Today's Danny Westneat column is stunningly childish: "Light rail: We will love it".
Westneat reports on his trip to Portland, where he rode the light rail a few times, loved the experience and concludes that Seattle "really, really needs" light rail too. Among the things that impressed him most were "the cheap price (top fare: $2.05)" [neglecting to mention that most of the actual cost is involuntarily subsidized by people who don't find light rail useful].
Sure, I'd love subsidized train/airplane/helicopter service. I'd also love for someone to enter my home through the chimney once a year and deliver presents in exchange for cookies and milk.
In the real world, where facts matter and people have to prioritize expenditures, sensible grown-ups also consider relative costs and benefits and opportunity costs. But such reasoning is absent from Westneat's column. Nor did he mention any of the economic problems with Portland's rail.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 10, 2007 01:30 PM | Email ThisMeaning, he rode the train for its own sake.
He was not rushing to get to work from an apartment on Flanders St NW in downtown Portland to an isolated high tech building in Beaverton. He did not take a car or bus to the train station (at least he did not mention that as part of his tale) or from the train station to his work.
He was not on schedule to be somewhere. He did not describe what happens after 8 pm when service is reduced and he wants to get home on time.
Mr. Westneat was essentially living the life of a bum, "riding the rails" for $2.05 to avoid the rain in Portland. There's nothing wrong with being a 21st Century Woodie Guthrie, it's just that ain't commuttin'.
Posted by: John Bailo on October 10, 2007 01:36 PMYet not one word on rider volume.
Posted by: Bart Cannon on October 10, 2007 01:52 PMThis train nonsense is just pure folly. We've got a great bus system, and for much less than the cost of trains, we could make the bus system much, much better, and keep the billions for road improvements that would benefit buses, cars and trucks that do 99% of the freight and human transportation in the region.
In other words, we would have a wi- win. If politicians in the region faced any kind of rational competition, then they might lean towards Bus Rapid Transit as a way to hit it big on the legacy meter. A model BRT system would be up and running within five years, and could make Seattle the darling of all media, and environmental causes. And it would probably make our politicians look smart and sensible for once.
But there is no leadership competition here, because it is so overrun with Progressive fools who'd rather build trains, and hobnob at cocktail parties with their media parrots like Danny Westneat. So instead of leadership at a practical and sensible economic pace, and objective journalism, we get Ladenberg and Westneat.
Great. The Unions are happy because construction workers will spend 20 years building trains that almost no one will ride, except for the next Danny Westneat, from the next up and coming leftist city, smiling on a useless joyride.
Hey CEO... you best wake up or you'll find yourself in the A-380 or the light rail mess.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on October 10, 2007 02:00 PM"Seattle really, really needs one of these."
And there is the transit problem in a nutshell, where a very small minority of commuters would have us all pay massive subsidies so they and a few like-minded folks who are willing to sacrifice the advantages of a personal automobile, can have someone else do the driving. Oh, and at the expense of roads and millions of hours of wasted time the majority spends sitting in traffic.
Another perfect example of liberal thinking. Completely intolerant of other's preferences and wildly arrogant and driven by emotion. Liberals may "love it", but if it means I have to give up my car or sit in traffic congestion the left refuses to address, then they are only pushing people like me further and further away.
If liberals think its such a great idea, they can start by contributing a new automobile's cost to it every 5 years or so, but don't ask me to pay for my transportation and their's too.
Posted by: MJC on October 10, 2007 02:03 PMWhat I would like to know is why is the Mayor of Vancouver so hell bent on getting LTR over the river into Clark County. We can't afford it. There just aren't enough people to have it here. Portland has over 1.5 million people where the whole of Clark County comprises of just over 400k people. Go figure!
I wonder if we are gaing to be referred to as hate mongers, should we we proceed to demolish his case with the facts, for beating up on someone with the mind of a twelve year old. The Dems think that when they trott out a 12 year old like Graeme Frost
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/10/09/democrat-poster-child-abuse-the-nutroots-pushback-and-the-continued-campaign-to-silence-the-right/
that this automatically gives them the moral authority to accuse anyone who opposes them as being a fasciest or a hate monger.
Posted by: JDH on October 10, 2007 02:09 PMExactly. The I-5 bridge and Sam Jackson bridge are crowded every day with commuters and shoppers going in to Oregon to their jobs and stores and back. But are the leaders worried about widening those bottlenecks? No. Instead they are focused on light rail which would only carry the few who could or would use it. How many WA shoppers are going to lug all of their goods to and from light rail trains? Most will stay in their cars. Especially those with kids who would needlessly expose them to the crime dangers of an open public light rail system.
