Speaking of that UW professor who lives on Vashon Island, but recommends that people should live and work in the same place, I was reminded of this recent Seattle P-I editorial. "Sprawl: Planning for health"
Seattle, King County and Washington state have made progress in combating suburban sprawl. But there is a lot more to do.Of the 7 members of the P-I editorial board, I find at least 3 who live in Kitsap County (Mark Trahant, Thomas Shapley and Kimberly Mills)The struggle is more urgent than most of us tend to think. As a new report shows, containing sprawl, creating densely populated urban centers and ending our excessive reliance on cars are matters of life, death and good health for people as much as for the environment.
It's not just that you live on the fair island. It's that you don't live in the urban core as you urge the rest of the steaming masses to do.
You rely on a car as much as anyone else who lives in the exurbs. I wonder if the ferries are any more cost effective than a two lane asphalt road going the same distance.
Cheers,
Posted by: steve miller on July 24, 2006 07:31 PM"As of FY 2004, the ferries had increased the farebox recovery ratio to 78.5%, nearly achieving its 80% goal three years ahead of schedule. Two runs, the Seattle-Bainbridge and the Edmonds-Kingston ferries, operate "in the black" with run-specific farebox recovery ratios of 120.1% and 120.9%, respectively."
Could the ferry system be better run? Absolutely. I think it ought to be made more effecient. And it's right to point out that the above numbers do not include capital costs. But compare those numbers to any transportation system in the region.
I don't mean to intrude ... but since the posts seem to be pointed in my direction, I thought I would respond.
best wishes, Mark
Posted by: Mark Trahant on July 24, 2006 07:51 PMHowever, he still hasn't addressed the point of living outside the urban core ... which I believe was the point of the post. Sprawl is OK as long as a car isn't used, and the transportation is subsidized? Good luck with that one.
For the record, I support outward growth. Gives people room, as well as the American dream of owning their own lil' piece of turf.
Posted by: jimg on July 24, 2006 08:10 PMI thought I was reading HA for a second with out the four-letter words......Your point is well taken and very sound, but lets not put Mr. Trahant on the stake just yet.
Let's hope Mr. Trahant keeps reading SP, and hears the voices of reason (Voters & Taxpayers).
Posted by: Chris on July 24, 2006 08:40 PMI knew before I read it that the editorial board members that live in Kitsap Co. would justify their commute by arguing that they utilize mass transit; yet they would not address the principal question. Why don't they force their spouses and kids to live in the utopian urban core, as they would have the rest of us?
Posted by: Shaun on July 24, 2006 08:43 PMAsk a WA state worker what HE pays to use ride the bus or train to work... it's not what the private employees pays by a long shot...
$50 a year for unlimited bus or Sounder FlexPass.
$50 a year
The real question is how they are going to colloect from all those animals to pay for that bridge for them to safely cross whatever road that is!
Posted by: Cheryl on July 24, 2006 09:13 PMNotice that Mr. Trahant justifies the entire subsidized ferry system for the sake of the few runs that are profitable. Why should the many more of us who use roads have to pay for the few who use ferries? I suspect that if the ferry passengers, or for that matter Sounder train passengers had to foot the full cost of their comfortable and scenic rides, they'd get back into their cars, or find it economically more feasible to live in other places.
As long as we have smug journalists failing to question and actively write and editorialize for more fiscally sound transporation policies we will continue to squander valueable tax dollars.
And it's not that conservatives are entirely against transit. We are not. It's just that we have the sense to expect our government to prioritize dollars for the system that carries the vast majority of goods and commuters. And then, once the roads are properly maintained and expanded as needed, we can begin to cautiously explore transit with a very long term and fiscally viable plan.
Posted by: Jeff B. on July 24, 2006 09:55 PMPersonally I don't have enough information to comment on the relative merit of economics of the ferry system, but overall it does seem to need government money to survive. For Mr. Trahant to cherry pick a run or two to show that it's financially self-supporting is disingenuous. But to give him credit, he did say that the entire system was recovering 80% of the cost of all trips.
I'd say that I personally disagree with most of what his newspaper has to say, but I don't know, because I don't read his newspaper.
What was most enlightening was that he said that he lived on Bainbridge Island because his kids found it an island paradise. Can't argue with that, who'd like to live in Seattle? Oops, the unwashed masses that don't own island dachas.
