Joel Connelly does a good job explaining why Tim Eyman’s attack on red light cameras in I-985 would likely end up killing and maiming people.
These are not the cash cows Eyman claims they are, with most of the fines actually going to pay for the cost of installation, operation and maintenance. If I-985 passes, and these local revenues are directed to the state general fund, the cameras will be removed, as there will be no way to pay the contracters who operate them. And drivers will once again be free to run lights at these dangerous intersections.
So I-985 means no red light cameras and no red light camera revenue to pay for promised congestion improvements.
Of course, that’s not the only promise Eyman’s made that he cannot deliver. Timmy’s done a good job hyping up his initiative’s promise to open HOV lanes to single occupancy drivers during non-peak hours, planting visions of zipping through traffic in many voters’ heads, but it turns out that at least on 520, rather than opening the HOV lane to all comers, I-985 will likely result in the lane being closed off entirely.
According to former WSDOT head Doug McDonald, there’s just no way to safely and efficiently bring three lanes of traffic down to two as 520 approaches the floating bridge westbound; attempting to merge three full capacity lanes down to two would actually create longer backups and ultimately slow down traffic more than eliminating the third lane altogether.
Not being a transportation engineer myself, I checked with a WSDOT official who confirmed off the record that this issue has been studied, and that yes, shutting down the westbound HOV lane would be a likely response to I-985’s passage.
Yet more unintended consequences from an Eyman initiative.
As I’ve said before, this is one of the stupidist initiatives yet birthed from the loins of the master of stupid initiatives, Tim Eyeman.
I well remember the snowstorm two years ago that hit the Seattle area during a Seahawks monday-night football game. I hit the freeway on I-405 in Bellevue a few minutes before 7:00 p.m., heading home to Everett. Everything was fine until I just passed the Totem Lake exit, then traffic came to a complete halt. At the same time, traffic immediately moved into the carpool lanes, because similarly “bright” people had insisted that since there was no rush hour after 7:00 p.m., the HOV lates should be open to all traffic at that hour.
For now, let’s leave aside the internal gap in logic which says that for some reason you need MORE lanes available AFTER rush hour, and also skip the faulty conclusion that rush hour ends on I-405 before 7:00 p.m.
Instead, lets focus on the facts which cause my normally one-hour commute to turn into a ten-hour commute. Far ahead of me, on the long and now-slippery down-grade which heads toward the Woodinville interchange, a bus and a tractor-trailor had tangled up, blocking most lanes of traffic. Nobody was going anywhere until that mess was cleaned up, and what was sorely needed was some sanding and de-icing trucks on that downslope and the up-slope leading up the other side.
But no emergency vehicles, much less DOT trucks, were going to get there for hours. Why? Because the HOV lanes were now full of single-occupancy vehicles, all similarly stalled and with nowhere to go, and the shoulders on both sides were blocked with stalled cars (out-of-gas, batteries drained by running engines, lights, heaters & stereos in a car that isn’t moving, and overheated cars).
Now, if the HOV lanes had been available, emergency crews and DOT trucks could have been on the scene within an hour and cleaned up the mess, and I still could have gotten home before 10:00 a.m. Instead, I was on the road until around 5:00 a.m. I remember around 4:00 a.m. the DOT executive PLEADING with people not to get on the road for the morning commute, at least not until the road was cleared of the traffic left over from the EVENING commute.
And Tim Eyeman want’s to make that situation permanant on all our highways.
It’s rididulous.
Red light cameras are a sham. In cases where cities have installed red light cameras, those very same cities have found that “they work too well”. When they say they work too well, they mean that traffic infractions have dropped off so substantially that the cameras have been unable to meet revenue expectations.
I frankly find it offensive to use red light cameras as a tool for generating revenue. The idea is to prevent traffic infractions, but when people end up obeying the law, there ends up being a budget problem for enforcement. Where is the logic in that? If everyone obeys the laws, does that mean that we no longer have law enforcement funding? Funding for law enforcement should not be tied to collecting fines and penalties at all.
Additionally, there have been cases where red light cameras have been abused, by setting light timings to such short intervals that they will catch “offenders” who otherwise would not be breaking any laws.