People know we live in the age of terror, and declining civility. All the more reason that they won't ride rail.
The Progressive leadership of the Northwest is not focused on what's best for its citizens, but instead what it thinks is best for its citizens. There's a difference.
Posted by: Jeff B. on October 10, 2007 02:18 PMThose are famous last words there. My parents tried that one with a number of foods such as liver and they were wrong. There are numerous other examples that could follow as well.
My job takes me to Portland for at least a couple of days every month and traffic there sucks as well even with MAX. I guess that just proves what the proponents of light rail here are saying in that it won't improve congestion.
The best part of Portland traffic is that the carpool lanes are open to non carpools for a good portion of the day depending on how traffic is going. Why can't we do that up here and free up some lane miles?
Posted by: danno on October 10, 2007 02:30 PMAnd while you may not BE four years old, I can't argue with the fact that you WRITE like a four year old.
Posted by: Hinton on October 10, 2007 02:33 PMThere is a transit station built just for Vancouverites at the Expo Center. Guess what, people don't want to exit off of the freeway to ride it. It takes longer to get to their destination then it does to drive.
I have been going to the CRC meetings and frankly they are talking about something that will decimate the transit system we have in place already. C-Tran doesn't want LTR. The bus routes will go away and they will only be able to cater to the downtown area of Vancouver, which is about 150 -ish blocks. LTR is a great way to spend money we don't have.
Just don't believe everything Danny Westneat, the visitor, has to say about LTR. Talk to the real people who live here first.
Every transportation proposal should be examined through the prism of congestion relief. Light rail is slow and causes congestion. The trains, even when full, do not have sufficient capacity to relieve congestion. Expanded roads and bus service will improve traffic flow and alleviate congestion.
Prop 1 has another fatal flaw. It is constructed so that the proponents of road expansion have to accept expanded light rail. Thoughtful voters should reject the measure and demand that road and rail proposals be separate so that each can receive an up or down vote based upon their individual merit.
Posted by: Paddy on October 10, 2007 02:46 PMCan you provide one really good example of something that a light rail train can do that a bus can't which justifies the enormous difference in cost? Because I can name a lot of things that a bus can do, that a light rail train can't, and at a far lower cost. And if you can provide an example, why didn't you put that in the article?
We are not talking about Heavy Rail trains that run on isolated, grade separated tracks like BART in the Bay Area. We are talking about light rail trains that average about 20 - 30 MPH. Slower than Express Buses on I-5. And beholden to all of the same stop lights as autos or buses. And yet the tracks are fixed. The capital costs fixed. Buses can be moved. Buses can shift with changing routes and demographics. Buses can serve many more people by running many buses separated by a few minutes, rather than slightly longer light rails trains that run less frequent. Buses can evolve with changing fuel technologies, light rail will continue to tax the electrical grid, which as fueled by large plants, will evolve at a much slower pace. Etc.
I'll even grant that every decent sized American city, might be able to utilize a token light rail route from its airport to a central core. That's a nice to have for tourism, like what you experienced in Portland. But beyond that, light rail doesn't make any economic sense when compared to buses. And in today's decentralized job world and growing service economy, fixed train routes are 19th century. Trains were popular in the 19th century because they were perfected before autos and buses, and before we had a large road network.
Seattle could be a leader with buses, like many South American cities that are willing to acknowledge economic reality. Or, Seattle can continue to operate in an arrogant and wasteful manner which puts the novel and slight difference between riding in a bus or riding on a train in a false and sensational light.
Thanks.
Posted by: Jeff B. on October 10, 2007 02:47 PMIt could be that I can adjust the seat in my pick up to fit me, set the tem[perature controls to my liking, listen to the radio or a cd while chatting with my wife and am generally much more relaxed and comfortable when in my own vehicle.
Another plus is that if I don't care to sit next to someone who smells like they just smoked an entire pack of cheap cigarettes prior to climbing aboard, I don't have to.
So you ask: Why do you ride the Sounder? How about because I am paying out the a$$ for the thing anyway and because I get "free" flex pass through my job it does not cost me to ride it.
Posted by: JDH on October 10, 2007 03:06 PMIt would be nice if we all lived right near a rail station, and worked right near one on the other end. Who wouldn't love that. But to get from here to there in today's economy, with the 50+ year investment in road infrastructure we already have, and with the vast amount of water in this region, this is a 100 to 200 year proposition, just like it has been for Paris and London. (Portland is in no way a fair comparison, because the VAST amount of Portland transit still takes place by car, unlike in truly train based cities like New York or Tokyo. Care to guess why?