I don't agree with Mr. Trahant, but he has my respect for putting his head in the teeth of the lion. Please, let's treat him with respect. After all, we're not the low-lifes that comment on HA.
Posted by: Obi-Wan on July 24, 2006 10:34 PMFine bottomfeeders they are.
Posted by: Playin' Possum on July 25, 2006 05:40 AMHow about a law capping property values in these areas at a low enough level a Wal-Mart employee can afford them? Say, a legal limit on rents of $250 / mo? How about a limit on starter condos of $40,000?
If the numbers don't add up, the government can make them add up. Just take that property and redistribute it!
Any takers?
Posted by: Playin' Possum on July 25, 2006 05:49 AMBut the more interesting facts belong to where the WSF came from. As quoted from Wikipedia (which substantially reflects what I already understood to be accurate.):
Washington state maintains the largest fleet of passenger and auto ferries in the United States and the third largest in the world. The system, known as Washington State Ferries, serves communities on Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands.
The ferry system has its origins in the "Mosquito Fleet", a collection of small steamer lines serving the Puget Sound area during the later part of the nineteenth century and early part of the 20th century. By the beginning of the 1930s, two lines remained: the Puget Sound Navigation Company (known as the Black Ball Line) and the Kitsap County Transportation Company. A strike in 1935 forced the KCTC to close, leaving only the Black Ball Line.
A Washington State Ferry arrives in Downtown Seattle.Toward the end of the 1940s the Black Ball Line wanted to increase its fares, to compensate for increased wage demands from the ferry workers' unions, but the state refused to allow this, and so the Black Ball Line itself shut down. In 1951, the state bought substantially all of Black Ball's ferry assets for $5 million. It only intended to run ferry service until cross-sound bridges could be built, but these were never approved, and the state Department of Transportation runs the system to this day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_State_Ferries
It appears the the Unions busted one private ferry system, and helped the governemnt co-opt the other. The unions and government are also a factor in the failure of a recent private system to function.
As a Kitsap resident, I am hit hard by the skyrocketing ferry rates, so I am a little defensive about the idea of having to pay "full fare" and I am certainly not happy with the politics that killed the private foot ferry from Kingston to Seattle. I think some of you are wrong to think the ferries should be 100% farebox covered when you ride on tax subsidized roads. No, I don't think the ferries should be free. I think they should be privatized and allowed to hire whom they want and not be forced to hire union workes if they do not want to. The unions managed to kill off jobs for sailors before and they will do it again, and no one wins.
-Eyago
Posted by: Eyago on July 25, 2006 08:19 AMMost Washington State ferry routes are legally part of the state highway system. They are still ferry routes because, many years ago, the decision was made not to build additional bridges across Puget Sound. However, that makes them no less eligible for funding out of the gas tax revenues than the little-traveled highways in the remoter parts of the state that most WA state residents never drive on. Some expenses are just shared for the common good.
Incidentally, the ferry system carries about 25 million riders per year, certainly more than your average stretch of rural highway, and definitely more than "a few thousand commuters".
Finally, the crews on the ferries are unionized, but they would be no matter who ran the system. Or do you think that Able Seamen, Mates, and Masters just grow on trees?
The elite (be it in Oly or the PI editorial board room) believe the unwashed masses cannot decide for themselves where they should live and work.
In order for their utopia idealism to work we must be told where we can live, how much space we can have, what we can do where we live, where we work, how we get to and from our place of living and place of work.
Mr. Trahant, I applaud your entering the dialog here on SP. However you proposal is Communism, a failed dehumanizing ideology.
My opposition to your idea is not no the merits of the idea of urban sprawl per se. It is because it fundamental infringement on liberty. Government at any level or in any manner has no business telling any citizen where and how to live, or where or how they can work, or how and when they can move between the two.
You proposal is as a fundamental infringement on the rights of an individual as the Soviet System's work and apartment assignment were.
I have done the cost benefit analysis on my commute, driving my 15mpg pickup truck to work gas would have to cost $30 dollars a gallon before the economics would reach the break even point for me to take transit. If you were to force me to take transit it would amount to a "tax" of over $60 a dollars a day taken out of my pocket in the form of time lost sitting on a bus.
