My EffU cohort Carl already noted Bill Virgin’s crazy column on transportation in the PI on Monday, but I have to pull out the most incredibly ridiculous part and share it over here. This is one of his suggestions for how to fix the transportation mess in this city:
Encourage businesses to move out of Seattle and closer to their employees. Actually, the city is doing a fine job of this already, what with tax and land-use policies. Many of those businesses’ employees are in the ‘burbs already, either because of housing prices or schools. As has been pointed out before, congestion is not just a matter of how many cars are on the road but how long they’re on the road and what direction they’re going. Moving places of employment closer to where the employees live would cut the congestion created by putting so many vehicles on a few corridors heading to the same destination at the same time.
The office I work at is located near downtown Seattle. We have less than 100 employees here, but they live in various places like Renton, Snohomish, Vashon Island, Silverdale, and Shoreline. A good amount of them also live within the city of Seattle too. Exactly where should our company move to in order to be “closer to their employees?”
Many businesses are already located in the suburbs. As I’ve gone job hunting in the past, I tend to find that about 75% of the positions I run across are located on the Eastside. This is already well-reflected in the traffic around here (on 520, the reverse commute from Seattle to the Eastside tends to be much worse than the Eastside to Seattle commute). In fact, as a Seattle resident, I’ve been reluctant to take a job on the Eastside because of the difficulty in commuting across the bridge. If anything, there’s a better argument to be made for having businesses located on the Eastside relocating west of the lake. But it’s still a terrible argument for fixing our transportation woes.
The answer, as it has been since I moved to this city 10 years ago, is to invest in rail transit that connects the main corporate/industrial centers across the greater Seattle region (Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Bellevue, Redmond). The idea that we can fix our transportation mess by simply having companies relocate closer to their employees is completely absurd, especially in a time and place where people change jobs as often as they do. The infrastructure we have now already limits where anyone in this region can work, unless they don’t mind sitting in a car for 3-4 hours a day. It doesn’t have to be that way, and I’ve run out of patience with the clowns who think that there’s a solution that doesn’t involve some form of rail.
That said, I do sympathize with Virgin’s final suggestion:
Ban from regional transportation planning anyone who has uttered, or even thought, the phrase, “We’ve got to get people out of their cars.”
Here is a truth that, as blasphemous as it may sound within the corridors of officialdom in Seattle, needs to be understood: Many people like having a car.
They like driving, or at least find the convenience and flexibility to be worth the cost and occasional frustrations. So long as transportation planners consider those who favor the automobile as the enemy, to be herded, punished and reviled, the public will return the favor — and will likely shred Son of Prop. 1, the Return of Prop. 1, Prop. 1 Strikes Again, Prop. 1: Next Generation, Prop. 1: The Final Reckoning and all the other ballot-box sequels headed their way.
While I find little in common with the kinds of people who cling to their cars (my wife and I share a single car, but I hardly ever use it), the idea that we can get motorists to give up that lifestyle simply by trying to deny them the roads they want is just as crazy as the notion that we can relieve congestion in this city without rail. I can’t even begin to understand what the hell the Sierra Club was thinking when they actually convinced themselves that siding with Kemper Freeman to kill this plan would somehow lead to less roads (and therefore less global warming, as their “logic” went). The problem is that the roads are going to be built no matter what, because without rail and with suburban-based companies like Microsoft continuing to bring in more and more workers from out-of-state who increasingly have no other choice but to live in the suburbs, the demand for more roads will continue to increase. Granted, the demand for rail will likely continue too, and hopefully we’ll be able to expand on what we’ve already started, but this idea that we can shut down all road construction in this region out of concern for the environment has no basis in reality.
What scares me the most about how the Sierra Club, and certain other anti-roads folks, approached this issue is that it was eerily reminiscent of the neocon mindset. The neocons essentially took their fear of Islamic radicalism and internally rationalized that their fear of this problem allowed for them to react to it with any level of extremism and it was justified. The realities of human behavior, logic, common sense, etc…all of that flew out the window. What mattered was that there was a crisis and anyone who wasn’t part of the solution was part of the problem. Much like the neocons, the anti-roads contingency felt that they could establish their own notion of reality, one where an individual who relies on roads is somehow complicit in destroying the planet, and that people would in turn be completely compelled to alter their way of life. They felt that they could transfer their paranoia to the masses and that they’d have support simply by sheer power of will.
Global warming is a very real problem (as is Islamic radicalism, to continue the parallel), but the fight to stop it does not hinge upon whether or not we widen I-405. The calculus involved here was always way more complicated than that. We need to focus on alternative energy sources and favoring automobile technologies that pollute less. A lot of very cool new technologies exist that represent a path away from the status quo. If the Sierra Club wants to support a gas tax that pushes people towards more fuel efficient cars, I’m there. If the Sierra Club wants to support an initiative to put alternate-energy refueling stations along major highways, I’m there. But if the Sierra Club thinks that someone who lives in Auburn and commutes to Sammamish is going to sell the SUV and buy a bicycle because of global warming, they don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
Didn’t the Sierra Club also argue that the light rail expansion would contribute to global warming? There is the question of how many people would be using it, versus the financial and energy cost of constructing and operating it.
@1
I’m not sure, but as I said, the calculus involved when it came to global warming was very far from being as cut and dry as the Sierra Club imagined it to be.
This week’s birds eye view contest is posted:
http://www.reload.ws/blog/2007.....st-65.html
HONDA ANNOUCED TRIALS OF A NUMBER OF HYDROGEN FUEL CARS IN CALIF NEXT YEAR – THE GAS ENGINE IS TOAST IN AUTOS IN 7 YEARS
AND WE WILL USE ROADS FOREVER, TRUCKS ANYONE? POLLUTION FREE AUTOS ANYONE
Not acceptable. This new hydrogen cars have a hard surface and more when running. This will kill hundreds of birds nationwide. I guess we go to plan B.
I thought the Sierra Club didn’t like it because it would send CO2 emissions through the roof, far more than any emissions saved through light rail. Isn’t that an important point for them to make?
@6
It would be a great point if it had some basis in reality. But the reality is that the roads are going to be built anyway.
A similar number of people commute each way accross that lake.
Why is the Seattle-Eastside commute worse than the Eastside-Seattle Commute?
Beacuse people working in Seattle work for the most part downtown and transit make sense. People in the Eastside work all the fuck over the place and transit makes little sense.
Chewed off half my comment!
Light rail could encourage development in centralized areas with easier commute patterns.
@6″I thought the Sierra Club didn’t like it because it would send CO2 emissions through the roof, far more than any emissions saved through light rail. Isn’t that an important point for them to make? ”
it was less than 10% as much increase in greenhouse gas than the third runway at seatac, adn over 50 years, a smaller increase in greenhouse gas than china increases each day.