The main difference is that our Left Skewed leadership, and Left Skewed Media is focused on a much less realistic 30 year timeline, that is economically infeasible. And that's why buses are simply better. If we had decent leadership, that could put together a reasonable plan that gave more equality to the current road based modes of travel, and much less of a fiscal impact for a much longer term transit plan, then it might be worth considering. But the current plan is arrogant and wasteful credit card like government spending that is 95% for something that we won't be able to really use to solve our short term transit problems.
And that's just plain stupid.
Posted by: Jeff B. on October 10, 2007 03:07 PMWhile you are setting fire to money, you can also eat them on the train or in the rain from a $100 bottle of champagne.
Posted by: Andy on October 10, 2007 03:14 PMEven with free train fare as part of their perks, they still ride the bus to commute into downtown as the train doesn't run on the schedule they have to work for Sound Transit.
One of the problems I have with Light Rail is that the schedules are limited, which reduce ridership. Others include no parking space at the transit centers so you can even get on the train. Lastly, when you get to King Street Station, unless you a government employee, chances are you need to catch a bus going back into the city. And God forbid if traffic keeps you from making the last train back out of town....
None of these have anything to do with the cost of this project and everything to do with not getting to where you need to go.
As George Patton once said, "Fixed fortifications are a monument to man's stupidity."
Posted by: Ken on October 10, 2007 03:21 PMIt could be that I can adjust the seat in my pick up to fit me, set the tem[perature controls to my liking, listen to the radio or a cd while chatting with my wife and am generally much more relaxed and comfortable when in my own vehicle.
Another plus is that if I don't care to sit next to someone who smells like they just smoked an entire pack of cheap cigarettes prior to climbing aboard, I don't have to.
So you ask: Why do you ride the Sounder? How about because I am paying out the a$$ for the thing anyway and because I get "free" flex pass through my job it does not cost me to ride it.
Posted by: JDH on October 10, 2007 03:21 PMI remember being invited to attend a class on how cities need to be developed, i.e. infrastructure.
The kids were bored, and probably because of me mainly, but also, they wanted to know how to finish their SIMS program. I was deflated to say the least.
How does this relate? Seattle and environs are mainly developed. You are not going to create these 50,000 people at the stations density that ST zealots claim. It is 'childish' (to use Stefan's comment) to think so. Real life is not a SIMS program.
And Danny, unfortunately, city and public transportation planners don't have a clue. Trust me on this one.
Posted by: swatter on October 10, 2007 03:21 PMHere's an idea. Let anyone who lives within a mile of a train stop pay for light rail with their property taxes. Because those are the people who are primarily going to ride it. Heck, give them "free" passes for it too, and everyone else who rides it can pay a fare. It would only raise their property taxes by $xx,xxx per year.
What's that you say, Danny? That's not fair? Neither is making 98% of commuters pay for something that only 2% will get a benefit from.
Posted by: Palouse on October 10, 2007 03:23 PMAnd that would not change if it were the a light rail train and not the Sounder. There's still a massive subsidy and cost to all taxpayers. And there's still several slowdowns and the need to take a bus on one end and drive to the train on the other.
I can honestly see who is would really be nice to have all of the above. But the question that the left, and increasingly the right never seems to want to address, is: who's gonna pay for it all? Why do we never consider cost of living increases, and higher taxes in to the mix? What if we just had buses, but had lower taxes, or more money to spend on other needs? But no, we are told we want it all. Free socialized healthcare, a tunnel on the waterfront, a new 520, rail lines everywhere, streetcars, stadiums, etc. Something has to give.
And let's address Danny's enjoyment argument. Yeah, there was a laptop power outlet on the train that's not on the bus. So there was something I enjoyed more about the trains. And BTW, that's not on the light rail trains, only the Sounder. But when does this kind of thinking ever not apply. Bus condescension doesn't justify train elevation. Danny, I bet you'd prefer to be chauffeured in a S class Mercedes instead of taking the bus or the train? C'mon, admit it. Who wouldn't. Or better yet, flown in by helicopter. But that's not a reason to invest billions that go 95% to rail transit, neglecting the primary modes of transit.
No sane conservatives are saying do nothing. What we are saying is: make better use of the money so that it actually does some good in the near term. The ST2/RTID plan DOES NOT do this. It's a bad investment that is far to heavy on rail.
Vote no.