Not only do I say no to you communist inspired tired old ideas, I say HELL NO.
Posted by: JCM on July 25, 2006 09:00 AMStereotyping ferry riders as "elite" is also a wildly inaccurate characterization. It may be true for the Bainbridge run (and, to be fair, Vashon as well), but look at the people getting on in Bremerton, Southworth, Kingston, etc. and you'll see a representative cross-section of the population.
Now, if one wanted to make every highway in the state a toll road, I guess that would be a logically consistent position, but I don't hear anyone suggesting that.
First - thanks for joining in! You say "...but my kids see this as an island paradise. And who am I to argue with that logic?"
The point of this post is living in urban areas, advocated by the PI. Why is it your kids deserve open areas, and why does that logic only apply to your kids? Obviously the open areas of Seattle parks isn't good enough for them. Well it isn't good enough for my kids either, which is why I live out of the urban area.
The point is all of us, including people that editorialize in the news media, should be able to make the choices that best meet the individuals' needs. The social engineers should not dictate to the masses what they should do (while they themselves do something else). The government is to serve the citizens that put them there. If the citizens want to have some property for their kids to play without being next to 3rd Avenue busses, the government should provide the transportation infrastructure to support that. Unfortunately the government supplies the transportation infrastructure they think we should have and use.
Either way, there should be no subsidy for ferry riders. There's just as much of a choice in living on Vashon and using the ferry as there is in living in Enumclaw and commuting by car to Redmond. If you don't want to pay for ferries, don't live on the other side of a large body of water from where you spend a lot of your time.
Posted by: Jeff B. on July 25, 2006 10:06 AMI just re-read Article I, Section 8, where the Constition empowers Congress "To establish post offices and post roads". However, I don't see the word "monopoly" in there, nor any synonyms, either. Could you explain to me why any amendment would be needed for private mail carriage? ISTM that it's merely a statutory issue...
Posted by: Kirk Parker on July 25, 2006 10:34 AMQuite frankly, I don't have a problem with people wanting to put in hours of commuting because of where they choose to live. I personally don't enjoy spending half my day in traffic, so I live pretty close to work. However, I strongly oppose the social engineering that keeps being touted as the "Great Solution".
The liberal moonbats chase after any stupid expensive idea that comes along rather than focusing on quality of life issues such as road maintenance, improved schools, adequate water treatment capacity, and park upkeep. We don't need a choo-choo going across Lake Washington. We do need to fix I-5 so it isn't a two lane road (there are only two lanes that go straight through from Canada to Oregon because of exits and merging lanes).
Posted by: Burdabee on July 25, 2006 10:45 AMI am impressed (mostly) by the thoughtful nature of this conversation.
I am particularly struck by Fred's comment:
"The point is all of us, including people that editorialize in the news media, should be able to make the choices that best meet the individuals' needs. The social engineers should not dictate to the masses what they should do (while they themselves do something else). The government is to serve the citizens that put them there. If the citizens want to have some property for their kids to play without being next to 3rd Avenue busses, the government should provide the transportation infrastructure to support that. Unfortunately the government supplies the transportation infrastructure they think we should have and use."
I actually agree.
I don't think government should tell people how to live (and I don't think the editorial cited says that either). We all make choices for a variety of reasons, about a decade ago I picked Bainbridge Island and it's been ideal for my family.
So how would we promote an urban, walking, transit-friendly core? My choice would be to use incentives as much as possible and even better market forces.
I also want to suggest that editorial boards are made up of individuals who reach consensus on issues, speaking for the newspaper. Does that mean we always agree? Of course not. One issue that Sound Politics has noted is my difference with the board on the issue of voting by mail. I am in the minority view within our board (I think mailboxes are not secure enough for voting, financial transactions, etc.)
Here is a shocker: Sometimes editorial writers are assigned to write an editorial that they might personally disagree with. That's the nature of opinion journalism.
Last, but not least, I do want to point out that "readership" is not declining at the P-I. To the contrary, readership is growing. What is in decline (nationwide) is newspaper circulation. More folks than ever are reading us but fewer are paying for it. We are all trying to figure out what that means -- and how newspapers can survive in this new world. (Other MSM have similar business model challenges.)