Each. day.
Do you really think the Sierra Club position is that everyone should ride bikes? If so, it is kind of hard to take you seriously.
Check out this study before claiming that technology alone will solve the problem. http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/gcindex.html
“Curbing emissions from cars depends on a three-legged stool: improved vehicle efficiency, cleaner fuels, and a reduction in driving,” said lead author Reid Ewing, Research Professor at the National Center for Smart Growth, University of Maryland. “The research shows that one of the best ways to reduce vehicle travel is to build places where people can accomplish more with less driving.”
It took us fifty years or so to build this sprawling landscape that makes many of us auto-dependent. Continuing down that path is folly. We are smart enough to take the next fifty years to make the right choices. Now is a good time to start.
The issue isn’t light rail, it’s making smart choices that reduce global warming pollution. Light rail will be part of that solution, but it is going to take a mix of good choices, on the transit and road side, to get significant reductions in global warming pollution. Prop 1 simply didn’t cut it.
Nice job on continuing to miss-represent the positions of those of us in the environmental community who apposed Prop 1. Have fun with the temper-tantrums while the rest of us get to work.
The Stranger had a good article you could have brought up.
http://www.thestranger.com/sea.....oid=439299
TRIMET will be running a light rail line north from Portland into Vancouver soon and Tacoma will be expanding its light rail system from downtown into the neighborhoods so that people can get where they need to go on a day to day basis (Like to work!) without hopping in their cars. 80% of the people who live in Pierce County work in Pierce County. We need local light rail, not a line to the airport that dead ends down town.
See, rail is still getting built.
Yes, some of the road projects will get built, but a hell of a lot few of them will get built and they will get built better if we bird dog the builders and put up a fight.
Sorry Lee, I’m not gonna roll over and play dead.
Sink the 520 Bridge centralize the travel corridors to I-90, I-405 and I-5. Expand both car and transit options on these corridors and force the local economies to adjust.
People naturally gravitate towards living in dispersed areas full of single-family detached homes with yards. Look at France, its happening there. Look at India, its happening there too (read the nytimes). Look at ETHIOPIA for chrissakes, its HAPPENING THERE TOO.
There is a very small minority of the world population that prefers to be stacked 50-high in condominiums. So cars will always be around – whether gasoline, hydrogen, diesel, electric, or whatever-powered.
Roads will be built, and all the world will smile.
#15:
cities naturally have urban rail. Most of the bigger ones do. NO ONE in all those other cities regrets it. Check out urbanrail.net. When you go to London and Chicago and DC and Paris and Mexico City and Moscow and Rome and Tokyo and NY and Montreal and Paris and Holland and Oslo and the hundreds of other cities with rail, do you say “How stupide to have this rail,” or do you ride and not even rent a car??
Marcel –
Take a look at the current population densities of those cities. Now look at the trend of their density over time – what you will find is what is happening the world over – people are MOVING OUT OF THE CITY.
Sure, a few huge condo buildings have been put up in Chicago, and center-city London real estate prices couldn’t be higher, but fundamentally, the population growth in those areas has all been in their first, second, and sometimes even third-ring suburbs.
Tell me again why London had to institute congestion pricing? Oh yeah, that’s right, even with some of the most savage tolls and gas taxes in the world, people STILL PREFER TO TAKE PRIVATE AUTOMOBILES TO AND FROM WORK.
So, let’s expand 405, demolish the convention center and expand I-5, expand 99 by building a bigger/better viaduct, and most of all, build a 605 bypass. Top it all off with another expansion of 167, the completion of 509, and the expansion of 520 to an 8-lane highway, and we might just get somewhere. Price all of the new capacity in peak hours, but leave them free outside of rush hour.
Roads good, rail bad. Remember that.
8 Andrew, basically it sucks going either way. The commute to work on the eastside from Seattle is still a little worse because a lot of the ramps, signals and such were designed with the expectation that people would be going into Seattle in the morning and out at night. It gets even worse when there are one or more big evening sports events in Seattle. Also, the bus service is all oriented to taking people into Seattle in the morning and home to the eastside at night–unless they work for Microsoft.
[Off topic, deleted -Eds]
In other words, Lee…..DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! You’ll be giving yourself over to the Dark Side.
Virgin has it bass-ackwards. A big part of the eventual solution will not be employers moving to be close to where people live. It’s going to be all of us miserable fucking piss-ants moving closer to where we work, when it finally gets to the point where we have to make a budget decision between commuting and eating.
My assertion in 21 is not to say that the more stubborn among us aren’t likely to show some pretty severe signs of malnutrition before we come to our senses.
Too much transportation ideology, not enough practical transportation solutions.
ArtFart has it right. We do need to get people to work closer to where they live. I believe this is fundamentally what Virgin was getting at. Well, how do we do that? We STOP trying to accomodate this sort of commuting. Let’s see, many Microsoft workers live in Seattle, because its “hip” and not lame-suburban-family Redmond. Well, if the commute were two or three hours, more people would suck it up and live in Redmond, and then Redmond would have to start accomodating and becoming more friendly to young hip nerds. Its pointless to keep pumping money into new roads when 40 years from now they SHOULD be equally if not less congested than now. It is certainly true that people dont want to get out of their cars, but due to environmental concerns, we will force them. Addmitedly, with Seattles varied geography, massive suburban outskirts, and minimal population (compared to other big cities) but we have to plan for the future. If we start building rail systems, they may be under-used initially, but people and business will grow up around them and we will begin to orient our city around them, instead of nasty, big, ugly I-5. As they say, IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME!
Light rail seems to offer, at best, an incremental addition to the region’s commuting capacity of a rather small order of magnitude, and vastly less than one should expect for $27 billion. Why should we pay that kind of money for a system that will move only 1% to 2% of the region’s commuters? A worker who lives in Bothell and works in Ballard is not going to ride light rail. Neither is a teacher who lives in Wedgewood and is assigned to a school in the Northgate area. You can’t get from here to there on rails that don’t go to either here or there. Light rail is a corridor form of transportation that is good only for collecting people from along the corridor and taking them to a few key destinations — the university, downtown, the stadiums, the airport, and perhaps Microsoft and/or Boeing. It doesn’t work for anything else. In short, it doesn’t replace cars. Most people who ride light rail will still need a car. Those cars will need roads and bridges to travel on.
Roger Rabbit:
You’re a total wingnut on other issue, but on transportation you make sense.
Lee, The Sierra Club actually is working on all of the strategies you suggest, but global warming is such a big problem — both in the magnitude of the needed change, and in the speed of the needed change — that we can’t just pretend that a massive highway expansion is moving in the right direction, especially when more than half of our GHG emissions come from transportation.