In the end, the public would be better served by traffic enforcement made up of actual police officers. Honestly, there are situations where people may run a red light and there could very well be an reasonable reason for it. A police office on the scene is capable and trained to make such a judgment. A camera is not. And all that does it tie up the courts dealing with traffic infractions that could have been easily dealt with by an officer on the scene.
Gotta love the fact law-and-order conservatism has shifted to ignore-the-law-and-disorder Libertarianism. A single dose of Dori Monson lately will give you a feel for just how radicalized and insane these people have become.
Neither Eyman nor his funders (Kemper Freeman) can give a flying f%&k about how the overall transportation system works. For these tired right wingers, it’s all about fomenting envy. They know very well that HOV lane is carrying way more people per hour than general purpose lanes. But, it’s not people self-centered conservatives care about. It’s vehicles. Or, more specifically, tires. Count the tires…
When Gore won the popular vote in 2000, you saw a similar refrain from the right: they took that blue and red state map, and waved it around saying “look at all the red.” As if prairie dogs, sagebrush and empty land should all be registered to vote.
Regarding the dual-use of HOV lanes, I have seen how other states have made successful use of them during off-peak hours. But in those locations, they did not have a mass transit system that uses the HOV lanes like ours do.
We should not be hobbling our transit system, by expanding the use of HOV lanes beyond their intended purpose. Taking a bus already adds a reasonable amount of time to a commute in many cases, those riding the buses should not be punished by making the HOV lanes a free-for-all during off peak hours.
When I read I-985 at first, I thought the traffic synchronization was a great idea, but then when I read the details, I saw that traffic synchronization was a very minor feature of a very bad initiative.
It’s almost as if Tim Eyman wants no taxes for transportation uses, but he wants the state to spend money on nothing but transportation. It is ridiculous. I-985 is a very bad idea and will impede any transportation progress regardless who sits in the Governor’s office.
# 2: I’m not a big fan of the red-light cameras either. But the initiative process, on a state-wide basis, is a really lousy way to manage an issue like this.
I have to go through Lynnwood regularly, and they’ve set the cameras up at the major thorough-fares around the city. It’s a pain not to be able to “follow” traffic through the intersection on a stale yellow light, especially when some of those light are very long ones. But I figure Lynnwood has the right to regulate their streets as they see fit. If I don’t like it, I can always avoid Lynnwood, and do my shopping elsewhere, or drive around it.
But Tim Eyeman’s initiatives, especially some of the ones over the past three years or so, have always attempted to cancel out local laws. He wants the farmer/voter in Okanogan to tell the voter in Seattle that they can’t tax themselves for better mass transit if they want to. He wants to tell citizens of Lynnwood that they can’t use red light cameras if they so choose. He wants to substitute his top-down view of how government should operate around the state, the citizens of the various localities be damned.
Uhh…spineless: you seem to be arguing against yourself. If you follow Dori Monson’s tired conspiracy theories, and believe red light cameras are only installed to generate revenue, then – following your silly logic – they would be removed once the cash didn’t roll in.
The idea that dozens of already-stretched-thin police could be deployed and do the same work as a red light camera is also ridiculous. It takes 20 minutes to issue a citation. During that time, an officer would miss several other offenders.
Spineless, if you are advocating for more anarchy on the roads – and more death, destruction, and higher insurance rates – then just say it. Beating around the bush is just plain boring.
Many cities use traffic synchronization to slow traffic down…by using red lights to prevent arterials from becoming freeways, and allowing for breaks in the steady stream of traffic which can make major roads nearly impossible to access. There is a good argument for this, since many unsignalized intersections along those arterials include cars trying to enter the busy arterial…oftentimes taking big risks to do so.
Another case of “be careful what you wish for.”
Yep, the “traffic sychranization” idea is a promise to get something for nothing. Sure, it helps a bit – which is why in most of the places where it WOULD help, it has already been done. Eyeman knows that. He’s throwing it in to make it look like he’s adding something new and better that won’t cost anything. But you hardly need a statewide initiative to do that. All you need to do is to allocate a little more money, assuming you are willing to subtract it from some other project. That doesn’t need an initiative process, it can be handled by the legislature.