I thought I would engage in this post since it singled out three of us on the board. To be honest, except for a few personal caustic responses, I am glad I did because I think a contest of ideas is fun and important for any civil society.
Again, best wishes,
Mark
I agree, at least for me, that is a complete shocker! I thought that opinion pieces were the opinion of the writer. I didn't realize that they, in effect, are ghost writers for some unnamed third party!
You said "My choice would be to use incentives as much as possible and even better market forces."
I see this as social engineering. This, almost by definition, says that the social engineers will make the desired choice of the people more expensive so that they cannot afford it, and therfore the people 'select' the desired result of the government. This a backwards way of the government telling us how to live.
And lastly, I think most posters here appreciate other opinions, and I am sorry that not all responses are civil. That doesn't encourage different opinions, but hope you keep posting - and even encourage others to do so!
Posted by: Fred on July 25, 2006 12:32 PMAs for you comment that readership is up, perhaps you can explain in more detail. Based on an article in the PI (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/269483_circulation09.html), circulation is down.
Posted by: Burdabee on July 25, 2006 01:58 PMNo doubt, as many have said, that people chose where to live based on many, many factors - schools, lifestyle, job locations, etc. Homes are less likely to change then other factors - because of the cost to change. So we end up living in places that might seem odd from time to time.
Even so, as the cost of transportation continues rise to huge numbers - it makes sense to be conservative in our spending. The most efficient use of taxpayer dollars for transportation is probably a new sidewalk in downtown Bellevue.
So, do we spend large dollars to "social engineer" new distant housing in Enumclaw, or do we spend our large dollars to serve more people traveling along the I-5 corridor?
And, do we cloud the discourse with false notions of social engineering and other arguments that are a distraction?
Posted by: BA on July 25, 2006 02:26 PMThe constituents have been asking for roads and maitenance of current roads. Instead we get ST and bus ramps.
Posted by: Fred on July 25, 2006 03:07 PMYou are correct. However, Congress has passed laws establishing the postal service as a de facto monopoly, which may be constitutionally unjustified, but has persistited since at least the the Civil War era. See the following article:
http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3132
I think it would be a great experiment to take the hundred of thousands of weekly Metro riders, plus ST, Community Transit, etc riders off the buses for a week and see if private vehicle drivers aren't getting just a bit of benefit for their tax dollars going for public transit.
I'd like quick, "free" travel in my car when ever and where ever I drive. I'm thinking that in constrained geography there just isn't enough land to pave to give me that result - if anyone else wants it too.
Posted by: BA on July 25, 2006 05:32 PM
That is all good, until you figure in the fact that the preformance audits show that the ferries cant seem to account for all the monies they collect.
Jeff, that makes two of us. Trahant says more people than ever are reading the PI, but nobody's paying for it. Might be time to audit the accounting department. And just how does one determine more people than ever are reading it? Hmmmm...
I still say Trahant wears Harry Potter glasses.
Just an observation. Is that caustic?
There's government intelligence in action. Kill a cash cow (serving a captive audience) over a union quarrel.
Posted by: Baynative on July 26, 2006 06:28 AMWhy spend then a dime on transportation?
Instead of spending money to try and make it easier to get from one place to the other (definition of transportation - a system to take from where you don't want to be to where you do want to be) why not instead let the market move people closer to where they want to be without transportation.
In other words, let development happen without government spending on transportation - I'll bet what happens is growth will then occur where transportation is already the most efficient, and it will occur where additional transportation needs can be handled with existing systems. I'll bet we focus more on fixing schools instead of fleeing schools.
Where might that happen? Where's it happening now? - within the cores of our cities and towns (Seattle - gaining 10,000 dwellings in the next five years, Bellevue -gaining 5,000 dwellings, Tacoma - thousands, even Bainbridge and Bremerton - hundreds).
I think it is clear that "sprawl" is the result NOT of market forces absent government "social engineering", but instead very ACTIVE government intervention encouraging this pattern of development - we're paying the piper today in hughly expensive transportation "fixes" that were deferred to now.
Let's return to removing social engineering from our development patterns - stop building transportation systems for a generation and watch how we all get more efficient in getting around, and how the GROWTH in the RATE of transportation taxes slows.
Posted by: BA on July 26, 2006 05:48 PM