Prop 1 got clobbered for many good reasons, but a deciding factor was that a largish chunk of the population takes climate seriously. This meant that, even though they badly wanted transit, they were unwilling to accept a mediocre package that would have made global warming worse.
That’s a done deal, and now you really need to get a grip. It’s in your own best interest to shake it off, and to start thinking soberly about how to make what comes next better. One sign of progress will be when you stop mouthing road lobby talking points.
@24 Few people can buy a home with any reasonable expectation that they will work the same job the entire time they live in that home. Many people in my area have owned their homes 15, 20, or 25 years. Damned few jobs last that long anymore. We live in an era of virtual jobs, in which companies appear and disappear like meteors in the sky. It’s awfully expensive to move every time your work location changes, especially if the employer isn’t paying your moving expenses. And then you have employers like Fred Meyer, which frequently rotates employees among its stores, often without regard for where they live or their commuting convenience. Most of the workers in my local Fred Meyer live far away from the store. If you want a job, you work where the employer tells you to. And many employers with multiple locations are in the habit of giving their employees only 1 or 2 weeks notice of their work assignments. And then, of course, you have a whole category of construction and trade workers whose occupation takes them from job site to job site, sometimes working in several scattered locations in a year. In today’s economy, it’s just not realistic to expect the average person to live close to his/her job, because the average person doesn’t know where he/she will be working two or three years from now.
@24 Real estate agents will like your idea, though. If the average worker sells his home because of job relocation every 15 months, the agents will make out fine.
Frankly, I think we should chuck modern civilization and move back to the land. There’s no reason why you can’t live well anywhere there’s dirt to dig a hole in, plenty of grass, and no damn eagles or falcons! All you need to do is grow some claws on your hind feet, and home is wherever your hind feet are!
Rog,
That’s why you put lots of jobs and lots of people in the same place as you grow.
Your really talking more about planning and development issue then a transportation one.
@26 If I thought I was a wingnut on any issue I’d have to turn myself in to the Rabbit Sanitorium.
@28
Don’t you get it? In a the wonderful socialist utopia to come, we’ll all have our assigned housing projects with assigned employment nearby! It’ll be bliss I tell you!
@29
Sucks to be that guy. I’m 38 (39 next week!), I’ve been at my current job 4 years and was at the one before that for about a decade.
Here’s my overall regional plan for way on down the line:
1. Seattle proper, like Manhattan (sorry, I know many people arent down with the NYC comparisons) is much longer than it is wide. Thus, there are two major rail lines running on either side of Lake Union. Line A stays pretty much the path of Aurora and then along the water down to SoDo, Georgetown, South Park, White Center, etc. Line B Runs north through the U district and then follows Lake City a bit and South through Capitol Hill, Beacon Hill, Rainer, and other already planned areas. For far north (ei Everett, Edmonds) and far south (ei Tacoma) there are the Sound Commuter Trains
2. For East West travel we use standard bus systems and as you get farther from the main areas, thus, Ballard, Blue Ridge, Leschi, Magnolia, etc. It takes longer, BUT its good because it brings down home prices due to their poor locations.
3. As far as the eastside. Unfortunately there is no easy way to get around. They SHOULD have a North/South rail of their own and they should focus on their own development and distribution as an INDEPENDENT area. To be honest, there should be no easy way to travel across a big ass, motherfuckin lake! We should get rid of the bridges and maintain some ferry services, just like across the sound.
All of us Sounders really need to embrace this neighborhood idea. sure we live in a great big awesome city, but our neighborhood should be where most of our daily activities take place. For me, carless, I treat going to West Seattle, or Redmond the same as doing a day trip to Vancouver or Portland, its great.
compassionatelibertarian:
you didn’t address the main point which is that all those other cities have rail and they like it. There is not one where people go, “damnit! Too bad we built that rail system!” The reason is that rail offers folks — hundreds of thousands a day — a faster trip to work than driving through congestion. It provides mobility.
Now to address your points:
“people are MOVING OUT OF THE CITY.”
Yes and when you have rail they can commute by rail.
“the population growth in those areas has all been in their first, second, and sometimes even third-ring suburbs.”
Yes and with rail the city folks can get around and the suburban folks can get around, too.
I didn’t say rail means we get 200 story towers in the city,
“Tell me again why London had to institute congestion pricing? Oh yeah, that’s right, even with some of the most savage tolls and gas taxes in the world, people STILL PREFER TO TAKE PRIVATE AUTOMOBILES TO AND FROM WORK.”
Actually you are wrong. Most people in London do NOT pay the congestion tolls and use transit. And yes, automobiles are great! You are right! They are so great they congest the streets and the streets just can’t move everyone around so almost universally rail systems are used by lots and lots of people in all these cities. Those people on the rail aren’t driving, can you grok that???
“So, let’s expand 405, demolish the convention center and expand I-5,” there is no room and they will just fill up with cars adding more cars only adds more congestion
” expand 99 by building a bigger/better viaduct,” um we voted that down
” and most of all, build a 605 bypass. Top it all off with another expansion of 167, the completion of 509, and the expansion of 520 to an 8-lane highway, and we might just get somewhere.” Good luck. While you are right to note that you need a comprehensive program of road widening to make a difference, you fail to recognize that (a) we can’t buy out all those properties, (b) with another million people moving here we cannot add an entirely new freeway network because there is not any room and it would cost tens and tens of billions of dollars, and (C) politically most of the things you propose are not going to fly.
“Price all of the new capacity in peak hours, but leave them free outside of rush hour.” If you price it enough to pay for all of this you are going to pay about $25 a trip!
“Roads good, rail bad. Remember that.”
Actually this kind of simplistic thinking is just stupid.
ature transportation systems have roads. We already have roads!
They also have buses and trams. We need more.
They also have comprehensive rail networks.
All these things function together to move lots of people around.
Your roads only solution will cost too much and still leave everyone in gridlock (or paying a huge price in rush hour) and it does not work.
There is NOWHERE in the world where a major city has tried this and found it to work. All of the major cities use rail plus roads plus busses.
The facts you cite about cities with rail don’t prove it does not work, your facts only prove that it does work.
Working = moving lots of people to work
Of course it does not remove congestion. As you note, cars are so great people will fill up all the available streets ! that’s why you need another system to move another 800,000 trips a day across a metro region, via rail!
I think we seriously need to rip up all the highways and build light rail over them, and build high-rise condos along these light rail tracks and force everyone to live in them.
roger rabbit: some criticisms of light rail are valid and others are not.
“Light rail seems to offer, at best, an incremental addition to the region’s commuting capacity of a rather small order of magnitude,”
um, adding all those bits of roads for a simmilar amount also does not increase capacity very much. The light rail line proposed would carry many more trips than all the road proposals in prop.1 put ttogehter, howver.