Posted by: Jeff B. on October 10, 2007 03:26 PMLTR is not all that great. Studies have found that that greater majority who ride the MAX Train used to be bus users. However, there is rhetoric to suggest that MAX is schlepping 96k people. That number came from an estimate when Portland was drumming up new plans to expand MAX. That fictions number has been used so often that the powers that be use it as a fact now. There can never be any real number becasue many people who ride it, don't bother to buy a ticket. The honor system is not working.
I prefer to look at LRT with clear color lenses and use the rose colored lenses when I'm out fishing.
"I think Light Rail is a major city amenity, while buses are not. So I think some light rail is worth the extra expense."
And that fairly well sums up the argument in favor of light rail. It's a "major city amenity". Quite a price tag so we can all feel good about Seattle. At least Mr. Westneat is honest.
Posted by: Shaun on October 10, 2007 04:32 PMHopefully he will be able to accurately compare the tax costs to residents of the TriMet area of that light rail system against the tax costs to the people and families of the ST taxing area of what ST is planning. Those are two very different financing models.
TriMet has issued very little long term debt, the feds paid for most of the construction of that light rail system, and the taxes fall on businesses, not people. No wonder they like it down there - it is damn cheap for the people living there. Not so with what ST is proposing (that's putting it mildly).
Anywhoo, it'll be interesting to see how close to the truth about those things DW's future column on "costs" turns out to be . . ..
Posted by: Coot on October 10, 2007 05:15 PMDo you think he could really stay employed at a Seattle MSM outlet w/out pretending to smoke from the same crack pipe as the rest of King County? Come on- how long would someone be working at the Times or that other rag if they looked at fiscal realities and reported factually on it?
Posted by: Andy on October 10, 2007 06:20 PMDammit, Westneat, don't presume to speak for me. Maybe that development will concentrate where YOU want it to go. If so, bully for you. But you, speaking here as one of the ruling class, are giving away a sordid game. And that is, that our newspapers are lovingly in bed with the politicians and planners.
Whereas they should be exercising the strongest skepticism against this perpetual and hyperexpensive project to seat three percent of our daily commuters in luxury, subsidized by the 97% who can make no use of the merely symbolic train system.
Isn't it the job of the press to EXAMINE the doings of government, instead of acting as its press agency?
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on October 10, 2007 08:46 PMAs in, "I want a pony."
You may want a pony, but that doesn't mean you can, or should, get one.
Posted by: pudge on October 10, 2007 08:48 PMIt ain't the airlines, buddy.
And your roads are well subsidized too. Or does I-5 bring a shit-ton of cash into the public coffers?
Posted by: Seriously on October 11, 2007 12:30 AMAnd I may be wrong, but the Port of Seattle runs the big airport and paid for it with bonds. These bonds are paid with traveler fees (i.e. tolls); only a small amount is paid by taxing the properties in the port district. And there are many that question if even that small amount should be paid. There are those politicians that believe with all the tax breaks and advantages a port has over a private enterprise, they should be well-equipped to run in the black without taxpayer subsidy (even if small).
Posted by: swatter on October 11, 2007 07:03 AMFact: One operator and one two-car train carry as many people as 12 buses with 12 operators. That's a huge efficiency in operating costs, short term and long term.
Fact: There are over 700,000 jobs in Seattle now, and that number is going north of 1 million by 2030.
Fact: By 2030 over 50% of the people commuting in and out of the major Seattle job markets - downtown, UW, First Hill - will be using this transit system. 50%! That includes people traveling on three of our major arteries, I-5, 520, and I-90.
Fact: There is no room on the existing roadways for this many people at rush hour.
Fact: The existing roadways cannot be expanded to accomodate this demand for anywhere near the price of rail.
Fact: For those worried about 405, this package includes money to add two lanes in each direction between 90 and Renton, rebuild the 405/520 merges, and threads light rail thru downtown Beleevue.
The group who drove -- in rush hour traffic, which in Portland is every bit as bad, or worse, than Seattle. arrived 30 minutes before we did.
Go figure...
Posted by: The Firewalker on October 11, 2007 08:11 AMHow can this be a fact? It is over 22 years from now. It is a guess, at best. Can you time travel? Hiro? Is that you?
Posted by: Bill on October 11, 2007 09:53 AMAnd yes, we don't have enough roadway space. So we BUILD MORE. Duh. Yes, it costs more, but FAR more people will USE it. And roads cost LESS per passenger.
And don't give me that nonsense about more money for roads in this package. It's a tiny fraction of the overall cost. That's like buying a Cadillac just so you can get the hood ornament.
Guess what, folks? Less than 3% of our region's daily trips use I-5. In fact, I-5 through Seattle sees about 250,000 trips daily.