Rush begins… Watch out folks the money is going to be gone before Jan 2009.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sp.....2404.story
Goldy, the consequences are hardly unintended. This has been Eyman’s game for years.
Write an initiative that he knows will force the government to do stuff that people will get pissed off at, all the while lying about the consequences during the campaign for said initiative.
When government does what initiative requires it to do, claim that government is punishing the public.
Write another initiative because government punished the public.
Repeat each year.
Make 6 figures each year doing this.
Along the way, spread massive amounts of verbal diarrhea on as many internet message boards as possible.
@1 I’ve come to believe(for the moment)that the HOV lanes should be open to only mass transit, vanpool vehicles and emergency vehicles. I conclude that HOV lanes should not be open to private vehicles, no matter the occupancy load per vehicle. This is based on my reading of the linked research report on HOV usage – DOT has no idea whether people are actually carpooling or if congestion is lessened by letting these people in the HOV lanes.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/resear...../584.2.pdf
The cameras in in the cities started as a safety issue but looks like a revenue issue.
One of the issues is to open up the HOV lanes during non peak hours. The state will fight this to the end. The state has the Pilot program on state route #167 called Hot-lanes (pay to drive) and once the HOV lanes are completed through out the state those lanes will be Hot-lanes watch and see.
I will be voting yes.
@ 11:
I agree; drivers with a “brat in the back” sure aren’t helping traffic.
Why the hell should we spend billions to build lanes, then allow hockey parents to clog them up motoring their brood around in express fashion?
rhp6033@1 spews: Poor me. Hey I remember the same snowstorm and I AVOIDED the freeways. It wouldn’t have mattered what lane you were in rhp6033. People would have moved into the CPL as they did on I-5.
Why? Because most fools can’t drive in the snow! And… since FUWA don’t want to plow up the road turtles… people suffer.
Tragic you got stuck. I know the bus driver who got stuck. He said he had no traction on the compacted ice and slid down the hill. When the snow started WA DOT did what?
BREAKING — Boeing Strike Settlement
KING 5 News reports that Boeing and union negotiators have agreed on a tentative contract. The proposed settlement is, of course, subject to approval by union members.
I’ll probably vote for Tim’s initiative. Anything to hurt King County and to potentially lessen government power!
@2 How often do you actually see a police vehicle on the streets of Lynnwood, Federal Way, or other cities that use red light cameras? Sure, the cameras have a “Big Brother” quality from them that many people don’t like, but we rabbits love them! A mechanical device that catches every red light runner gives rabbits a chance to get across the crosswalk alive! That reduces the amount of fucking I have to do to keep the rabbit population stable, and believe me, at the rate rabbits get run over in our cities my tired dick could use a rest!
Well, Pud, congratulations on your snow expertise. I also stay of the highways. Keep my Thomas Bros. at hand and zig and zag and get home.
Now about WSDOT, how much do you want them to spend to be ready for one event a year? And most times there is enough warning for folks to stay home?
Eyman is a profoundly deranged psychopathic individual. I loved it when the mortgage meltdown caught up with his investment banker sugar daddy. Unfortunately that wasn’t enough to put the slimy hustler out of business.
I sure hope the voters see through this newest craptastic load from Timmeh and just learn to ignore this quick buck artist.
@ 18
Oh, Puddy has “snow” expertise, but it has nothing to do with driving in the stuff.
Oh, Puddy has “snow” expertise
Yep, completely snowed by right wing bullshit.
Highway 167 the state charges to use the hov lanes for single occupancy vehicles. They said if it works (we get rich) they would expand it to other highways.
As long the state gets revenue it’s fine even though the HOV lanes where never intended to be use that way.
Like the lottery money going to pay for schools YEAH!
Silver spoon fryboy Dunmire certainly trickles down on the electorate with this piece of garbage. An initiative that takes money from the general fund, local cities, Eastern Washington and the Transportation Department so we can spend millions to SHUT down working HOV lanes.
Lazy ass neocons who believe they can get something for nothing should be forced to get their GED’s.
I wonder if this rumor I heard somewhere else about the 520 HOV lane is true. That it was originally a toll-bypass lane for Metro, and one of the reasons why it was built on the right shoulder, and not the left? Although I do remember about 15-20 years ago, the HOV lanes on 405 were on the right, not the left as they are now. In the case of 520, if what I heard is true, I can see why it is 3 or more not 2 or more in the car to be able to use it. They are trying to keep use of that lane down. Close the lane, the buses will have to fight it out, too.