” and vastly less than one should expect for $27 billion.”
yes the rail should go for the low hanging fruit WS Ballard Roosevelt UW Northgate the BNSF from Kirkland to Renton plus the Bellevue/Redmond line…..instead of being stretched out to Fife and such
” Why should we pay that kind of money for a system that will move only 1% to 2% of the region’s commuters?”
this is a false argument. Adding two lanes to 520 will only carry a similar amount. And the figure is not 1% of all commuters but it was 1% of all TRIPS. Those include your trip from a REdmond suburb to the grocery store via car …..we all take about 7-16 trips a day…what counts is the job commuting…….any road project and all of them put together in prop.1 probably don’t account for any more as a percent of all trips…..but a good comprehensive rail network can carry about 100,000 trips for each line…..the same as a freeway like 99 or 520 or I 5….
these can be faster trips and cheaper trips than driving, parking and these trips could move hundreds of thousands ofpeople without adding to congestion….
” A worker who lives in Bothell and works in Ballard is not going to ride light rail.” If we have a more comrehensive set of lines they could drive or bus to Northgate or Kirkland and get to Ballard fairly quickly. I agree that the light rail as now proposed does not cover enough neighborhoods.
” Neither is a teacher who lives in Wedgewood and is assigned to a school in the Northgate area.” ??? that’s pretty close, obviously rail does not need to carry everyone and it does not replace the entire road and bus system. Duh.
” You can’t get from here to there on rails that don’t go to either here or there. Light rail is a corridor form of transportation” well it should not be you need a network so I agree with you in part
” that is good only for collecting people from along the corridor and taking them to a few key destinations — the university, downtown, the stadiums, the airport, and perhaps Microsoft and/or Boeing. It doesn’t work for anything else.” Agreed the proposed light rail is too limited it needs to cover n-s on the east side and another line picking up allthe neighborhoods along 99 or west of 99
” In short, it doesn’t replace cars.” NO ONE IS SAYING WE ARE GOING TO BAN CARS OR TAKE OUT ALL THE ROADS.
” Most people who ride light rail will still need a car.” YES BUT MANY OF THEM WILL CHOOSE TO NOT DRIVE TO WORK SAVING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS A YEAR. NO ONE IS SAYING WHN YOU ADD RAIL YOU BAN CARS!!!!!!
” Those cars will need roads and bridges to travel on. ” WE HAVE ROADS AND BRIDGES ALREADY NO ONE IS SAYINGTO REMOVE THEM! What you only argue reductio ad absurdem??? What a straw man.
Rail is a way to add 100,000-150,000 trips a day capacity in your major corridors it should go in all major corridors not just some of them as prop. 1 proposed and this adds huge capacity that cannot be added any other way. We cannot DOUBLE the freeway lanes we have on all major corridors. that’s what we would have to do to be able to handle the commutes of the additional 1,000,000 people who will be moving to our region if we were to focus on raods as a solution. there is no room, it is too expensive and if we did add all these freeway lanes they would just bring more cars to all the other roads, downtown and on the congested arterials in the burbs, making it all worse.
Your travel time will not be any quicker.
@38 Marcel:
Sure, all we need to do is spend $750 billion to build all the light rail and we’re all set!
@25, light rail, or some other kind of rail, really does replace cars in cities all over the world. It’s just a matter of whether or not you want to pay for it (which I do).
And actually, that 1%-2% of ridership was partly an artifact of Prop 1’s design, where finite transportation dollars were spread too thinly: stretched over too much time (not giving density-induced ridership time to build), and spread over too much space (not collecting the most rider density per dollar). Plus, a lot of money was plowed into highways that would have sucked trips away from light rail.
But as you say, it’s a special purpose tool.
@10, and Prop 1 light rail would only carry one millionth of China’s commuter population. Each day!
Bottom line is, I want to know how much taxes would have to be hiked up to build Prop 1 light rail. 50%? State income tax of course. Good luck with that idiots.
@27: “Prop 1 got clobbered for many good reasons, but a deciding factor was that a largish chunk of the population takes climate seriously. This meant that, even though they badly wanted transit, they were unwilling to accept a mediocre package that would have made global warming worse.”
Keep telling yourself that. The evidence is overwhelming that it was all about taxes. People think they should get good government services without having to pay for them. By pretending that you won that round because people agree with you, you’re only delaying the eventual realization that your strategy is doomed to failure.
I can’t believe how much the greenies don’t get it when they rail against roads. In truth, their efforts put them in the same company with the anti-abortionists.
The anti-abortion folks have for years focused mostly on one single punitive strategy: try to force people into sharing their “morality” by making the alternatives miserable.
That’s exactly the argument being pursued by the anti-roads people. They want to make driving so miserable that people will do less of it.
Both strategies are doomed to fail, because both strategies depend on a one-dimensional view of people and their motivations.
I love my car. I do; but it annoys me when the greenies talk about that being the root problem. That’s silly; because loving your car is so very much NOT the same as loving commuting. I hate commuting. In fact, I really don’t know of anyone who loves to commute. But if I have to commute (and I do– because I’m not about to pack up everything I own and sell my house every 5 years when I change jobs in this transient working world) then I’m going to commute by car, even if I spend two hours a day to do so. And as it gets worse because of the stupid anti-car crowd, a 3-4 hour-a-day commute will become the norm. Why? Because until we get a mass transit system that is more convenient to use than driving myself, I’m going to drive myself.
Now the greenies, who want to take the exact opposite approach, are only achieving derision from the rest of us. Trying to make driving less convenient than mass transit is never going to work, as long as you have essentially no mass transit.
Problem is, it takes decades to develop a good mass transit system. We could have taken a good step forward with Prop 1; but the anti-car folks foolishly decided to cross their arms and hold their breath–because it wasn’t a perfect package.
Greenies–go ahead and continue to wag your self-righteous fingers at the rest of us. It might make you feel superior; but that’s about all you’re going to accomplish.
Of course, I suspect that’s what it’s all about for you anyway.
@27
Lee, The Sierra Club actually is working on all of the strategies you suggest, but global warming is such a big problem — both in the magnitude of the needed change, and in the speed of the needed change — that we can’t just pretend that a massive highway expansion is moving in the right direction, especially when more than half of our GHG emissions come from transportation.
Again, you’re missing the point. A massive highway expansion is going to happen no matter what because people are going to continue to demand it. There are things you can control, and things you can’t control when it comes to dealing with this situation. Population growth in the areas outside of Seattle is a factor you can’t control.
Prop 1 got clobbered for many good reasons, but a deciding factor was that a largish chunk of the population takes climate seriously. This meant that, even though they badly wanted transit, they were unwilling to accept a mediocre package that would have made global warming worse.
Um, no. It was not a deciding factor. What sunk Prop 1 was anti-transit sentiment. The people who defeated Prop 1 defeated it because they want more of the public’s money to go to roads. And you helped them. Whether you figure this out tomorrow or ten years from now matters very little to me.
