Sound Politics: Anyone Wanna Bet...

August 14, 2007

Anyone Wanna Bet...

...this story will get some use by the surface-transit advocates as the interminable Viaduct debate unfolds? The Stranger's Erica Barnett has more coverage and colorful commentary here and here. Whether one agrees or not, it's a tangible example of the "thousand little things" argument that started to gain some traction earlier this year.

I recall the same result several summers back when a major stretch of southbound I-5 near Ravenna went under the construction knife, bottlenecking a major north-south thoroughfare for several days. Like the current road project, backups were predicted to be horrific. They weren't. People adjusted.

Surface-transit advocates are bound to use this year's events to their advantage, assuming current traffic trends hold. Can't say that I blame them.

Posted by Eric Earling at August 14, 2007 08:45 PM | Email This

Comments

1.
Speaking about backhanded deals, what about this one, where Vulcan, Paul Allen's company bought some land from the city in 2000 -- only to have the city buy it back at a higher price...and it's not the first time either!!!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/327633_southlakeunion15.html

"In 2001, the city sold Vulcan eight parcels of land in South Lake Union, which it had bought decades ago for a freeway project that was never built, for $20.2 million. Then-Mayor Paul Schell planned only minor transportation fixes to the clogged Mercer corridor.

Since Mayor Greg Nickels took office, he has championed a $120 million plan to widen Mercer Street into a two-way, six-lane boulevard and turn Valley Street into a narrower, more pedestrian-friendly lane."

Wait.

I thought Paul Allen was the honest half of Microsoft?!

Posted by: John Bailo on August 14, 2007 09:49 PM

2. Eric - Why do you need to phrase this the way you have? Why can't you just come out and say you agree that the way people were able to minimize the traffic snarls is an indication that people will adapt.

There is nothing wrong with having such a view on traffic issues. Embrace that feeling.

Posted by: Daniel K on August 14, 2007 09:50 PM

3. Sure people will adjust. They will only do it for so long. Some will adjust for a few weeks for this latest DOT project and then go back to their normal commute habits. I am taking the train from Tacoma and riding my bike from the seattle station to my office. The commute takes twice as long for me as it usually does when I drive. Why should I be forced to give up more of my time because the social engineers can't see the big picture?

Posted by: William on August 15, 2007 08:28 AM

4. One of the changes made due to the impact of the construction was to divert north-bound buses (ST and Metro) off of I-5 onto neighboring arterials. I ride the bus in the morning from Tacoma, and it really doesn't take much longer, and is possibly faster. Why? Because the bus doesn't have to fight across traffic from the HOV lane to the Spokane Street exit along with all the merging traffic from West Seattle attempting to get over to I-90. This is just one example of a poorly designed interchange that creates excessive bottleneck that backs up the rest of I-5 from the south. If they would fix the HOV on-off in this area (say Buses go off from the HOV either at Tukwila or at Michigan), one could maybe alleviate some of the close-to-down town traffic. If you did that, you wouldn't have even needed light rail to Tukwila, would you?

Another example of where the construction has proven where there is need for more capacity (from the south) is the fact that there are no bottlenecks this week from Federal Way through Des Moines/Sea-Tac. With 300 (or so extra) commuters taking the train from Tacoma (and probably Federal Way), this alleviates the pressure point on the stretch from FW to Sea-Tac. Therefore, it does demonstrate that with proper capacity to vehicles, the highway would be just fine. Add too much capacity and it slows everyone down. For the past several years FW has been a real chokepoint due to the HOV construction. The FW chokepoint has eased once the construction has been finished and capacity added back in, but it has made the FW to Sea-Tac area worse.

I was a full proponent all ST's plans, before I started using the system daily. I do enjoy the train home, but it does take longer than the drive would w/o traffic. The bus is wonderful in the morning, but could use increased service throughout the day and more service from T-Dome Station to other points (like GH, Lakewood, etc., e.g., spoke-hub system much like airports). So, I do think the bus-rapid transit solution is a better near-term approach. We need solutions now, not 20 years from now.

I do not agree with the statement in one of the links that downtown traffic flows smoother since the bus tunnel closes. I am not sure who did the study, but if one travels on 2nd Avenue, it can be a half an hour on the bus (it is faster to walk) due to traffic, and the bottleneck from Olive and points just North of downtown to get on 5th, 3rd, and 2nd to travel South can take 15 plus minutes. I have found walking from North-end of downtown to King Street Station just about as fast. I do look forward to the bus tunnel reopening.

These are just my opinions and "your mileage may vary."

Cheers,
TC

Posted by: tc on August 15, 2007 12:09 PM

5. If you can't tie in our freeways system that are 7 blocks apart,then your brain is really in the gentrification trunk.
Instead of buying back the land we should invest that money in a 7 block cut and cover from 99 to I-5.
End of mercer mess.
No we have to cram a bunch of traffic thru an grand boulevard for 7 blocks.
Is it just me or can anyone else see how stupid Greg Nickels is.

Posted by: Publicbulldog on August 15, 2007 08:33 PM

6. William said, "Why should I be forced to give up more of my time because the social engineers can't see the big picture?"

I find it ironic that William's definition of "the big picture" is his personal commute time. Be damned the real big picture, i.e. everything but William's little world.

Posted by: Daniel K on August 15, 2007 10:00 PM

7. The big picture is that transit options in this area are failures and the people don't use them. People vote for Sound Transit and other transit packages because; 1) they want other people off the roads, not themselves. 2) It just feels right. 3) the people who don't own cars get to vote on this too when the funding is usually paid for by a tax on something based on a vehicle.

ST Commuter Rail is really a joke. It sorta works for me though. They have to schedule trains based on the needs of the railroads that own the rails. This does not leave many slots for trains to bring people back and forth. This wont change unless the 3 counties build their own heavy rail system. The train is expensive in the tacoma to seattle run. If you get on in tacoma and get off in seattle, a RT ticket is $9.50. A monthly pass is $177. I see some constraint on who rides the train based on employer subsidies. I see lots of county workers riding the train. My company gives me a subsidy to use transit.

Light Rail is a boondoggle. Contrary to what you might think it is not going to do much good in the traffic between sea-tac and seattle. Most of that traffic is going to be tourists and not regulars on the highways. It is also little more than electric buses on rails.

Why do we keep throwing money at transit projects that don't work other than in the minds of the social engineers? You really can't keep doing this unless the only thing you get out of it is the satisfaction that you think you are doing good.

Posted by: William on August 16, 2007 07:36 PM