Recently, I found out a thing about the idea of opening them off-peak, and it is that rush hour no longer is 3-6, it starts earlier, and if the new Buisness Access-Transit lanes on Elliot/15th Ave NW are covered under Eyman’s initiative, it will be another thing that slows down 2 heavily used Metro routes, 15 and 18. The Ballard Bridge slows them down all the time, that can’t be helped. The 15 and 18 also pass by Ballard High School, and they are one of the high schools already part of the Seattle School District’s plan to give students bus passes instead of using school buses. This make an already full bus uncatchable.(When drivers are telling passengers south of BHS heading Downtown to catch the next bus) The time Ballard is dismissed? Before 3PM for sure. The BAT lanes help make up some time. I would like to see off-vehicle, proof of payment fare collection instituted on some of the busiest bus routes, to speed them up. It is one of the reasons Metro’s fare recovery is so low. The Ride Free Area is another, for several reasons, including the fact that everybody is getting off at the front door while paying the fare. I do my part to speed it up, I use dollar coins wherever possible.
Another thing I noticed, Eyman says that Portland opens up HOV lanes during off-peak hours. He ignores the transit lanes on Morrison and Yamhill in Downtown, but I doubt smart drivers would drive in these lanes, which are paved with different materials on purpose. They are the lanes that the MAX trains use in Downtown. The Transit Mall being modified for joint rail/bus/car traffic use is only going to buy TriMet a decade before the more expensive subway option comes into planning. They could run longer trains, if they ran in a subway downtown.
Not all of the improvements TriMet has done with rail are great. Like the DMUs they procured for the Westside Express service. They asked for the aerodynamic cab option, but on the second end, cab controls. Kind of weird looking when running in reverse. TriMet wanted to use Light Diesel Multiple Units so they can have a potential one-seat ride on MAX, but Portland and Western could not get their customers to agree to be served when WES was not operating, so a transfer at Beaverton will be part of the operation.
http://www.trainweb.org/ultrad...../1002.html
Just to clear up something that hasn’t been aired yet, red-light cameras actually don’t work to reduce accidents. Studies have even been done to show that they increase accidents:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/a.....camer.html
The post also correctly points out that the studies that show that the cameras work are funded by the insurance companies who can jack up your rates when you get ticketed.
I don’t want I-985 to pass, but Connelly is really misreading the electorate if he thinks that what he wrote today hurts I-985’s chances of passing. It may do the opposite.
K – It was Monday night football home game. Wasn’t that the night Shawn Alexander ran for ~200 yards? So they should have been aware of traffic and also got started early. DOT caused the problem K, plain and simple.
Hey yelling loser boy, do you remember where I’m from – idiot?
Also, the next time it snows on Snoqualmie pass let’s take a drive. You in your loser mobile and me in my vehicle. I’ll race you and we’ll see who is the snowjob.
28 – Shit! He’s changing the subject.
Right wing bullshit is losing hard Stupes and all you want to do is get into another kind of pissing match.
No sale. The topic of conversation at this comment board is, has been and probably always will be REPUBLICANS SUCK!!!
I-895 looks like a toss up.
http://www.washingtonpoll.org/.....60,6,Slide 6
@28
I didn’t realize there was an Idiot, WA. That explains a lot.
Just to clear up something that hasn’t been aired yet, red-light cameras actually don’t work to reduce accidents. Studies have even been done to show that they increase accidents:
Guess there are damned lies and then statistics. Here’s a study that says they work.
http://www.stopredlightrunning.....search.htm
@32
Again, look at who funds the studies. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is funded by the insurance companies, who can triple your rates when you get ticketed. Two of the studies said nothing about accidents (which is what ostensibly they’re trying to prevent). If you read the report I linked (which is far more recent – this year), they studied many of these older studies and found them to be highly flawed.
It’s easy to figure out where the truth lies when you understand who’s more motivated to lie about something. There are a lot of interests out there who have an incentive to claim these things work, and it’s very easy to manipulate crash statistics to make it look real.