That’s a done deal, and now you really need to get a grip. It’s in your own best interest to shake it off, and to start thinking soberly about how to make what comes next better. One sign of progress will be when you stop mouthing road lobby talking points.
If I’m the one mouthing road lobby talking points, then why are you the one voting with them?
Please read comment #43 if you have any interest in not continuing to sound like a complete fool.
No new taxes! Cut services! BUILD FUCKING ROADS!!!
When Dino gets elected in ’08 I can’t wait for the 605 bypass to be unveiled…muahahahaha
@43, see:
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.....125362.asp
http://slog.thestranger.com/20....._swung_pro
1.) 52% of voters would have voted for a transit-only measure. Prop 1 was a last gasp attempt to pass a big heap of highway spending, which on its own would have failed. This killed light rail.
2.) There was an extremely strong preference for funding transit with tolls instead of more sales tax. The miserable taxing mechanism in Prop 1 was also a major factor in its defeat.
3.) about 11% of voters voted against Prop 1 because they were concerned about global warming (6% of whom said they would have voted for a transit-only bill, meaning that, if all transit-only global warming NO voters had voted yes, then Prop 1 would have been in a dead heat, instead of losing by 12%)
As the pollster said, “What was unusual and what was unique about this election was the decisive role of a small group of voters. In the absence of their concern about global warming, this would have been a much closer election than it was.”
You can also look at the 2007 results and compare the positive margins for other tax measures in King Co. with the large negative margin for Prop 1.
You are right that a lot of voters will always against any tax, but so what? This is the part you are not comprehending: Those anti-tax voters are never going to vote for light rail. If you want to understand what will get a transit tax passed, you need to look at the sub-population who might conceivably be willing to pay it. In that population, global warming is a big concern.
As for making people miserable because of traffic congestion, well, are they not miserable now? Were not the roads we have now a “solution” to congestion? The fact is, new roads just fill up, and then you are just as miserable as when you started, but you have wasted a bunch of money, and have made global warming worse.
So, transit is the answer, plus user fees, which actually do reduce congestion, as even a casual session with google will tell you.
Finally, your claim that you get transit faster by spending money on roads is… kind of funny.
#39 Liberal crusher:
ha ha. Spewing rhetoric is a convincing way to argue, no? A zingy one liner that ignores all the points made is soooo convincing, too.
The problem with your approach is that you would have to spend $750 billion on roads and expand every freeway by a multiple of 2 and double all the arterial roads as well to double the capacity of the road system to handle the next 1000000 people who will move here..
This doubling of road capacity is not going to happen for other reasons, principally that there is no room.
The rational approach is to ask, do we get more incremental mobility out of spending the next $1 billion on roads or transit? And the next, and the next.
The roads program of expanding 405 ands 167 and highway 9 and 509 etc. just here or there without DOUBLING ALL FREEWAYS AND ARTERIALS will not make a difference in moving people around. It will cost many billions. It only adds more cars to downtown Seattle, to major chokepoints like the entire stretch of 405 b/ Renton and Bellevue. It will not improve your travel time and except for the first year or so. If you happen to be in the tiny percent of people who drive on those specific road projects. Most of us don’t. Rail in contrast adds more mobility permanently with faster travel times than new road improvements here and there if the rail is a system that reaches most important destinations. The rail links north and south and east can each carry up to 100,000 trips a day or more; we would need new additional 6 lane highways north and south and east to match that. Try pricing the cost of another tunnel through Mt. Baker and through Mercer Island and cutting another swath through Bellevue and expanding the footprint of I 5 to make it twice as wide, or double decking everything, to see how far this gets finacially or politically.
And BTW you have not answered any of the points I made that rail works everywhere else, and rail does not mean you won’t have a car, and WE ALREADY HAVE ROADS AND BRIDGES AND NO ONE IS SAYING WE SHOULD REMOVE ALL THE ROADS AND CARS. THE SAME PEOPLE WHO CHOOSE RAIL FOR SOME TRIPS WILL USE THEIR CAR FOR OTHER TRIPS, duh.
We are only saying right now rail has a better marginal impact on mobility (ROI) than roads because we already have a road system that is pretty much maximized but we have no rail system at all yet. Have you ever studied economics and increasing or diminishing returns? the road system is definitely at the point where marginal returns of mobility are flat or negative. Spot improvements just draw more cars into the regional mixin bowl and detract from travel times for every other driver. Duh.
Or do you think Paris NY chicago Rome Moscow Bogota Mex. City SF Montreal Tokyo London etc. etc. were all WRONG AND STUPID to build their rail systems which carry millions of people to work, cheaper than driving and parking and insuring cars, every day???????????????????
The Seattle anti rail crowd’s refusal to face that fact is astounding.
Of course, this does not mean any particular rail proposal is good or bad orany particular road proposal is good or bad. We have some road proposals that are good and somerail proposals that are bad. But to be generically anti rail is as stupid as to say “there should be no roads at all, take them all out!” Roads pretty much work and are used everywhere. The same is true for rail. You anti rail folks are in a jihad against any rail. The pro rail folks are not in a jihad against any roads. They are saying we should keep the ones we have but we should add rail, too. Both have their uses. WE can do lots more with busses, too.
Oh BTW if Dino wants to run on a massive highway expansionincluding 605 by all means go for it. Tell us the price tag, too. The Gregoire campaign would like nothing better. Gas will be $4 a gallon by then climate change will be more at the forefront and no one wants more sprawl. Not to mention that the new 605 will either have massive tolls or be congested, too. Why? Because you are right, cars are so great! They are so great and useful they will fill up every highway and either totally degrade the travel times or require massive tolls.
Keep chasing your tails.
# 28 Roger Rabbit
Well said
@44, No, Lee, it is you who is missing the point. Totally.
Prop 1 guaranteed a massive road expansion. Now that it has failed, we have a chance to stop it, or at least slow it down. Slowing it down is almost as good as stopping it because, as polls show, the public is increasingly serious about global warming; at some point, massive highway expansion will be politically impossible. Some new highways will be built between now and then, but if you limit highway spending now, you will have reduced the total built over time.
This is not hard to understand.
It’s important that you get over your meltdown because hysterics only encourage your enemy — which is not the environmental movement, but the road lobby. And politics is at least partly about which side has better team spirit.
Also, totally loosing it makes you look bad to voters who are on the fence. They’re not sure about this expensive light rail thing, and they may not have time to get into all the details; they’re going to make judgments based on appearance. Somebody forwards them a wet-your-pants Horses Ass post, and the argument is lost.
I’ve almost never seen such bad messaging.
@49
Prop 1 guaranteed a massive road expansion. Now that it has failed, we have a chance to stop it, or at least slow it down.