There's a simple question here, and Stefan asked it: Relative cost. The federal government agrees that 2030 ridership for light rail if this package is built will exceed 300,000 daily. That's more than I-5 now.
Most of the cost of light rail is right-of-way. We're creating a new corridor, about the size of two lanes. It would take a corridor the size of I-5 to move this many more people through our urban centers. How much would the right-of-way for six new lanes through downtown Bellevue and Seattle cost? Where would it go? How about the core parking? That's key here - the people coming into the core aren't bringing their cars with them, which means we don't have to add as much new parking in the cores, we get to add more economically beneficial structures such as housing and office space instead.
Light rail is *much* cheaper than trying to add equivalent road capacity in the same corridors. Three lanes each way between Tacoma and Seattle on I-5? That would be more than the *entire* light rail package. And light rail lasts longer than asphalt, and scales up to carry more people over time.
The conservative argument is to build rail instead of wasting two or three times the money on vast new numbers of highway lanes for the same capacity. The conservative argument is to save money, which is what light rail does for our region. It's not Sound Transit's fault we haven't been expanding our roads to meet demand - we can't afford to meet demand with just roads. We can with a mixed package.
Posted by: Ben Schiendelman on October 11, 2007 10:24 AMAlso, the number of failed votes meant the only way for Portland to get their light rail to the airport was for the Port to give some land to Bechtel, which then built the rail line for Trimet. At least that's what I gather from here:
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:cGc9Eie-b2YJ:world.nycsubway.org/us/portland/max-red.html+max+light+rail+votes&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
See this story about the repeated NO votes for tax increases.
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:Jx5ZuBApSSAJ:www.metro-region.org/library_docs/trans/history_faq.pdf+max+light+rail+defeat&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=25&gl=us
2. What is the history of votes on light
rail?
There have been a number of votes on fund-
ing light rail projects.
1990 A $125 million Westside ballot mea-
sure passed by 73 percent within the Port-
land region.
Between 1994 and 1998, there were three
Oregon votes and one Washington vote on
the financing of a bi-state south-north light
rail corridor. Each vote was different in its
scope and nature, as described below:
1994 Voters in the TriMet service district
approved Measure 26-13 with a 63% yes
vote. A proposed $475 million bond measure
would have built a 26-mile light rail line
from Clackamas County into Clark County,
Wash. The measure represented only one
piece of the proposed funding. Other funds
were anticipated from Clark County, the
state of Washington, the state of Oregon and
the federal government.
1995 In 1995, Clark County, Wash., voters
rejected (2 to 1) a ballot measure that would
have raised $237 million for the Washington
portion of the south-north light rail line plus
a 9-mile extension north from Vancouver to
Hazel Dell.
1996 Following the Clark County defeat,
TriMet and Metro restructured the south-
north light rail project and, in August 1995,
the Oregon Legislature passed a $750
million transportation package. The pack-
age included $375 million in lottery-backed
bonds for the project and $375 million for
rural transportation projects around the
state. Opponents of the package gathered
enough signatures to refer the package to
voters as 1996 State Ballot Measure 32. In
November 1996, Oregon voters rejected the
legislative package by a vote of 53 percent to
46 percent. While the measure failed state-
wide, it was approved by a majority of the
voters within the TriMet service area. TriMet
then began to focus on an "Oregon only"
extension.
1998 Measure 26-74 was placed on the
November 1998 ballot for an Oregon-only
project. The TriMet board called for a new
vote on the south-north light rail line fund-
ing because the project no longer included
an extension to Clark County as provided
for in the 1994 proposal. The Oregon-only
proposal was divided into two phases: phase
I was the Rose Quarter to Milwaukie; and
phase II was Milwaukie to Clackamas Town
Center. The measure failed in Clackamas
and Washington counties, however it passed
in Multnomah County, failing overall (52
percent to 48 percent).
---go to the link for more details
Posted by: Stuart Jenner on October 11, 2007 01:44 PMIf it would, then MAYBE that would be a "conservative" argument (although you don't mention the many other conservative reasons to oppose it). But why should we believe those numbers, when light rail is not being used NOW?
Posted by: pudge on October 11, 2007 04:39 PMSo would you support tolls on all of them? Doubt it, you'd rather everyone pay for your luxury.
Posted by: Seriously on October 11, 2007 06:18 PMThese numbers aren't from Sound Transit. They're from an anti-transit administration. Does it make sense for Bush's administration to inflate ridership numbers for mass transit? No.
pudge, electric rail transit is being used now all over the world, and all over our country. In Minneapolis, long before I-35 collapsed, ridership was 40% higher than projections from the same administration, based on exactly the same math. It's really ridiculous to just refuse to believe numbers you don't like - you can just pick and choose to push your agenda, but it doesn't get you anywhere.