@ 6
Haha… you think this is some tired conspiracy theory? I guess you haven’t read about the red light cameras in Dallas, for example. They are removing a large number of them because they “aren’t profitable”. They had to make a decision to either keep the cameras and lay off police officers, or get rid of the unprofitable cameras. They chose the latter.
My point is that in virtually every instance of red light installation, there have been unrealistic financial expectations for the system, and I really don’t see how that is arguing with myself.
In response to your belief that deploying police officers would be somehow over extending the police and would cause police to miss other traffic offenders while they are giving a ticket to a single motorist… Are you serious? If you see a motorcycle cop sitting at the intersection, that is an extremely effective deterrent to running a red light.
But in the end, yes we all just want anarchy on the roads. Lots of death and destruction, and higher insurance rates are fantastic!! While we are at it… let’s get rid of all the laws for the roads. Drivers licenses for 10 year olds! You do realize that your anarchy, death, destruction comment was wholly moronic right?
But beyond your fear-baiting for red-light cameras being the savior of the roadway, do you have any evidence that red-light cameras have any bearing whatsoever with insurance rates? If you do, I would love to see it.
Puddy;
Usually I avoid the traffic in snow by driving either very early or very late. But on the day in question, the snow in Bellevue wasn’t that bad, the streets just had a little dusting, so I figured I could get home if I hurried, before it got much worse. I had the radio on the Seahawks game, and that idiot Dori Monson was pretending to be a sports announcer and making wisecracks about “typical game-day traffic”, without any warning about what was going on outside the stadium.
The problem wasn’t apparant until AFTER I passed the totem lake interchange, and most of the time I spent on the road was trying to get to the NEXT exit, which I didn’t get to until about 3:00 a.m. (at which point I had to pull off and gas up before proceeding again). So turning to local roads wasn’t an option, I was stuck between exits.
Besides, until I get past the Woodinville interchange, what are my local route options between Bellevue and Everett? 520 west to Hwy 9? That wasn’t any better, as the radio reported (after I turned it to another station). Through Kirkland to Juanita Way in Bothel? I would have had to make that decision much earlier, and usually that’s a much worse route in bad weather. If I would have known the situation I would have taken 520 West to I-5, as it was marginally better than I-405, but again that would have required knowledge of the situation at the beginning of my trip.
Or, perhaps, we could expect that there would be problems from time to time from any number of sources, and not waste those carpool lanes by opening them up to general traffic?
The red light systems being removed as “unprofitable” is only because the companies which sell the systems to the cities talk them into signing bad contracts. The cities don’t want any extra expense, so they sign contracts whereby the company which installs and operates them gets a big share of the revenue. At the time, they think that they are getting something for nothing, as the system pays for itself.
But once the system stops generating the amount of money the private company wants from it, they got back to the cities and demand that the cities start to subsidize it, or they will remove the cameras. Some give in and start paying for the system, others tell the companies to take the cameras and go. Notice that it is usually the smaller cities, with less expertise in dealing with such vendors, who fall for this approach.
A professional purchasing manager with time to investigate these issues prior to signing the contract will make it a long-term contract which the private company is required to operate during the entire length of the contract, regardless of the amount of revenue collected. Funny how their revenue projections change when the risk gets placed in their hands.
There was another example of a questionable facility that needs to be clarified under I-985 if it passes. In the South of Downtown neighborhood, between Royal Brougham and Spokane Street, there is a bus-only street. This was never a road, it once was a rail right of way, back when trains pulled into Union Station. Metro buses have been using it since the tunnel opened. The lights only go green in the North-South direction when a bus passes by or a pedestrian wants to cross. Also paralelling it until just South of Lander is the LINK Light Rail line. A lot of buses use this route, especially heavily used routes 101, 106, 150, and 174.
@37
Add Third Ave in downtown Seattle to the list as well.
If I-985 passes you’ll definitely see a legal challenge. Tim Eyman’s initiatives have not fared well in court.
Lynnwood’s done well with the red light cameras and they’ve helped cut down on some red light runners but those revenues are tied to specific police and fire department salaries. Not a good policy, especially when your stated goal is safety, not revenue. It almost begs the question: Would the city encourage red light running to increase revenues?