Let me say this is clearly as I possibly can. NO WE DON’T. We do not have any chance at all to stop or slow down road expansions in this city. Why? Because with the growth patterns right now, the demand for road expansion will continue to increase. What we had the chance to do was to start NOW on getting the funding in place to provide a more complete rail alternative in this region. We failed at that, and therefore, without a rail alternative that allows for more people to live along the rail corridors, the demand for roads will be EVEN GREATER than it otherwise would have been. Prop 1 did not guarantee road expansion. The reality of this region’s infrastructure and population guarantees road expansion.
Slowing it down is almost as good as stopping it because, as polls show, the public is increasingly serious about global warming
Just because the public is increasingly serious about global warming does not mean that they’ll give up their car lifestyles. What it means is that they’ll buy cars that pollute less. There’s no reason to believe that the demand for roads is going to go away.
at some point, massive highway expansion will be politically impossible.
Right now, you sound exactly like the clowns who convinced themselves that Iraq would be a cakewalk. You’re completely disregarding basic common sense about how people behave.
It’s important that you get over your meltdown because hysterics only encourage your enemy — which is not the environmental movement, but the road lobby. And politics is at least partly about which side has better team spirit.
I’m sorry, but you’re not on “my side”. Both you and the anti-transit folks are on the same side in this. You’re both using extremism to deal with a problem that requires moderation, compromise, and a recognition that getting a metro area of 3 million people to agree on something won’t happen if a large chunk of those people are expected to conform to rigid ideals.
Also, totally loosing it makes you look bad to voters who are on the fence. They’re not sure about this expensive light rail thing, and they may not have time to get into all the details; they’re going to make judgments based on appearance. Somebody forwards them a wet-your-pants Horses Ass post, and the argument is lost.
Not if my anger resonates with the large numbers of people in this area who distrust folks who try to prevent roads from being built.
vichic
Don’t bring Erica Barnett’s Crap back up, she;s as confused as the Sierra Club.
I talked to Mike O’Brien, he told me they are not putting a transit-only thing on the ballot.
He lied to all of you who listened to him.
Erica C. (the Big C stands for Can’tEvenPretendToWriteAsWellAsKaushik) Barnett got it wrong? Please say it ain’t so!
BUSES ARE YOUR FUTURE
http://archives.seattletimes.n.....ry=transit
I think what we’re seeing in this post and the comments afterward is the difference between pundits and activists. Activists like those in the Sierra Club know that their words and influence can shape the political landscape. They speak and act accordingly. Pundits respond to what they perceive as the political landscape, assuming that it’s akin to a force of nature. Wrong. The political landscape is not a physical reality (like global warming, for instance). It is a social phenomenon that exists only because we believe in it.
Lee, what you need to understand is that your soapbox has the power to shape the debate. If you keep telling everyone that IT WILL BE PUBLIC POLICY TO PLAN FOR EVER-INCREASING SPRAWL, TRAFFIC, AND ROADS NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, well, you might just convince enough people that it’s true. Except it’s not: other cities in the world have managed to pursue sustainable growth patterns. Isn’t that what you want? If not, I’d like to hear why.
You have a pulpit. Why are you using it to spread defeatist rhetoric?
@55
Let me translate your comment into neocon, circa 2003:
I think what we’re seeing in this post and the comments afterward is the difference between pundits and activists. Activists like those in the Project for a New American Century know that their words and influence can shape the political landscape. They speak and act accordingly. Pundits respond to what they perceive as the political landscape, assuming that it’s akin to a force of nature. Wrong. The political landscape is not a physical reality (like a terrorist attack, for instance). It is a social phenomenon that exists only because we believe in it.
Lee, what you need to understand is that your soapbox has the power to shape the debate. If you keep telling everyone that AN INVASION OF IRAQ WILL BACKFIRE, well, you might just convince enough people that it’s true. Except it’s not: other countries have managed to defeat terrorism. Isn’t that what you want? If not, I’d like to hear why.
You have a pulpit. Why are you using it to spread defeatist rhetoric?
Lee
Let me see if I get it:
You really want light rail.
Fighting bad roads is pointless.
Technology will save us.
Well, that’s a strategy, but not one designed to do much about global warming. Moderation and compromise is required, and Prop 1 advocates should consider moderating their insistence on expensive capital projects that do not deliver real reductions in global warming pollution. Mother Nature cares little about our political reality.
Let me see if I get it:
You really want light rail.
Fighting bad roads is pointless.
Technology will save us.
Well, that’s a strategy, but not one designed to do much about global warming.
Why not?
First of all, I’m not talking about not fighting bad roads. If someone wants to build a road that serves no purpose, I’ll oppose it. But the Eastside and other areas around Seattle have some serious traffic problems that won’t be addressed by rail any time in the next 15-25 years. There are valid needs for road improvements and upgrades out there.
As for the other concerns, light rail allows for more people to get around without cars and new automobile technologies will certainly help get us to reduce greenhouse gases.
Moderation and compromise is required, and Prop 1 advocates should consider moderating their insistence on expensive capital projects that do not deliver real reductions in global warming pollution. Mother Nature cares little about our political reality.
What does such a project look like?
Our transportation investments and land use zones are results of public policy decisions within our governance system. They vary from place to place. In democratic societies they respond to votes (i.e. public opinion). Prop 1 is a good example. It was not popular enough; it went down. I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the war comparison here. Funding and civilian leadership aside, the factors that determine the outcome of war are outside the civic realm. Of course Home Front cheerleading will not turn the tide of literal battle. I agree: the idea of the omnipotent Will is one of the fatal flaws of the neoconservative outlook, as you’ve so helpfully illustrated.
But mixed metaphors aside, Lee, what’s your point? That you or I have no agency in defining how we shape the places in which we live? That sprawl is only viable urban form? That rail is dependent on public support but highways are not? That we should take no lessons from the 60 years of misguided urban development that created this mess in the first place?
What a grim and cynical outlook. I understand you’re bitter about the election, but really. If it’s all pointless, then why bother writing? Hang up your keyboard if you’re so certain that our future is preordained.
@59
But mixed metaphors aside, Lee, what’s your point?
My point is exactly what I explained in the main post. The idea that we can establish a policy that forces people to abandon their cars is folly, and it will backfire. The reality is that people will demand more roads and the region grows, and if the politicians in Olympia don’t deliver that, they will send people to Olympia who will.
That you or I have no agency in defining how we shape the places in which we live?
We all have very limited agency in defining it. You have to remember that there are a lot of people out there who demand more roads and see transit as a waste of money. I’ve criticized those people too. In fact, I tend to criticize them the most. But all I really have the power to do is to get them to at least acknowledge that they benefit indirectly from transit, even if they don’t use it.
That sprawl is only viable urban form?
