December 22, 2005
"Unsound Transit"

Ted Van Dyk, one of the token sensible voices at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer editiorial page, has a first-rate piece about Seattle's transit lunacy in today's Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal: "Unsound Transit"

Seattle has a long history of providing subsidies to those who least need them. ... But nowhere is the misallocation of public money more evident than in public transportation, where Rail Madness eats billions that could otherwise be devoted to truly efficient transportation technologies
Read the whole thing.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 22, 2005 09:45 AM | Email This
Comments
1. Stephan,
I have always said, "The same Seattle media would have run Sound Transit out on a RAIL years ago ,if they were Republicans". Just the fact that the "selected" company was holding the bonds and getting a 300% return would have been enough.
Not to mention the seemingly constant and continual cost overruns that had already surfaced.

Posted by: Mike P on December 22, 2005 10:04 AM
2. It ain't over till it's over.

Why can't the board be elected officials rather than being appointed elected officials?

Tacoma and Everett CC are having a couple of boondoggles being proposed on the next run. In one case, the payback, assuming zero O&M, is 500 years.

And these made unSound Transits' first cut on the next go around.

Posted by: swatter on December 22, 2005 10:08 AM
3. Say it with me.

bus rapid transit will get stuck in traffic...

Posted by: dw on December 22, 2005 11:12 AM
4. Dw, say it with me.

Surface grade rail will get stuck in traffic... (unless they are making dedicated rail line apart from other traffic - which is not happening with ST)

Posted by: C. Oh on December 22, 2005 12:02 PM
5. DW omitted a trivial point: Surface grade rail will kill motorists in traffic.

Posted by: Hank Bradley on December 22, 2005 12:27 PM
6. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) does not mean just throwing more buses on the road. As I understand BRT, the buses get their own lane and traffic lights so they do not get stopped by traffic or red lights. When carved out of an existing road, the bus lane is curbed off so general traffic does not drift into it. As a bus approaches a controlled intersection, everybody else gets a red light and the bus gets a green light.

I have never experienced BRT, so I remain a little skeptical, but it sounds better than Sound Transit's Link Light Rail, which will work about the same as BRT and cost billions more in dollars and scores more in lives.

Posted by: Legast on December 22, 2005 01:30 PM
7. So, why is this BRT a good deal on existing roads? They are squeezed in enough.

I don't like Light Rail and I don't like BRT. I like more roads even if I have to pay a quarter extra per gallon.

Posted by: swatter on December 22, 2005 02:34 PM
8. Sound Transit is a modern day WPA. If it keeps union rolls full and "D" boxes filled in, it's a success. Who cares if anybody ever rides it?

Posted by: Organization Man on December 22, 2005 03:45 PM
9. The trouble is that many implementations claim to be BRT, but don't really grade-separate or implement traffic light control. (See Metro's attempts at BRT along Aurora, for example.)

The other issue is that many instances would require taking away a lane of vehicle traffic, and actually reducing capacity on the roadway.

Successful BRT only works as a precursor to rail implementation, usually using alleyways and abandoned railroad rights-of-way. Metro's use of the E3 Busway in SoDo is a pretty good example.

Posted by: Mickymse on December 22, 2005 04:28 PM
10. I like the light rail in Portland. I don't use it all the time, but it's popular and convenient enough that it helps to keep traffic congestion down. And the last light rail line trimet built was done early and under budget. Light rail also seems to attract more higher income commuters than buses, although I'm not sure why. The energy efficiency of rail versus bus transit should probably be factored into the cost benefit equation. I still remember learning about that sort of thing in physics 101. I used to live in Seattle when the RTA was on the ballot for the first time and I can't believe that it has been this long and it's still not done.

Posted by: OR voter on December 23, 2005 03:42 AM
11. To understand what Seattle politicians have in mind for the rest of us, look at the current mess in New York City. It's a patronage system, no more or less.


This is the city that protests grocery stores. Dissent and NIMBYism is no longer an occasional activity but a lifestyle. The only way to placate critics is to buy them off.


That's why any project proposed will be underplanned, oversold, over budget and underdelivered. For all the good public transit could do, I can't understand anyone thinking Puget Sound area politicians qualified to build it.

Posted by: South County on December 23, 2005 04:29 AM
12. South,

Good points.
You say, "I can't understand anyone thinking Puget Sound area politicians [are] qualified to build it."
They aren’t. That is to say, either "thinking, or "qualified." Liberals will believe in anything so long as no facts are associated with it.

Posted by: Amused by liberals on December 24, 2005 08:47 PM
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