? Und, you haf relatives ztill lifink in Kent? Ja oder nein?
The Piper
@2
Since most of the people who use Zip/Flex probably live in the urban dense jungle where the yearning to breathe free is choked by being herded into cubicles and cattle-car like transit cages, what’s so flexible about that?
I sold my car 4 1/2 years ago, and Flexcar has been phenomenal for me. Based on what I’d been paying before I sold my car, I save between $4000-$5000 per year by not having a car, riding buses, and using Flexcar instead.
Still can’t tell me how you’ll get the multitude of errands most commuters do either on the way to or from work done by riding skanky light rail…How many stops does it make?
Have you ever left the state of Washington in your life? Many people live places where they can run all of their errands by taking the train or subway. That solution is still far off from being a reality here, but guess what!? That’s what Flexcar is for!
Swing by Lowe’s, does it? Let you take the spur-of-the-moment creative detour? Swing by Krispy Kreme for an indulgence?
Flexcar has pickup trucks (I’ve got one rented tomorrow morning to move a couch!). And this may blow your mind, Crackpiper, but they go wherever you want them to. Not only do they look like real cars, they are real cars, with gas pedals and everything. They even fit through the Krispy Kreme drive-thru!!
It’s a story of how the masses are jack-booted by their betters who have superior vision as to how they should live into mini-gulags adjacent to light rail camps because what used to be their option to live where they wish was destroyed by being taxed into slavery such that all that was available to them were concrete, steel, and glass high-rise peasant shacks that probably wouldn’t pass Geneva Convention or UN refugee standards muster.
I guess this is why Manhattan is such a shithole where no one wants to live? My god, you’re retarded. Do you have any pride left?
“Like Josh, I would err on the side of fewer park and rides at rail stations. Unlike Josh, I’m not going to kill a huge light rail investment over park and rides.”
Will, you’re becoming more irrational by the day. Do you sense defeat? Are you growing desperate, and therefore emotional, about Prop. 1’s prospects?
If you don’t have parking at light rail stations, how the hell will anyone be able to ride? Do you expect people to walk or bike from miles around to ride light rail?
When the Seattle Monorail poobahs responded to cost overruns by ignoring parking needs, it was the beginning of the end for the Monorail. People know a sinking ship when they see one.
Light rail, like the monorail, is a wonderful idea in concept. I’m not against the concept. But the devil is in the details, and when you see cost figures in the range of $25 to $30 a ride, and hear proponents start promoting the no parking option, which is to mass transit as nuclear explosions are to urban life, you know the dog is drowning.
If you want to see how much sense Will is making, just go to Northgate Transit Terminal on any weekday and see how many riders board the buses after the parking lot fills up. But you’d better take a bus to get there, because parking is extremely limit, fills up early, and once it does you’re condemned to the Northgate Mall parking lot.
I’ve already told you guys, but you don’t listen. Take anything Josh Feit writes with a large grain of salt. He just isn’t that smart!
@2 “cattle-car like transit cages”
This is NOT a valid argument. I worked downtown and rode express buses for years. The buses are not “cages.” The late-evening milk-run routes filled with rowdies, dopers, and crazies are “cages” but the commuter buses are not. And riding the bus was vastly preferable to fighting traffic and paying 5% of your after-tax income for non-deductible parking — if you could find parking at all. Working downtown would not have been a viable option for me without the bus system. Period. I could NOT have coped with the hassle, expense, and commuting times of driving. Driving to a downtown job works ONLY for people who make big bucks and have reserved spots in underground garages, not for the faceless drones who make rent money and whose bosses don’t even know their names, which describes most of us.
@5
Um, they’re building much more parking up there.
@3 Lee, I agree Piper is not the most articulate or thoughtful spokesperson for critics of Prop. 1. But alluding to the folks living in Manhattan just doesn’t … resonate, because they have more money than most of us can dream of. I couldn’t begin to afford Manhattan, hell, I couldn’t even afford the doorman’s tip, and I suspect you can’t either. You might want to choose a better example. There must be one, somewhere …
I don’t see any evidence to suggest Josh actually cares about these arguments – he and Erica appear to have decided long ago that only an ideal, perfect light rail-only system will be worth supporting. All the rest of these arguments are just after the fact rationalizations.