The fact is, in the corridors we're building light rail, we need capacity desperately to continue economic growth. We can't fit more cars on the highways, and it costs vastly more to build the equivalent capacity in lanes (how do you expand the ship canal bridge?). All over the country, when we build systems like this, they're used about as much as we project them to be - and if they're used more or less, we figure out why and make our projections better. We're just the same as any other urban area, no matter what fear, uncertainty and doubt the detractors try to come up with - we have people, they need to get to major business centers to work. The corridors where we're building account for our most congested commute trips. The option we've chosen is cheaper than the alternatives.
What is hard to understand here? Sputtering "taxes taxes!" and "statistics is magic!" doesn't change the fact that we need infrastructure, and it doesn't change the fact that this is cheaper than the alternatives.
Posted by: Ben Schiendelman on October 11, 2007 06:30 PMBy the way, when random people on blogs start yelling about not trusting numbers, I roll my eyes. Guess what? The fact that you don't have a solid grasp of engineering and statistics really doesn't have any bearing on the world except to stop work that people who *do* have a clue are trying to get done so your dollars are still worth enough for you to afford gas and rent.
Posted by: Ben Schiendelman on October 11, 2007 06:36 PMAlso, the $157 billion price tag over the next 50 years is on the low side - It assumes no cost overruns which virtually never occurs. Anyone who says that the $157 billion (mostly from paying off bonds) has already been accounted for is LIEING ! If you disagree, I challenge you or anyone else to provide a balance sheet from Sound Transit, that has been verified by the State Auditor to show how much has been paid off from ST1. Oh and by the way, this is ST2.
Posted by: KS on October 11, 2007 09:28 PMSimple math tells you that to build enough SPACE for all of those cars, you would virtually have to blanket the region with freeways and parking garages. And such a solution would not be cheap or easy. Building or expanding new freeway lanes is no longer cheap and easy. Community opposition is often fierce. Ask the people in Kennydale how they feel about 405 expansion.
By contrast rail is actually easier to build in an urban environment because it can carry far more people in a lane width of space. It is also highly adaptable to terrain because it can tunnel, go at grade, or be elevated. Contrary to Jeff B's assertion, ALL of ST2's 50 miles of light rail has been budgeted as grade separated. Oh yeah, and light rail trains will travel an average of 25 MPH through the Rainier Valley, but will reach speeds over 50 going up to the airport and beyond. The five minutes the train will lose going four miles through the valley are not going to be a deal breaker for commuters.
Sounder is on the other side of the valley. Those of you who ride the train and complained about it--could that be because it was full? Sounder ridership is strong and they are adding more trains soon.
But the main reason I wanted to post is that one of the core conservative values is the belief in the free market. The truth is, developers love rail. They want to build around station areas because rail is permanent and reliable. Cities want to upzone around station areas because it helps their tax base to build dense residential and retail. And many people will choose to live in a vibrant neighborhood where they can commute by rail through the region. Both young people and seniors are especially attracted to this kind of development.
I understand that most of you have no intention of riding one of those smelly trains, but people are continuing to move here at a solid rate and we should decide where we want to put them. By building rail we give ourselves the option to have development opportunities at almost 40 station areas through the region. This gets people off your roads so you can drive! And it gets them out of your single family neighborhood! Building housing options and planning where we want growth are smart things to do in the long run. Would you really want 8 lanes each direction on 405? Betting on private business to help drive investment and tax revenue is something Ronald Reagan would have approved of.
This package has tons of needed roads improvements that will affect just about every commute in the three counties. And it also builds long overdue transit for those goofy people like Danny and I who like living near and using rail. The roads package would not pass on its own. This is why Roads and Transit were tied together. All the polling shows that they are much stronger together than apart. You can vote this down if you wish because the taxes are too high or you don't like the transit, but sooner or later those roads will be built either with huge tolls or more gas taxes. And sooner or later transit will return to the ballot and will be built anyway. All you will have really accomplished is to make sure they cost more and take longer.
I believe that if you really look at this package and a map of the region you will see that this is a prudent compromise to build both roads and transit in the region. Environmentalists and road builders put aside their differences. The business community stands firmly with labor behind this measure. It is time for this region to move forward. They all get that a balanced approach is needed to keep freight and commerce moving, improve people's safety and daily commutes, and to plan for growth and take cars off the roads. I believe this is one of best places to live in America and I will be proud to support Proposition 1 to keep it that way and hopefully make it a little better.
