While Liberal partisans are attempting to yet again bilk the taxpayer for a 18 Billion dollar donnybrook called Lite Rail...I saw something interesting on Live Maps yesterday.
Take a look at almost any European city. Paris, for example...now...when we hear about "Europe" from most Liberals, they describe it as everyone getting on a train whether it's to go to work, on vacation, or to visit grandparents. My own experience there is that other than Americans who get Eurorail passes, they drive a whole lot...even in their densely populated cities, where you'd think there would be a surfeit of mass transit...there are also a gargantuan number of cars speeding around! And look at European movies. I was just watching "The Transporter". I never saw him transport everything on a train...it was all Citroens and BMWs.
Look at all these interstate highways in Paris:
But, look at other cities on Live Maps. They are literally awash with interstates and highways. They have ring highways and also spoke highways. They have the 205, the 405, the 605, and the 805 and more!
By contrast, look at Puget Sound...we ain't got no highways at all! So, if energy efficient, high gas priced, high mpg, low carbon Europe can build as many highways as it needs...why can't we ?!?!
Posted by jabailo at July 27, 2008 11:00 AM | Email ThisExcept, you know, for the fact that they would be half underwater. And, of course, any ring road beyond 405 would have to negotiate both some difficult physical terrain, and a whole mess of property owners that are probably not keen on having their land condemned for a highway.
Posted by: demo kid on July 27, 2008 12:25 PMWell, maybe it also means that what we need are more floating bridges. I'm not a fan of replacing the 520. But I wouldn't mind seeing one or two bridges further up Lake Washington.
And how about some bridges to the Olympic Pennisula...surely we have the technology?
>difficult physical terrain
Difficult..but not impossible.
>property owners
Or, with prices plunging in Puget Sound, perhaps they'd rather the state government buy them up and raze their old houses and build some highways. Remaining property owners would get the value...more than from rail.
Is jabailo you or someone else in the family? I am just so used to John Bailo handle.
You do hear how beautiful the traffic is in other cities. I have no experience other than Seoul and other Asian cities to base my experience on.
And, thanks for the Europe update.
The demo does make a good point why mass transit is more difficult moving people north and south across Puget Sound, doesn't he? Kemper Freeman and others have suggested a third freeway east of Redmond and through North Bend. It would relieve traffic by estimates of 15-20%. It was killed by the demos, like the kid.
Posted by: swatter on July 28, 2008 07:01 AMWell, maybe it also means that what we need are more floating bridges. I'm not a fan of replacing the 520. But I wouldn't mind seeing one or two bridges further up Lake Washington.
As it is, questions of financing those bridge improvements alone should be giving you pause. Even aside from that, the question would remain: where would you put them?
Or, with prices plunging in Puget Sound, perhaps they'd rather the state government buy them up and raze their old houses and build some highways. Remaining property owners would get the value...more than from rail.
So let's see, you're against light rail because of the cost and the allocation of benefits, but building something like the I-605 would relieve only a very little amount of traffic from the 405, and would just serve to push development out into the sticks even further at a time when transportation costs are increasing. What about that kind of plan seems wrong to you?
(And trusting Kemper Freeman's estimates on such things is like trusting a fox to give you tips on how to guard your henhouse!)
Posted by: demo kid on July 28, 2008 09:24 AMIs $17.8 billion a lot of money? Yes, yes it is. It sure is a lot more than it would have been to build the same thing in 1968 and 1970, when a similar system was proposed and voted down. And at that time, the federal government would have picked up a big share of the cost! As any businessman will tell you, delays cost money. The bigger bill is Puget Sound's penalty for not having the resolve to deal with this 40 years ago.
However, look at what we get out of the deal. Regional mass transit in the form of two major spines: north-south between Lynnwood and Tacoma, and east-west from Seattle to Overlake. This is the kind of spine that you build local branches off of, creating a transit system that gets people where they need to go quickly, efficiently, and reliably. It's the kind of system we've needed for decades, and now that we've got a chance it would be extremely irresponsible and shortsighted to reject it out of hand.
Posted by: Greg on July 28, 2008 09:52 AMBig difference when hostelling, don't you think?
dopio is right. No way do we have the density in Seattle for a Seoul, NYC or other big metropolitan area. Our city was built piecemeal, there was no density demand, our immigrants didn't come over as fast as the east coast, and our topography is tough.
For a test, go up to the Space Needle and look around. It is obvious from the most dense areas of Seattle that the dream won't work. There is not enough people.