I’ve never quite understood the sprawl argument. 1) These light rail lines go through EXISTING urban corridors. Nobody’s talking about running light rail along the Duvall-Carnation Highway. The sprawl ALREADY is there. What light rail will do is provide inducements for people already there to drive less, or not at all (good for the environment) and to build density near these stations (also good for the environment, also good for Seattle, preserving apartments and other affordable options in the urban core.)
2) Has everyone forgotten entirely about the Growth Management Act? It’s not like Washington has California’s urban growth rules (i.e. none at all).
The argument against Prop 1 are becoming more and more strained, less and less sensible.
@9
But Roger, that’s the point. Manhattan is an extremely expensive place to live because people really want to live there. Having an urban area where owning a car is more of an inconvenience than an asset does not create an undesirable hellish existence as Crackpiper seems to think. It actually creates a living environment that people pay top dollar to live in.
All this bitching about park’n’rides is the dumbest anti-prop1 mess yet. The rail stations will create islands of walkable redevelopment, but to attract serious ridership in the suburbs, you need good “last mile” connectivity.
Making people transfer to a local bus to get home kills ridership. Giving them a traditional park’n’ride captures those who work in a central location they can walk to from a train station.
If we wanted to take it a step further, we would invest in station car setups. Imagine fleets of hybrids or electric cars at most rail stations. Sign up for a monthly plan, and drive one home each night. Commuters bring them back in the mornings on their way to the train, and they go out for hourly rentals for those running errands during the day.
Now transit becomes time-competitive for someone going from suburb-city, vice-versa, or suburb-suburb. Drive to the station, get off nearest work, drive to work. Gets long CO2 and congestion intensive trips off the freeway. Creates perfect short-trip conditions for electric cars to shine.
However, this would violate the “urban good! two legs bad!” sensibility of Seattle enviros, so they would never get behind it. Instead of promoting low-carbon mobility, let’s have pointless fights about how many fractions of a polar bear each park-n-ride space kills.
What eugene said. I’m a native and have watched the Seattle metropolitan area do very little to provide real mass transit, even as I visit cities where I could get to downtown from the airport via light rail (Chicago, Atlanta). And once downtown, I had lots of options for getting around. Such visits made me appreciate what we are missing here. Even if Prop 1 is flawed, I will say what I’ve now been saying since the 90s – just build it already!
I am more than willing to pitch in for expansion of rail to Tacoma, so that I get the chance for it to be expanded to Northgate, Montlake Terrace, hell, even to Everett. Folks, I know people who are commuting to Seattle from Mount Vernon. The I-5 corridor is already an “urban corridor” from Olympia to Bellingham, it is time to face this fact.
Hmmm…I see two arguments repeatedly raised by the anti-transit folks. One is the issue of the “last mile” between a typical transit terminus and where someone might live. The other is the convenience that having one’s own personal vehicle provides for running errands on the way to and from work.
I wonder how many auto commuters who couldn’t conceive of hoofing it three-quarters of a mile between home and a rail station or bus stop, have as one of the “on-the-way errands” a stop at a gym where they proudly stride that distance or more on a treadmill.
@11
It actually creates a living environment that people pay top dollar to live in.
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Which drive out those who can’t afford to live there. One of the issues swirling around Prop 1 that is rarely discussed is the increasing expense of living in Seattle. There is a broad group of individuals/households in Seattle who are being squeezed because their income is not keeping up with the rising costs. As I’ve noted before few people track these rising costs/fees over time, but they have accumulated steadily.
In addition, following Prop 1 is the %75+ cost of the 520 bridge that is not being funded, the viaduct, additional taxes Ron Sims is asking for, and so forth.
You should have this discussion in a community forum where much of the audience would be focused on these types of issues.
This all adds up, and I haven’t even addressed the additional taxes the younger generations will be paying to address the entitlement mess, which is looming larger and larger (though you wouldn’t know it from the presidential debates – another discussion).
@8 “Um, they’re building much more parking up there.”
I see a big fucking hole in the ground next to the transit terminal. Is that going to be an office building or a huge parking garage? If they build more parking, that solves the problem — and proves my point, which is light rail doesn’t work without parking at the suburban boarding stations. Light rail commuters need someplace to park their cars. If you build it, they will come. If you don’t, they won’t.
Lets be sensible–this discussion is totally missing the point of growth managment policy in this. Of course you would not put a park and ride at a station in a given density (though ridership models take into account more than just density (feeder bus routes etc)) duh. You might put one at the outter reaches–as the area matures the system continues to desify.