Posted by: please pay attention on October 11, 2007 11:52 PMThe only way to reduce congestion in any major city is to have major lifestyle changes where people actually use public transit. But unless there is an alternative people will never change. Building a public transit system takes decades and in the early stages of building it you are bound to see inefficiencies. And the fact that most cities have developed via suburban sprawl makes it that much more difficult. Nobody wants to get on a bus to go to the mall, but there's no real alternative like neighborhood shopping areas and services that are within walking distance.
As one who lives along the Portland Streetcar line I can say that it works. While I doubt most of you have been down here to see it I see it daily, and use it. During rush hour both the Streetcar and Max trains are full of riders. Does it go everywhere? No. Is it perfect? No. Do I prefer it over buses? Definitely. The Streetcars are more comfortable than buses, they are quieter and cleaner than buses. I am much happier with a quiet streetcar going past my townhouse than buses.
The problem I see with buses is that most still run on fossil fuels. Buses contribute to pollution and global warming. I prefer a public transit system that doesn't use fossil fuels, and the wars that go with insuring our supply of those fossil fuels.
It is easy to bitch about things that you don't experience first hand. But living in downtown Portland has vastly improved and I believe that the public transit system here has contributed to that. Most every friend who visits from out of town says that the public transit here makes it very easy to get around. And every day the riders that fill the trains appreciate them.
All the while Seattle's traffic continues to get worse and the voters can never agree on a plan to do anything about it. You can say all you want about the Portland Streetcar system, but you should really look at your city. Portland is actully doing something to address the issue, Seattle can't agree on doing anything.
Posted by: moderate on October 12, 2007 06:57 AMI said the 50 miles we're going to build, for the cost, will carry a lot more people than the same cost of highway built today in the same corridors.
No. You said "... ridership for light rail if this package is built will exceed 300,000 daily. That's more than I-5 now."
These numbers [are] from an anti-transit administration.
No, they are not. They are from the Bush administration.
Does it make sense for Bush's administration to inflate ridership numbers for mass transit? No.
That's a dumb question, Ben. You act like Bush has a hand in everything that happens in his administration. We don't know what the motives are for the people involved in this particular study.
But that's beside my point. My point has nothing to do with motives. My point has to do with the fact that light rail capacity is hugely underutilized now, and we have no reason to think that will change.
pudge, electric rail transit is being used now all over the world, and all over our country.
Red herring fallacy. That has nothing directly to do with whether people will use it here.
The fact is, in the corridors we're building light rail, we need capacity desperately to continue economic growth.
Sure. But lgiht rail is an extremely poor investment in those capacity needs.
We can't fit more cars on the highways, and it costs vastly more to build the equivalent capacity in lanes (how do you expand the ship canal bridge?).
And you ignore the increased costs in time lost in light rail. And let's not pretend that is insignificant: there's a reason our public officials don't use public transit. They consider it a waste of their time. And they are right.
You also ignore the costs to liberty and freedom of movement, which also has real economic costs. Businesses significantly far away from the rail would become further endangered, and the areas around the rail would become further congrested. What do you do then, when there's no more room for businesses?
The real solution is to encourage more business opportunities in Snohomish County (along with air travel), so there's less reason to go into or through Seattle.
All over the country, when we build systems like this, they're used about as much as we project them to be
If that's true, that's criminal: we spent this much on light rail when we could have saved money by buying people cars?!
We're just the same as any other urban area, no matter what fear, uncertainty and doubt the detractors try to come up with
Um.
Um.
Um.
YOU are the one spreading FUD here. YOU are the one predicting doom and gloom if we don't do it. YOU are the one who is pushing predictions as fact that cannot possibly be known -- or reasonably trusted -- to be accurate.
we have people, they need to get to major business centers to work.
Exactly. And it is FAR more cost-efficient to expand the business centers than it is to shoehorn everyone into light rail.
The corridors where we're building account for our most congested commute trips. The option we've chosen is cheaper than the alternatives.
That is only assuming people USE it, which is extremely unlikely, based on existing experience.
What is hard to understand here? Sputtering "taxes taxes!" and "statistics is magic!" doesn't change the fact that we need infrastructure
Neither do these straw man arguments prove the statistics are accurate, or that this is the best use of taxpayer funds.
and it doesn't change the fact that this is cheaper than the alternatives.
That is, in fact, not a fact, because it is based on an assumption the evidence for which does not support.
By the way, pudge, if you really have a problem with transportation modeling, you must not support building roads either, because they use the same models.