Posted by: swatter on July 29, 2008 07:06 AMBut at the same time, our community is spread out enough that it's necessary (and justifiable) to want to drive to the various exurbian nodes. This is why the current paltry few highways are used beyond carrying capacity.
So, there is no equivalence (and every Metro study since 1993 shows this) where building mass transit == less cars on the road because mass transit is not an answer.
The answer is more highways. Example: Kent. The highways basically end in West Kent so all the traffic has to barrel through Central and East Hill to get there and beyond to Covington, Maple Valley etc.
Which is better: building a simple highway to get people to these destinations in minutes? Or pushing them into neighborhood roads that become impassible for hours in the morning and evening? This is also a reason for the lack of safety in bicycle and foot traffic. Roads that are meant for low density traffic are made to serve as highways -- because we never built the highways!
We need more highways...we don't need light rail...
Posted by: John Bailo on July 29, 2008 05:45 PM
Here in the US, most of the long haul links are much cheaper and more easily filled by airplanes. Because you don't have to build rails, and the airport growth is much easier to fund using ticket revenues.
And without the advantage of long haul city to city transportation infrastructure, it's hard for rail to justify itself. This is why we do have rail on the East Coast where density is far higher and the age of the cities is much older. And this is also why Sound Transit has to heavily subsidize trains Sounder Trains and still can't get them full.
But there isn't going to be a time when rail makes sense here in the Puget Sound. As demo kid notes, the geography here is equally difficult for construction be it roads OR rails. Either way one has to build bridges and tunnels. And rail does nothing to address transportation needs outside of people. I would be more for rail if there was an attempt to use new rail corridors for far more than limited and slow light rail trains that only move tiny clumps of commuters for a few hours a day. What about shopping? Freight? Services? Or just trips that are not on limited rail corridors?
Seattle was way to busy bickering for the last 30 years to implement rail. Now the opportunity has been largely missed as the cost per track mile will drive the state deep into bankruptcy, while failing to address all of the other transportation needs that roads provide beyond commuting. With the time lost we could have been improving both mass transit and roads. Instead Seattle Progressives gave in to green Ehrlichian gridlock.
Lastly, rail is a great crime and terrorism target. As hedonistic Progressivism degenerates the culture, people will be less, not more likely to ride a train where they might be subject to attacks. This is an inconvenient fact that rail advocates like to ignore. How many people will be boarding light rail home from the airport through Rainier Valley after that late arrival flight?
Posted by: Jeff B. on July 29, 2008 11:35 PMEven if tomorrow we were to drill as many holes in the ground as we could, it doesn't change the simple truth that driving everywhere is not energy efficient. I'm not going to say that people shouldn't drive everywhere out of some *moral* responsibility, but to think that maintaining a system that is vulnerable to energy price shocks is a good thing is completely unrealistic.
Is light rail the panacea for all of our transportation problems right now? Certainly not. However, neither is road-building. Induced demand pretty much ensures that traffic will never truly get better, and new road building merely makes certain land owners richer at the government's expense.
I mean, ask someone from, say, Atlanta how they like their traffic. They have the ring and spoke highways that you idealize, right? Surely their traffic problems aren't as bad as ours...
Here in the US, most of the long haul links are much cheaper and more easily filled by airplanes. Because you don't have to build rails, and the airport growth is much easier to fund using ticket revenues.
Depends. If you're talking about creating new railroad rights-of-way, then sure... that would be quite expensive. For interregional routes, that would be next to impossible, in fact.
On the other hand, I'd be quite amused if you're arguing that building new airports, expanding the air traffic control network, and so forth is *less* expensive than refurbishing the rail system we already have.
Likewise, I'd argue that if energy prices continue to go up, rail would be in a very good position to capitalize on that.
As hedonistic Progressivism degenerates the culture, people will be less, not more likely to ride a train where they might be subject to attacks.
"Degenerates the culture"? Ah. Sounding quite fascist now, aren't we?
And of course, it is interesting how in London, where the transit system actually HAS been the focus of terrorism for 70 (!!) years, ridership is actually... up.
Posted by: demo kid on July 31, 2008 02:12 PMYou assume constant immigration to buy up the newly opened areas. That may not be the case.
Atlanta
Atlanta has one ring and a few spindly spokes. (As I see on Live Maps). Again, more roads -- spokes and rings -- would be the answer.
Posted by: John Bailo on July 31, 2008 02:49 PM