But wait–you don’t just lay track to whereever–ST or whoever looks at current and planned zoning,etc and determiens where the greatest density will occur. So Josh is missing the point. You put it were density is or will be, you add PnR to help sell ridership when its built in the no-less-dense, but-soon-to-be denser areas.
@10 “The argument against Prop 1 are becoming more and more strained, less and less sensible.”
The fact your argument @10 is sensible doesn’t make Prop. 1 sensible, or my arguments less sensible. Running light rail — if you build it at all — through densely populated urban corridors to move concentrated populations of commuters to key locations (downtown core, airport, university) is so obvious it whacks you over the head like a two-by-four. Nobody rides light rail to look at cows.
But you’ve provided no answer at all to Prop. 1’s defects: Misplaced priorities, runaway costs, pork and gold plating. Prop. 1 really is two packages, roads & bridges, and light rail, with expenditures split about 30-70. A couple years ago we were told there would have to be local taxes on top of the statewide gas tax increase to get 520, 405, and other local projects done. Probably not many Seattle-area residents dreamed this necessary road fix would be used as a vehicle to ram through the light rail expansion that voters rejected 10 years ago.
You can make a case for light rail — if it’s properly done at a halfway reasonable cost. The truth is, there’s no compromises made in Prop. 1 at all. In every case, the most expensive option was chosen, and shoved down our throats. The most regressive taxes were chosen to finance it. And projects were funded and prioritized based on political considerations and crass calculations of what it would take to buy enough votes for passage — not based on what the region’s transportation needs are.
The result is a typical bureaucratic boondoggle carried to ultimate extremes. Everyone’s project is funded. The package is incredibly expensive. A crushing tax burden is put on those least able to pay. This is what democracy often produces, and what appointed committees made up of parochial-minded politicians and representatives of special interests always produce — a huge raid on vulnerable taxpayers’ pocketbooks to buy truckloads of candy for themselves and their special interest groups — but that’s not good enough in a world of limited resources, competing demands for resources, and real-world needs.
@16
My understanding is that it’s going to be both. They’ve already built one huge garage (on the south side of the mall) and there will be more.
I completely agree with you (and Mike @17) on the need for parking and just posted something to the front page to that effect. I think Josh is falling into the trap of believing that transit can be a social engineering endeavor. It can’t. You have to cater to people in order to make these things work.
@11 Wanting and getting are two different things. It so happens I don’t want to live, but that’s irrelevant because I couldn’t live there if I wanted to. What I see you arguing is that the same logic should apply to Seattle: If you want to live here, you have to pay the price. I see this argument being used by people who want to make living here expensive in order to get what THEY want. That’s not gonna wash with me. I’ve lived in Seattle for 40 years and I don’t appreciate newer relatives taking the attitude that it’s okay to push me out of this city by making it too expensive for people like me to live here. Maybe that works for you, but you’re nuts if you think you’ll get MY yes vote on a ballot for that result. If you want expensive amenties and figure people here have enough money to pay for them, I’m fine with that, PROVIDED YOU GET THE MONEY FROM THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE MONEY. That wasn’t done with Prop. 1. Prop. 1 is the same old crappy story of some people wanting expensive things at the expense of other people who don’t need them, won’t use them, and can’t afford to pay for them. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this approach to things is a great big threat to my vital interests, and the attitude behind it is pissing me off.
erratum
It so happens I don’t want to live in Manhattan …
@19 The recently built garage on the south side of the mall is J. C. Penney parking. It’s not there for bus commuters to park on weekdays.
erratum
newer arrivals
I have limited income and resources that have to last the rest of my life and I’m not in a position to buy expensive amenities for other people. You can build as much light rail as you want and pay as much for it as you like as long as you pay for it with user fees, gas taxes, and/or farebox revenues.
Another thing to consider about the sales tax is that people who live on the edges of the RTID/ST taxing district are going to shop outside the district to avoid the tax. Just like people in Vancouver shop in Oregon to avoid WA’s sales tax, while living in Vancouver to avoid OR’s income tax. The thing about the Seattle Monorail is that a vast number of people who initially voted for it figured they would avoid the car tab tax by registering their cars outside the city limits. When the legislature took that loophole away, the public demanded a revote, and shot down the monorail. They didn’t want it so much if they had to pay for it. You’re going to get a lot of “yes” votes for Prop. 1 in North Snohomish and South Pierce counties for the reason I stated: They intend to evade the tax by shopping outside the taxing district. So the light rail sales tax is a free ride for them.