It’s not a matter of viability, it’s a matter of preference. A certain percentage of the population in any metropolitan area will desire to live remotely. There are always going to be people who will deal with a long commute in order to live away from others or to spend less money on housing (or for other reasons). Good urban planning can mitigate sprawl, but rail is the essential component for doing that. What’s wrong about the Sierra Club position was that it assumes that you can mitigate sprawl by pissing on the people who live where a car is necessary.
That rail is dependent on public support but highways are not?
Both are dependant on public support, but since a smaller slice of the population is always willing to use rail, it’s harder to gather the kind of popular support for rail that you can for road improvements. Because rail has the power to pull larger numbers of commuters off the highway, it actually does benefit drivers, but most drivers don’t internalize that. That’s something that I have written about.
That we should take no lessons from the 60 years of misguided urban development that created this mess in the first place?
Personally, I think the most important lesson is to stop waiting for the silver bullet solution and start recognizing that we need to move forward even if it’s not perfect.
What a grim and cynical outlook. I understand you’re bitter about the election, but really. If it’s all pointless, then why bother writing? Hang up your keyboard if you’re so certain that our future is preordained.
I don’t think it’s all pointless yet. I still have some hope that we’ll get another chance to extend light rail in this region, but I do believe that the defeat of Prop 1 makes it a more uphill climb. In the end, we’re going to have more sprawl and more roads until we get there.
Fair enough. But the idea that congestion can be relieved by building more capacity has been thoroughly debunked. See the Victoria Transport Policy Institute paper Generated Traffic and Induced Travel for a review of the literature on this subject. Even rail does not decrease congestion; it offers an escape from it (which is great).
Again: new highway lanes do not solve congestion. At best they grant a few years’ respite at extraordinary cost.
Here are some durable and practical ways to reduce congestion: Congestion Reduction Strategies. I sincerely hope you’ll have a look.
Tolling to keep general purpose lanes flowing for transit, and to eliminate the need for new capacity. Just like with electricity generation, conservation before new capacity. We have not seriously tried that yet in transportation. Pricing will weed out the least valuable trips, and help fund transit and maintenance.
Light rail in the right places, more buses, streetcars, more vanpools. Pick the right tool for the job to maximize our transit investments.
Prioritizing street rights of way for buses, biking and walking, even at the expense of moving and stationary cars.
Focusing housing and job growth in places that already have a street grid — which more easily supports transit, biking and walking. These are found throughout the region. For example, it is great news to see downtown Everett winning the competition for a new UW campus as opposed to a suburban site.
Other taxes and practices that give drivers signals to drive less or pick more efficient vehicles (Pay as you go insurance, gas taxes, weight taxes or mileage taxes).
As for technology, the best estimates are that rising vehicle miles traveled will swamp the gains of clean fuels and more efficient vehicles. One has to tackle all three to get to 80% reductions by 2050. http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/gcindex.html
For good discussions of these issues see http://www.vtpi.org/winwin.pdf.
No one is talking about eliminating driving, but we need to stop subsidizing it (roadway expansion, parking minimums, undue auto priority on existing roads). Light rail is an important tool on the other side of the equation, in the right places, but there are lots of others in the tool box as well. Again, Prop 1 just did not cut it, and locked us into losing strategies on global warming. We can do better.
@61
Fair enough. But the idea that congestion can be relieved by building more capacity has been thoroughly debunked.
Not necessarily. When I was in high school in suburban Philly, the Blue Route opened (I-476), which allowed for an alternate route in driving to the airport from Philly’s north and west suburbs. It actually did make a very significant improvement in traffic flow. Eventually, any new highway will be used to capacity, but that’s not justification for saying that any new road construction is pointless. As population grows in an area (and the Seattle is growing fast), you have to build roads in order to keep with that growth.
Here are some durable and practical ways to reduce congestion: Congestion Reduction Strategies. I sincerely hope you’ll have a look.
And if you read through that, it talks about the equilibrium that develops between roads and transit. The problem we have here in this area is that we don’t have the transit part in large sections of this area. As a result, the equilibrium doesn’t even exist. That’s why it’s so vital to expand transit as we grow too.
@62
No one is talking about eliminating driving, but we need to stop subsidizing it (roadway expansion, parking minimums, undue auto priority on existing roads). Light rail is an important tool on the other side of the equation, in the right places, but there are lots of others in the tool box as well. Again, Prop 1 just did not cut it, and locked us into losing strategies on global warming. We can do better.
This is really what it comes down to, as I think this is where the battle lines are drawn. Many people see a deliberate lack of roadway expansion (and congestion pricing) as a direct attempt to eliminate driving. Justified or not, it’s a widespread belief. What I’ve been concerned with is that we’re going to eventually spark a significant backlash that’s going to make it even harder to promote rail solutions. I may be entirely too pessimistic here, but it’s hard to tell when you talk to people who live outside of Seattle and rely on a car to get where they need to go.
Question 6B
Would you support electronic tolls on the Lake Washington floating bridges to fund 520
replacement, I-90 maintenance, and more transit service between the eastside and Seattle?
70% yes
18% no
12% unsure
46 You wrote: “Finally, your claim that you get transit faster by spending money on roads is… kind of funny. ”
You want to talk about what’s funny? How about your attempt to distort what I said when what I said is RIGHT THERE IN PRINT for everyone to see how full of shit you are?
I’d say that if you’re attempting to misrepresent me, it’s a pretty funny attempt. The other option, of course, is that you’re so ill-informed as to believe that Prop 1 had no transit component.
So, which is it? Are you a liar or just stupid?
@65
Of course, I’m referring to congestion pricing that does not go towards road improvements. I believe, if I understand the Sierra Club’s position correctly, that they advocate both congestion pricing, but no road upgrades at all.
http://cascade.sierraclub.org/node/1330:
Sorry, I should have said practically no upgrades at all.
I checked out the PI link. It said that 45% of the no votes were focused on taxes. I’d love to hear you explain how that conflicts with what I said. Also, you quoted the article’s point about how 11% voted against the measure because of their concerns over global warming. That’s quaint, but meaningless. If you looked at the exit poll itself (on the Sierra Club’s website), it reports that 45% of the people who voted NO would have voted YES if the proposal had been for ROADS ONLY. So much for the conviction of the greenies.
Okay, there’s still loads of nonsense in your response; but I’m not going to waste any more time on it.
c4tacelchib
I was not aware that people had started exploding because of global warming. I’ll have to pay more attention to the news.
Oh and I come from a place (New York) with both rail AND (more) adequate roads. People who don’t want to drive, ride the train. People who want to drive, drive. Why do some people have such a problem with this concept?
Neither one is going to fix the congestion problems by itself; people still need to drive to GET to the train stations, unless you’re proposing people sleep there.