This is yet another straw man fallacy. This time, a two-level fallacy, congratulations! I never said I "have a problem" with it, except that I don't take it as fact, and that in this particular instance I question it based on the specifics. The first "problem" is a "problem" every rational person should have. The second is something I already addressed: I see no reason to believe people will use, en masse, something they don't use now.
It's not about distrusting statistics, but disagreeing with assumptions used in those statistics. That is perfectly valid: if you understand statistics as you imply you do, then you would not criticize my methodology, just disagree with it.
Second, one does not have to support models in general, or even specific ones, to support building roads. That's illogical.
By the way, when random people on blogs start yelling about not trusting numbers, I roll my eyes.
Shrug. Then you are irrational. It is absolutely irrational to trust a number more than 20 years in the future. You can think it is a decent benchmark or somesuch, but it is not fact. It is not trustable. A rational person is naturally skeptical of such things.
Guess what? The fact that you don't have a solid grasp of engineering and statistics
The fact is that I am well-versed in statistics and statistical methodologies, and that your attempt to discredit me with ad hominem attacks only makes you look desperate.
Posted by: pudge on October 12, 2007 10:10 AMThe fact is, we can't build enough roads to handle congestion.
False, of course.
Simple math tells you that to build enough SPACE for all of those cars, you would virtually have to blanket the region with freeways and parking garages.
False, of course. This math is not only non-simple, but it is non-existent. Even if we had a proportional increase of traffic to/through Seattle. A doubled population would mean doubled capacity necessary, not, as you imply, a tenfold or greater increase.
But we wouldn't even do that.
Ben Schiendelman gave the answer without knowing it. "we have people, they need to get to major business centers to work," he said. And as you say, our region is likely to explode in population.
So why would we think that with that massive expansion of population, that we won't have a commensurate, or even greater, increase of business here, too?
And you even admit this, but you don't connect the dots, when you say, "Betting on private business to help drive investment and tax revenue is something Ronald Reagan would have approved of." Yes. Which is why this problem will mostly solve itself even if we don't increase capacity in any way, because private business would then be more likely to invest in the ever-growing, and increasingly immobile, population north of Seattle.
However, this shows better than I ever could the real intent here.
I understand that most of you have no intention of riding one of those smelly trains, but people are continuing to move here at a solid rate and we should decide where we want to put them.
We should decide where we want to put them.
We should decide where we want to put them.
We should decide where we want to put them.
What's so terrible is that you might not even understand how offensive that is. But it's the biggest part of the problem: you want to take away freedom for what you think is the best thing. Force people to do what you want by making sure they have no choice.
And man:
This package has tons of needed roads improvements
Please don't try to B.S. us. We're not stupid. We know that road improvements are an extremely tiny portion of this package. We are not dumb enough to buy a Cadillac just to get the hood ornament.
I believe that if you really look at this package and a map of the region you will see ....
Please stop the condescending ad hominem fallacies. Don't pretend you have more insight or knowledge or understanding than we do: not only is it quite clearly untrue, but it is offensively rude.
Environmentalists and road builders put aside their differences.
More B.S. They both get what they want! The road builders get contracts, and the environmentalists get to attack cars.
The business community stands firmly with labor behind this measure.
That's an outright lie. This could not be more false. The business community is overwhelmingly AGAINST this measure. It's only small pockets of the business community -- those who stand to gain directly, such as road builders -- who favor it.
It is time for this region to move forward.
I agree. Which is why I am against it.
Posted by: pudge on October 12, 2007 10:20 AMWhat a bunch of cry babies
So you never oppose anything, then?
I didn't read the rest of your comment. When you START your comment with a fallacy that is all at once ad hominem, red herring AND straw man, I see little reason to bother reading the rest.
If you want to discuss the actual plan, so be it. If all you want to do is, hypocritically, be a crybaby, then just go away.
Posted by: pudge on October 12, 2007 10:22 AMYou say "The problem I see with buses is that most still run on fossil fuels. Buses contribute to pollution and global warming. I prefer a public transit system that doesn't use fossil fuels, and the wars that go with insuring our supply of those fossil fuels."
My question - where does the electricity that powers the light rail cars come from? While some may be hydroelectric (until the dams are removed for the sake of the salmon), most electricity in this country is produced by burning fossil fuels to power generators. Just because there is no exhaust coming out the back of the train doesn't mean carbon was not burned. Or did you think they were powered by fairy dust. Would you support clean nuclear power generation for your light rail?
P.S. Many of our buses here in Seattle are electric too.
Posted by: Steve on October 12, 2007 02:10 PM