I really can’t make a call on Prop. 1. Last I heard, polls show it’s a tossup. That’s not good news for proponents. It started out way ahead, and all the momentum has been in the other direction. Editorial endorsements are divided and some prominent community leaders have come out against it. If it passes, it will pass by the skin of its teeth, but I think there’s even odds it’ll go down. If that happens, people shouldn’t see that as the end of the discussion. The roads and light rail packages should both be revised, reprioritized, scaled down, economized, and resubmitted to voters. It doesn’t have to take 5 years to do this. What needs to be done is obvious and doesn’t require a team of rocket scientists.
24 “I have limited income and resources that have to last the rest of my life”
We all do, Roger. It’s just that some of us are too dumb to realize it.
I will absolutely support socking local drivers with higher gas taxes. That’s the right approach. It’s a user fee that pays for transportation by charging people who use transportation in proportion to how much transportation they use. It won’t hurt Ma and Pa Kettle on their way to visit relatives in Moses Lake because it takes only 1/6th tank of gas to get outside the RTID/ST taxing district. You run on fumes to North Bend and then gas up there paying only the statewide gas tax. It WILL encourage metro area residents to …
a) buy more fuel-thrifty cars,
b) use non-car commuting options when feasible,
c) reduce frivolous and recreational driving,
d) reduce car emissions by reducing gas consumption.
For example, higher gas taxes may discourage more families from providing cars to their high-school age kids for driving to school every day; may encourage more carpooling; and will definitely have an effect on what vehicles people pay. It takes time to down-engine the vehicle fleet, though, as few people run out to buy a new car because gas prices went up. The U.S. car fleet turns over every 7 years, on average. Using gas taxes won’t have an immediate effect on what people are driving but you’ll sure see the effects 5 years from now.
And did I mention that if you have fewer cars on the road because of higher gas taxes, you also have less congestion and faster travel times?
If it takes a buck a gallon to pay for all this stuff, then charge a buck a gallon. I will support that.
@14 “Hmmm…I see two arguments repeatedly raised by the anti-transit folks. One is the issue of the “last mile” between a typical transit terminus and where someone might live. The other is the convenience that having one’s own personal vehicle provides for running errands on the way to and from work.”
Why do you call these folks “anti-transit,” Art? It seems to me they are arguing for things that help transit work, which impresses me as pro-transit. Pretending things that kill ridership aren’t a problem is anti-transit. If you want more transit, you’ll pay attention to the things riders need and want, not ignore them.
@27 “We all do, Roger. It’s just that some of us are too dumb to realize it.”
Well, you said a mouthful there, Art. Circumstances forced me to manage money wisely and well, so I learned how. I shudder when I see people throw away their home equity to buy toys. This whole country, not just its government, is indebted to its eyeballs. America is a culture of consumption. People assume their $100,000-a-year jobs will last forever. Boy, are they in for a rude awakening when they hit age 50 or so.
I can’t speak for 1992. But on Saturday morning October 26, 2007, I walked a short distance from home to a buspad on 520 at NE 51st St. The half-full #545 bus from downtown Redmond to Seattle arrived on time. I exited at Montlake and saw huge crowds walking towards Husky Stadium.
My next bus, a southbound #48 to Columbia Park, was about 25 minutes late. It had standing room only, until most of us exited at an antiwar rally.
On the return trip, I boarded the #545 in downtown Seattle. When we reached Montlake, there were too many waiting passengers — about ten needed to wait for a later bus.
So two of these three buses were saturated, even on a weekend. Meanwhile the Husky crowds and the antiwar marchers overflowed today’s sidewalks.
Trying to get to a Husky game from Eastside? Let me tell you about my trip up I-405 one Saturday morning… when I saw All these buses (Yellow ones, too) along the road- at the Park-n-Rides- everywhere! I turned the radio to a news bulletin station, because I thought that there was some kind of disaster-and evacuation- going on. Really. Then it finally dawned on me… these are Husky alums, headed to “the game”- and SO MANY things- demographics incl- fell into place in my head, about traffic, development, housing, jobs, etc etc. Leaving Redmond on a Game Day? Try going via Kenmore… or put the boat in the water. ^..^
@26- right… it should shake out like a local school levy (if they don’t get it in March, it’s back on the ballot in May… & August… & November, if needed) ^..^
So how does my dad get me to Husky Stadium today from Queen Anne?
Oh, that’s right. Fuck the city people.