HONDA IS TESTING HYDOGEN FUEL CARS IN CALIF NEXT YEAR
THE GAS ENGINE IS ON THE WAY OUT
Who wants all the new trains? Businesses. They’d get the drones delivered in sufficient quantities to the cubicles on time every day. The Times had a story today about a “net profits tax.”
Fucking brilliant.
Impose a net profits tax on businesses to pay for all the trains anyone ever could hope for. Call Frank Chopp stat. Judy Clibborn needs to know we’ll vote for her again if she rams that kind of tax through.
Prop. 1 would have passed handily if it would not have meant such a massive sales tax increase. People will vote for a light rail train extension plan paid for by a net profits tax. That’s what we need.
Hi all,
How about recasting the entire argument.
Instead of roads vs. transit, why not discuss the hidden ways government affects the price of various modes. This matters because if prices can be made to reflect the true costs involved, the market stands willing to help us solve our transportation problems.
Let’s agree first to the political reality that gov’t has an obligation to provide some level of alternative service aside from cars for the many people who can’t drive (including millions of baby-boomers who soon will be too old).
Every time we subsidize the driver of a car, which is the currently successful transportation product, we make it harder for any kind of altenative to turn a profit, because the cost differential between driving and alternatives is tilted in favor of driving.
By simply removing existing or new subsidies for driving, we can get part of the distance to where we need to go
RTID would have been a terrible mis-step because it would have added a new subsidy to drive as it paid for roads with a non-user fee general tax.
It would have made it harder even than before to turn a profit running with any kind of transit.
Congestion pricing is a new, inefficient, bureacracy-creating way to do something we already can do efficiently with the gas tax.
So let’s say no to congestion pricing and no to any new roads that aren’t funded strictly by the user-fee of the gas tax.
Anyone who wants roads should be willing to pay for them with a higher gas tax and should not come panhandling to the general taxpayer for them.
Thanks, new left conservative #1
Wow, lots of angry people on this site. I can tell there is a lot of passion here, and that is good. We should direct this at the solution, and not each other. I have read a lot of great ideas here too. These need to get to our politicians.
I have been in transportation for fourteen years. I just wanted to share my thoughts and experience here, and hopefully contribute to this discussion.
Taxes – Yes, it was about taxes, but not peoples unwillingness to pay them. They do not see government utilizing their hard earned dollars efficiently or effectively. They want to see a return on their investment, and sooner, not later. Taxpayers are fed up with government continuing to increase taxes with no more benefits to show for it. Government (local and state) is out of control with its spending, and there are no serious measures to control it. This is why these measures go down. People are compassionate and will pay for services they deem worthy, and to fund institutions that manage their money prudently. This is not our government.
Light Rail – I have been in transportation for almost fourteen years. Light rail is a fallacy, and particularly in a sprawling area like the Puget Sound. Yes, it will have a place, even here, but not now and not in the near future. It is expensive in terms of capital and construction costs as well as operations and maintenance, it has questionable impact on environment and traffic congestion, and by time it is completed it will be obsolete. Too many politicians get involved and you end up with a system that is completely useless. Look around the nation and you will see plenty of evidence of these things. We can plan now for light rail in about twenty years, and if we do so accurately, and coordinate it with our regional planning and zoning, it will be less costly, and we can utilize new technology.
Penalties – Trying to force people out of their cars will not work. People will not give up their cars, particularly on the west coast. You will end up with a totally disenfranchised population, and you will see another taxpayers rebellion. It has been tried before. It does not work.
Relocation – With the housing market in the shape it is in, are you suggesting that people put their homes on the market now and start looking for a home. The realtors won’t like it because they can not sell the currently bloated inventory that is already out their. Many people who qualified for loans over the past few years can’t get them anymore because the subprime is gone. And do you want to talk about the impact of these changes on the family, on our children. It is not going to happen.
Roads projects – A comprehensive roads package is only a part of the package. I certainly do not want to see eight lane highways in the Puget Sound area. Yes, I am from out of the area, but the beauty of the area is one of the reasons I moved here. Roads do need to be improved on a regional basis. But there are many other things that we can do.
1. Telecommuting (tax incentives or mandated)
2. Staggered shifts in manufacturing areas.
3. Vanpooling (regional database)
4. Ridesharing (mandated)
5. High speed lanes (with tolls)
6. Special truck lanes
7. Coordinated signal lights (regional)
8. Better planning and zoning (with transportation considerations as a priority)
There are a lot of ideas that can be implemented within a year and have an immediate impact on congestion, commute times, and the environment. These ought to be at the top of our list.
8-lane highways are absolutely gorgeous, Dave!
Yes, they are, if you are a 747 looking for an emergency landing field. We just can not get enough concrete, can we?
Haha as long as people in this world “drive until they qualify,” we’ll be building wider and wider and more awesome roads…I can’t wait for cruising speed in the leftmost lane to be 100+ mph hehe
Where’s Scotty when you need him?
1) It sounds like most of your employees live near your business so you’re actually following Virgin’s advice.
2) How does light rail help someone from Silverdale?
3) For the employees that don’t live near you, they made a choice. They feel the benefit of working there outweighs the commute. There are others who may have chosen a less optimal job because it’s closer to where they live.
I don’t think that the public should bend over backward to provide a transportation system to move someone from his pleasant country home to his downtown office. Why in the world should an ordinary working stiff from Kent, pay taxes so a tech worker who wants the good life can have it both ways?
There are penalties in life. There are tradeoffs. Making a choice and then whining that Government should step in and cut a path through everyone’s front yard so that you personally can benefit is childish.
@83
Wow, I know this thread is old, but this comment is so stupid, I can’t keep myself from making fun of it.
1) It sounds like most of your employees live near your business so you’re actually following Virgin’s advice.
Actually, Virgin’s advice was to move the business closer to the employees. That hasn’t happened at all.
2) How does light rail help someone from Silverdale?
It doesn’t. How did so misunderstand my post so badly that you thought I was saying it did?
3) For the employees that don’t live near you, they made a choice. They feel the benefit of working there outweighs the commute. There are others who may have chosen a less optimal job because it’s closer to where they live.
Well, duh. Do you think I’m saying something different?
I don’t think that the public should bend over backward to provide a transportation system to move someone from his pleasant country home to his downtown office. Why in the world should an ordinary working stiff from Kent, pay taxes so a tech worker who wants the good life can have it both ways?
Because transit benefits everyone, not just the people who ride it. It relieves traffic on the roads and gives people more options for their daily commutes. Allowing people easier ways to get around allows for a city to grow without becoming horribly inefficient. Do you think only people who want the “good life” ride transit in other cities? C’mon.
There are penalties in life. There are tradeoffs. Making a choice and then whining that Government should step in and cut a path through everyone’s front yard so that you personally can benefit is childish.
Who made what choice here? What the fuck?